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397] The Maryland Constitution of 1864. 51
imously adopted, several of the minority leaders heartily
endorsing it.48 The order in the Convention had been ex-
ceptionally good.49
The sessions of the Convention had lasted four months
and ten days, and the average daily attendance had been
about sixty. The largest number present on any one day
was ninety-one, on June 1, and the smallest was seven, on
July 18, at the close of the period of Early's invasion. There
was numerous attempts to compel the attendance of mem-
bers, to publish the names of absentees, or to deduct pay
for unexcused absence, but they all came to nothing, being
usually tabled by good majorities.50
As stated above, there was no inducement for the
minority to attempt to delay proceedings by absenting
themselves from the Convention, as the majority were nu-
merically large enough to transact business without any aid
from their opponents, after the rules of order had been
modified to permit the adoption of a provision by a ma-
jority of the members present.
After some vacillation and delay, showing that there must
have been some compunctions of conscience on the part of
several members, the Convention followed the example of
the preceding legislature (1864), and by a small majority,
voted themselves $100 extra mileage.51 They based this
action on the clause in the Convention Bill allowing them
the same mileage as the Legislature, and thus threw on the
other body any blame for an illegal proceeding. This
action was entirely non-partisan, the leading members of
both sides dividing into opposing groups on the question.
It should be added, that in compliance with the Con-
vention Bill the debates and proceedings of the Convention
were well reported, and in point of excellence far exceed
many of the other state documents and reports of that time.
Having taken this survey of the sessions of the Conven-
48 Proc., 709; Deb., iii, 1852. 49 Deb., iii, 1757.
50 Proc., 78, 89, 157, 162-3, 183, 286, 498. 51 Proc., 707, 715-8.
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