to the utmost. This duty cannot be effectively performed by lawyers acting singly, each for himself. It must be by association. In modern times it is only by the power of association that the men of any calling exercise their due influence in the community."

After a conference with a number of the lawyers, a meeting of the Bar was called by the Court at which, after a full interchange of views, it was determined that the Harford County Bar should endeavor to do its full duty.

1st. In re-educating and re-preparing its members in the essentials of our system of government.

2nd. In re-examining the foundations of the Constitution of the nation and State and the reasons which led to their adoption and to the amendments thereof.

3rd. In conducting immediately and from time to time in our county, as may be practicable and desirable, a campaign of education and instruction in respect of the foundations and the essentials of our system of government.

As a result of this resolution a committee was appointed, a list of pertinent questions was prepared and different members of our Bar, a number of distinguished members of the Bar of Baltimore City and several clergymen made addresses upon the Monday afternoons, up to and including June 7th, in the court room upon topics selected by themselves or by the Bar committee. These meetings proved most entertaining and instructive and were enjoyed not only by the members of the Bar, but by a considerable number of other persons.

Our Bar represents every shade of political opinion, from those who believe that Heaven was invented simply to provide a safe refuge for the souls of departed Democrats, to those who feel that the only true American is he who is within the fold of the Republican party; while some feel that both of the great political parties of today are living in the past and that the alignment of the country on any live issue would demonstrate that they are nothing but party names, husks from which the grain has long since disappeared.

While we thus difer widely in our riens get we all realize that as a nation we have drifted far from our moorings and that unless we act quickly and energetically our Ship of State may get into the breakers and perhaps safer serious damage, if not prove a total loss.

At the close of the Revolutionary War the inhabitants of the several confederated eclozies which had wrested their freedom from the elaws of the British Son were a fairly homogeneous people. In the main they were of English descent and their tranditions and aspirations were those of England. They had brought with them to America the memory of the struggles of their ancestors for hundreds of years to assert and maintain their personal liberty. They remembered how much blood had been shed and how much treasure wasted before the arbitrary power of the King and his sycophantic Judges was eurbed: how many suffered before the man accused of crime could be protected from unlawful imprisonment by the writ of habeas corpus and had the right to demand and have counsel to represent him, and could submit his case to a fairly selected jury, without whose unanimous consent he could not be convicted or punished. A jury, too. who could not be disciplined for the verdiet it rendered.

The Revolutionary War had been fought to protect the Colonies from the encroachment and tyranny of the Kingly power and when the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate, the Colonies, realizing how helpless and defenseless they would be if they undertook to stand as separate and independent States, were willing to enter upon a new arrangement which would enable them to present a united front to their enemies and to deal as a unit with foreign nations, and in matters effecting their common welfare; but they were entirely averse to yielding any rights to the Federal Government which would enable it to wield power like that formerly possessed by the King of England, or to interfere in their domestic concerns.

The temper of the people is most clearly shown in the language of the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted amongst men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

When the constitution was framed and submitted to the several colonies for their approval the burden of the examination of the document was borne by the members of the Bar, and in the main their counsel prevailed. The records show that there was much misgiving and great fear that some safeguard had been neglected, that something had been granted by the new constitution that would enable the Federal Government to have the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the individual States and to gain control over the much prized rights of life, liberty and property; and it was only when an agreement was reached that the first Congress should submit to the States ten amendments to the Constitution that the various States consented to ratify the instrument.

These ten amendments were intended to, and did, define and limit the powers which were vested in the Federal Government and are in effect the Bill of Rights of the several States. In the view of our forefathers-to stay in God's green world from birth until by nature's decree he passed over the great divide; to have freedom of action in every way so long as he did not trespass on the rights of others; and to have and to hold without let or hindrance the lands and goods, which by his industry and thrift he had acquired—were the inalienable rights of the individual; and the sole purpose of government was to secure these rights to the individual, by protecting him from the cupidity of his stronger neighbor and from the ambitious designs of other peoples. Anything beyond this savored of the kingly tyranny and injustice from which the Colonies had been emancipated by the Revolutionary War; and in the first ten amendments the effort was made to give accurate expression to this universal belief.

As the country grew and prospered, as the hardy pioneers spread out over the vast wilderness, which in 1776 extended

westerly from the fringe of settlements along the Atlantic seaboard, as the mighty host of immigrants poured into the country from Europe the homogeneous nature of our population was lost and great communities arose whose interests conflicted and whose views of life were widely different. What seemed essential to the welfare of one section was evidently not at all suited to the needs and desires of another, and, still, all could be shielded under the broad wing of our Federal Constitution as it then stood, and could live side by side in harmony.

The first serious blow to our happiness and unity grew out of the dispute over slavery; when the inhabitants of the Eastern States, who were living on the dollars gained by the exchange of New England rum for Guinea negroes, became impressed with the evil of slavery, while the South which depended almost wholly on slave labor indignantly resented this interference with its vested rights. Out of this dispute grew the Civil War, followed by the emancipation of the negro and the domination for years of certain of the Southern States by the Carpet Baggers. The effort of the Southern States to secede from the union and their failure to make good their attempt, strongly reacted against the cherished doctrine of State's rights; and under the stress of the antagonism and bitter feeling engendered by the war, and while in all of the States heavily populated by negroes, the white residents were virtually disfranchised, the 14th Amendment was declared a part of the Constitution by a joint resolution of the Congress and under the authority of that resolution the Secretary of State so proclaimed it.

The Civil War with all its sectional hate is now only history. Few are left in active life who were personally cognizant of the distressing conditions during and immediately following that war. The scars have all disappeared. The present generation looks to the future, not to the past, and we are now a united people all equally devoted to our common country and our common flag.

But the 14th Amendment inflicted an almost fatal wound upon our Constitution. It gave the right to the Federal Government against the will of a State to determine who should

be citizens of that State :-It turned, in the twinkling of an eye, millions of ignorant negroes, members of a race, which for thousands of years had been regarded as, and known to be, inferior beings, into full-fledged citizens of the United States. The peers of the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants with their centuries of civilization behind them, these new citizens, who, up to the date of their emancipation had been in many of the States on the same plane as horses and cattle-mere chattels became in some of the States, the majority of the voters. And from that time to the present there has been a continuous and, generally successful, struggle to so manipulate election laws, as to deprive the negro of his vote and to maintain the supremacy in the white race; and in States where the negro has constituted a considerable minority his vote has always been a matter of barter and sale, so that his citizenship has had only a degrading effect on our political life, and the ready acquiescence of the whole country in his virtual disenfranchisement has weakened the feeling of reverence for the basic law of the Union.

From the dawn of history the experience of mankind shows that it is impossible for two dissimilar races to, occupy the same country at the same time on terms of equality. Either they must amalgamate or one of the two must disappear.

Under the conditions of our problem amalgamation is impossible and some day in the future we will face the most serious problem that has arisen since the Revolutionary War. Our people appear to be indifferent about the matter, ignoring the many signs of trouble that flash upon the score boardThe increase of social disease in the negro, his utter indifference to the laws of health, his unwillingness to work, his inability to grasp the idea of thrift, his growing belief that the ability to read and write relieves him from any obligation to perform the menial duties, for which only nature has fitted him and seem blindly trustful that some lucky chance will solve the problem for us.

After the Civil War for many years the nation was dominated by those who believed in a strong central government, and little by little the Congress encroached upon the reserved rights of the States; and the Courts following the well-known