The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1886-02-13
THE NEW CONSTITUTION BILL.

When the new constitution bill was under dis
cussion in the Senate on Thursday of last week,
Senator Slingluf, of Baltimore county, said he
was reluctant to take part in this discussion, be-
cause he thought the time of the Senate might be
more fruitfully utilized. But he felt it duty to
explain that he was conservative in his attitude
on this matter. He was radical in nothing and
this case urged him to refuse his assent to the up
roofing of all Maryland's traditions. We want
peace and good order, and he did not see any rea-
son for such violent revolution. This is not a
question of bloodshed of any form of civil war.
We have lived prosperously and peacefully under
our present form of stable government. Previous
changes of our organic law were needed and emf
nently proper. They were modified declarations
of independence. 1t was proper that Gov. Grason
should have put the axe at the root Of the time
worn unpeasantness engrafted upon us by colo
NAL traditions and theories. These were infringe
ments Of the popular rights which had grown up
with the progress of democratic principles. The
| constitution of 1884 a natural outgrowth of
the RIGHTEOUSNESS of the civil war, and it was the
right of more peaceful times to repeal that consti
tuition and to substitute therefor the instrument
under which now happy and prosperous
According to his information in the premises, the
people of Maryland do not want or ask for a new
organic law. We have no oppressive taxes, and
| the credit of the State of Maryland holds front
| rank in the money markets of the world. And,
excepting those who have pecuniary or ambitious
objects in purpose, there is no demand for new
constitution. 1t has been suggested that the pro-
motors of this unseemly haste for new system
have a desire to improve our judiciary. But, as
a lawyer, he asserted that in no other communi-
ties do the judges decorate the judicial ermino
more than do the judges in office in the State
of Maryland by their integrity, comprehensive
grasp and legal knowledge.
Notwithstanding the obloquy sought to be hurl-
ed upon Towsontown, he was willing to gauge the
defective registry law of Baltimore city by its re-
suits as shown in the admirable senatorial repre-
sentaton in this body. The demand for an ex-
ceptional registration for that city obviously
nothing more than an effort to promote the de-
signs of certain city politicians. With this obnox
ious design neither Towsontown nor any of the
other rural districts had any part or lot. But the
General Assembly has ample power to provide
for statutory regulation of the city registration
without any reference to county registration.
As to the administration of the Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal, he was free to admit that it had been
run as a political machine except under the pres
idency of James c. Clark, and that it was now
stencil in the public nostris. But this stencil
cannot be obliterated by the proposed constitu
tonal legislation. For even the profoundest con.
.titutonal preventives can be as easily perverted
as it now proposed by the repeal of our constitu
ton. Such an organic law can as easily be re-
peaed as an ordinary act of Incorporation.