Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1850-05-01
THE REFORM QUESTION.

For the Times.
Edmund Burke has pronounced that pru-
dence is the chief of the moral and political
virtues-without which, the efficacy of no
other can be fully felt by society. earn
estly commend this sentiment to the grave
consideration and practical exercise Of the
voters of this county and every other in the
State, alike circumstanced, at this particular
juncture. If our situation be really so full
of danger as a writer in your paper of the
10Th, over the signature Of 'Old Charles"
seems to imagine-if there be enemies in
the bosom Of our State ready and determin-
ed to immolate our "righ,s and liberties,"
we shall need all the resources of our wis
dom and courage to meet this crisis of our
fa'e. In such an exigency of our fortune,
appeal to the good sense Of our people, if
they are willing to make rash and needless
zeal, evidently irritaled and inaamed by de-
feat, their counsellor and guide; or will they
not rather trust their safety to that practi-
cal wisdom, which can see and promptly
decide what is best to be done, under any
combination Of circumstances, to avert evil
or produce good. Passion may wreck the
ship of State, which prudence would safely
pilot into harbor. .Nullum nun.en abest, ST
sit prudential. If wise, we need no SUPER
natural help, and can provide for our own
welfare. The experience of seventy-four
years has solved The problem and fixed the
fact, that the people of Maryland are capa-
BILE Of self-government. Is any one, among
us, disposed TO make this community an ex-
ception to this established and gratifying
truth, and deny to our people this peculiar
and Distinguishing attribute of the Anglo
American character? Has experience bro't
with it no knowledge, and knowledge, no
addition to our virtue !? Are the laws of
the moral world suspended in our case If
not, why is not the present generation as
capable of framing an organic law as the
generation of 1776 Why not as sagacious
to discern the wants and interests of the
State, and to provide wisely for them, as our
ancestors were in their day? We have the
lights of experience; theirs was, in a mea-
sure, an uutried experiment. Why should
not the representatives of the people in a
convention be as true and faithful to the
best interests of the whole people, now as
then? 1t is unjust and unfounded to doub,
it. An enlightened self-interest will secure
their fidelity. But why are these "gorgons
hydras, and chimeras dire" conjured up be-
fore the public eye, when the battle has
been fought and lost to the Conservatives
and The plan of Convention adopted by
the Legislature and open to every ones in
spec,ion? They might have served, as COB
Iins, to frighten children with boards on
their chins, before the plan was enacted and
published; but now what empty shadows
they must appear to every man who has
read the law and considered its provisions.
The tide 1ater counties, the minority sec
ton of the State, will, by this plan, have a
majority Of votes in the Convention; the
power to control its proceedings, and to
guard, by fundamental provisions, "the rig hts
aud Liberties" of the minority. Where is
the menaced danger then ?-where the JUS
ti6calion for this outcry against Conven-