435]           The Maryland Constitution of 1864.              89

not to lose this vote in the ratification of the Constitution
and in the regular national and state elections of Novem-
ber, 1864, special provisions were inserted²⁰⁸ prescribing
rules and regulations for the soldiers' vote, which were
to remain in force till the Legislature should provide by
law, as required above, some other mode of taking the
same. All returns of the vote were to be made to the
Governor, who was made sole judge of their correctness,
and whether or not they were cast according to the pro-
visions of the new Constitution.

Naturally the minority hotly objected to these provi-
sions, being opposed to this method of virtually putting
the Constitution into operation before it was adopted by
thus prescribing the mode of voting upon itself. The
majority answered that the people in their sovereign ca-
pacity had by the election of the previous April made the
Convention Bill the supreme law of the land, and that in
this matter the Convention would be acting according to
the provision of that instrument that the new Constitution
"should be submitted to the legal and qualified voters of
the State, for their adoption or rejection, at such time, in
such manner, and subject to such rules and regulations" as
the Convention might prescribe. The majority further
claimed that the test oath only required the same qualifi-
cations as those prescribed by the Convention Bill in the
clause following the above, which provided that the "pro-
visions hereinbefore contained for the qualification of
voters," etc., should be "applicable to the election to be
held under this section." The minority answered that the
"rules and regulations" the Convention might prescribe
could only be those under which the previously legal and
qualified voters were to vote. They also asked, why there
was any need of submitting the Constitution to the people
at all, if the Convention had such absolute power under the
Convention Bill. They held, further, that the objection-
able provisions deprived certain citizens of their right to

²⁰⁸ Art. xii, secs. 11-16.