419]                          The Convention.                             41

decrease they considered that it would be only a few years
until slavery would have entirely disappeared from the
northern and western counties. They refused to com-
promise in any manner that would lessen their influence in
the General Assembly.

The committee on representation consisted of nine mem-
bers, representing Charles, Baltimore, Kent, Carroll, Tal-
bot, Somerset, Washington, Anne Arundel counties and
Baltimore City. The committee was unable to agree upon
any plan of apportionment.

On the nth of December, Mr. Merrick, of Charles
county, chairman of the committee on representation made
a negative report as follows:

(1)  "Resolved, That it is expedient to regard federal
numbers in finding the estimates and basis of representa-
tion in the House of Delegates."

(2)  " Resolved, That it is inexpedient to adopt a prin-
ciple of representation based exclusively upon popular
numbers in organizing the House of Delegates or the
Senate."¹¹

Several of the members of the convention desired the
whole subject of representation to be postponed until the
convention had made further progress in making the con-
stitution. They considered the question of representation
was one to which more importance was attached than to
any other upon which the convention would be called to
act.

The delegates from Baltimore City consisting of Messrs.
Presstman, Gwinn, Brent, Stewart, Sherwood, and Ware
were opposed to referring the subject again to the com-
mittee in any form, and desired the whole subject of repre-
sentation to be discussed in the convention as a whole,
without the intervention of the committee. After several
attempts to recommit, the whole subject was laid upon the
table.¹²

¹¹ Debates, vol. i, p. 106. The term "federal numbers" meant
the congressional ratio of 1 free to 3/5 slave population.

¹² Debates, vol. i, p. 137.