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Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1866
Volume 107, Page 905   View pdf image (33K)
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1866.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 331

Messrs.
Comegys,
Fawcett,
Hodson,
Holloway,
.NEGATIVE.
Malone,
Nairne,
Rider,
Robinson,
Silver,
Stewart,
Tolson,
Usilton.
Warner,
Wilson—14.

 
So the motion was adopted.
The resolutions are as follow:
' To the Honorable,
the General Assembly of Maryland:
The Union Convention of Baltimore city, representing the
entire body of the loyal citizens thereof, respectfully but ear-
nestly remonstrates against any action on the part of your
Honorable Body looking to a change in the constitutional
qualification of voters, or of the mode prescribed by law for
ascertaining who and who are not entitled to exercise the
elective franchise, so as to effect thereby the removal of any
restriction now placed upon the disloyal citizens of the State.
They submit that a pure ballot-box is the surest defence of
a free State; that the experience of fifty years in Maryland
has demonstrated that its purity cannot be ensured without
a registration of voters; that the solicitude and excitement
of an election-day preclude the possibility of a calm or dis-
passionate determination at the polls of the rights of persons
claiming to be electors; that. that system in the past has
been prolific of every species of political fraud and outrage;
and that, admonished by the? shameful past, and in view of
the imperative necessity of a fair and honest expression of
the popular will, the constitutional convention wisely pro-
vided that, some interval of time should be interposed between
the decision of a claimant's right to vote and his exercise '
the conferred franchise; that there should be, for all time,
regis ration of voters, which should be conclusive evidence
of the voting citizenship of the State.
The Convention further submits: That the time has not
arrived for extending the right of suffrage to those unfaithful
citizens of the State to whom it is denied by the Constitu-
tion.
That right, by the fifth Article of the Bill of Rights of the
original Constitution of our State, was limited to "every man
having property in, a common interest with, and an attack-'
ment to," the State. The law of Congress provides that the
court, before naturalizing a person of foreign birth, shall be
satisfied that for five years he "has behaved as a man at-

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Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1866
Volume 107, Page 905   View pdf image (33K)
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