amendment of MR. FIERY, and the result was as
follows:
Affirmative-Messrs. Buchanan, President, pro.
tem, Howard, Bell, Welch, Chandler, Lloyd, Dick-
inson, Sherwood of Talbot, Chambers of Cecil,
McCullough, Miller, McLane, Spencer, Grason,
George, Wright, Shriver, Gaither, Biser, An-
nan, McHenry, Magraw, Thawley, Stewart of
Caroline, Hardcastle, Stewart of Baltimore
city, Presstman, Ware, Fiery, Neill, Harbine,
Brewer, Weber, Hollyday, Slicer, Fitzpatrick,
Parke, Cockey and Brown-39.
Negative-Messrs. Morgan, Blakistone, Hope-
well, Ricaud, Lee, Chambers of Kent, Mitchell,
Donaldson, Dorsey, Wells, Randall, Kent, Sell-
man, Weems, Dalrymple, Bond, Brent of Charles,
Merrick, Jenifer, Crisfield, Williams, Hicks,
Goldsborough, Eccleston, Phelps, Bowie, Tuck,
Sprigg, McCubbin, Bowling, Dirickson, Mc-
Master, Fooks, Sappington, Gwinn, Brent of
Baltimore city. Sherwood of Baltimore city,
Schley, John Newcomer, Davis, Kilgour, Wa-
ters, Smith and Shower-44.
So the amendment was rejected.
MR. NELSON, having paired off with MR. DEN-
NIS did not vote.
The question then recurred on the adoption of
the original section.
MR. DIRICKSON asked the yeas and nays,
Which were ordered.
MR. JENIFER suggested the same alteration that
he had in the former instance suggested, that
Caroline and Calvert counties should each be
allowed three delegates.
MR. MERRICK declined to go into any exposi-
tion of the reasons and arguments upon which
he had made his report. He knew the useless-
ness of any such effort. He know that gentle-
men came here pre-determined to act-fettered
by the decisions of caucusses.
He was not willing to make a speech merely
for the sake of making a speech-of having his
name heralded in the public papers, and feed-
ing a morbid appetite for name and fame, which
he did not wish to acquire. Knowing as he did,
that no good object could be effected, he should
not now be guilty of the ridiculous folly of pre-
tending to do that which, at one time, he had
fondly hoped he should have an opportunity of
doing-that was, of illustrating the project which
he had drawn up with great care and after anxi-
ous deliberation.
But it was already condemned. To speak
now would be but uselessly to consume time, and
to bore and worry gentlemen about that which
was uninteresting to them, and which could lead
to no practical result. Le the question be de-
termined as it was decreed that it should be de-
termined.
He hoped in God that the Convention might
agree upon a plan as good as that which he had
presented, though he greatly feared that no plan
half so good would be adopted.
MR. PRESSTMAN obtained the floor, but yielded
for the moment to
MR. JENIFER, who moved further to amend said |
section by adding at the end thereof, the follow-
ing proviso:
"Provided no county shall have less than three
delegates."
The yeas and nays on the said amendment
were asked and ordered.
Mr. PRESSTMAN made some remarks, which
will be hereafter published.
Mr. MERRICK acknowledged his indebtedness
to his friend from Baltimore city for the courte-
ous invitation contained in his remarks. He
should be very glad, were it in his power, to grati-
fy the wish expressed by that gentleman, and to
discuss this question now at length. But the
Convention knew what that gentleman did not
know, what transpired in this Hall upon yester-
day. and utter that had taken place, no earthly
consideration could induce him to discuss the
subject this morning. The people of Charles
county had conferred upon him the high honor
of calling him from that retirement in which he
had long been buried, and in which he had
wished to close his days, and had selected
him to serve them in this Convention. From
that hour to the present he had been most anx-
ious to see this exciting and agitating question
settled in such a manner as to do equal justice
to all parts of the state, to give equal security
and protection to all interests in the State. He
had been anxious that this agitation which had
been a hobby for demagogues to ride, and a
theme for statesmen to discuss, which had been
destructive to the habits of the people, leading
to disastrous consequences and results, should
now be brought to a termination. He had told
his constituents, when called upon to serve them
here, that he was reluctant to come, but that if
required to come, he should treat this matter as
one to be compromised. He had felt deeply and
strongly the conviction that the existing abuses
could not and ought not to be adhered to. That
doctrine he had taken at home and had main-
tained here, and he intended to maintain it. The
basis of representation as fixed in the Constitu-
tion, should, would and could not be longer ad-
hered to. But while he was willing to depart from
that basis, be was nut willing to sacrifice the
great and vital interests of the smaller slave-
holding counties of the State. He had come
here in the capacity of a representative of the
sovereign people of Maryland, to make a new
compact of government, the old one not giving
satisfaction and not being right in itself. But he
did not come to recognise the wild and extrava-
gant doctrine of representation purely according
to population. The doctrine which bad spread
far and wide over the land, not only over Mary-
land, but the whole Union, which was sooner or
later, he feared, to lead to the most fatal conse-
quences to republican liberty and to this great
and glorious republic on this side of the Atlantic—
the doctrine of the absolute right of the majority
to rule—was a doctrine inevitably resolving itself
into nothing more nor less than the right of the
strongest, and the principle that " might makes
right." He came to the Convention then an in-
dividual man, representing a portion of the peo-
ple of the State, resolved, so far as the action of |
