407]           The Maryland Constitution of 1864.              61

on the article in a masterly speech of several hours dura-
tion.⁸⁸ He began by offering an amendment in part de-
claring "allegiance to the Constitution and Government
of the United States within the limits of the powers con-
ferred by that Constitution," and giving to the State of
Maryland sovereignty in so far as it is not restricted by
the Constitution.⁸⁹ The gist of his argument was that the
states were sovereign as states, but that they had yielded
up a sufficient amount of their sovereignty to the General
Government to deprive them, among other things of the
power of seceding from the Union, and that the article as
reported specifically deprived the states of that measure of
sovereignty which was inherently theirs. This may be
taken as the average position of the minority on the ques-
tion, for although some, as above stated, went further in
their assertion of state's rights, yet others stopped short
of it, while all protested their personal loyalty to the Na-
tional Constitution.

The position of the majority is so well given by the ar-
ticle itself that there is no necessity of restating it. Mr.
Stirling closed the entire debate on this question with one
of the finest speeches in the Convention,⁹⁰ his aim being to
vindicate the position of the majority, not only by uphold-
ing the doctrine of absolute national sovereignty, but by
stating that the "paramount allegiance" set forth in the
article as reported was merely an old and commonly recog-
nized principle of government restated, perhaps in a novel
form, but given in this way in order to meet the questions
as to its very being which had been raised during the last
few years in consequence of the momentous events that
had happened. The declaration of this principle should
be placed in the "Declaration of Rights" since the relation
of the person to the National Government was one of the
dearest rights pertaining to the individual. The majority
tenaciously held to the article as reported, and would take

⁸⁸Deb., i, 273-92.            ⁸⁹Proc., 144-5.            ⁹⁰ Deb., i, 521-32.