6

against which the result of the late election, has entered the pro-
test of our State. It has equally condemned the policy of those,
chiefly foreigners, who shared in, and who have not yet forgotten
the practices and abuses permitted abroad; who acknowledge an
allegiance superior to the laws and Constitution of the State, and
who openly violate, or silently evade in their system, that prin-
ciple proclaimed in the 35th article of the Bill of Rights. All his-
tory has shown the evils which flow from the accumulation of
property and money, in ministerial and sectarian hands. That
it then becomes a power for the promotion of religious discord,
is dangerous to religious purity, and hurtful to religious freedom.

The people of Maryland early set forth what should be the
policy of their government; and in the latest expression of their
opinion, they have warned those who have been concerned in,
or who hoped to profit by these attempts, that they are trespassing
on a fundamental principle of her constitution.

To you, gentlemen, has been confided the duty of protecting
and extending the great right to free instruction of every child
in the State, without regard to sectarian differences, in her public
schools. The people have shown that they will confer political
power on those alone, who admit that right free from religious
interference; and who refuse to acknowledge any higher authority,
in such matters than the Constitution and the laws of the land.
They ask of no man his religious creed. They will trust their
liberties and laws to no man who does not acknowledge that law
as his only rule of political conduct. To those who clamor, for
political ends, about "civil and religious liberty," the people of
this State answer that their laws first proclaimed, and still define
what they mean by those words: that they are content to abide
by those ancient laws, unaltered in either word or meaning; and
they intend that they shall be obeyed.

The illustrious Founder of the nation, when he took leave of
the public service, warned us of the danger of sectional agita-
tion.

"In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union;"
he said, "it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground
should have been furnished for characterising parties by geogra-
phical discriminations, northern and southern, Atlantic and Wes-
tern: whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that
there is a real difference of local interest and views. One of the
expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts
is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You
cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and
heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They
tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound
together by fraternal affection." These words have ever been
the true expression of the opinions, and the policy of the people
of Maryland on that great subject of sectional agitation. A slave-