433]           The Maryland Constitution of 1864.              87

was taken from the school law of the state of Massachu-
setts, which had a sinking fund, and the remainder of the
report was elaborated after a consideration of all the
various state school laws.¹⁹⁹ The report was finally adopt-
ed without much difficulty, although there was much dis-
cussion of the amount of tax to be levied, and the amount
of salary of the State Superintendent. Several members
also questioned the legality of the provision providing that
the system reported to the Legislature should go into
effect in case of the failure of that body to act in the mat-
ter, but Mr. Cushing and M. Stirling answered this by
affirming the sovereign power to provide what it pleased,
which was given to the Convention by the people.²⁰⁰ Sev-
eral of the minority members attempted, in a most narrow
minded spirit, to prohibit the application of any part of the
School Fund toward educating the free negro population,
but were overwhelmingly defeated.²⁰¹

As regards the organic law embodied in the Constitu-
tion, the only important facts which remain to be noted
are first, that it was provided that the Legislature might
under certain conditions organize new counties, and
second, townships were substituted for election districts
as the smallest unit of local government, their powers to
be prescribed by the Legislature.²⁰² Mr. Stockbridge seems
to have been largely responsible for this change, his desire
being to introduce into Maryland, if possible, the New
England system of "Town Meetings."²⁰³ Third and last,
three methods of amending the Constitution were pro-

vided,²⁰⁴ that is to say—amendments might be submitted
to the people after three-fifths of both houses of the Gen-
eral Assembly had passed them; a convention might be
called by a two-thirds vote of each house if the people ap-
proved it at the polls; and finally, in the year 1882 and in

¹⁹⁹ Authority of Mr. Cushing. Mr. Van Bokkelen was appointed
on November 12, 1864.

²⁰⁰ Deb., ii, 1201-36, 1241-50.                                  ²⁰¹ Proc, 453-6.
²⁰² Art. x. ²⁰³ Proc., 33; Deb., i, 65.                ²⁰⁴ Art. xi.