This State may annually be deprived of thousands
of dollars by losses wilfully, or ignorantly,
or carelessly made, which may never be detect-
ed. Even it formerly the Treasury could safely
be confided to one man, when its yearly receipts
were about one hundred thousand dollars, from
certain specified and well known sources, which
were expended for a few well defined and under-
stood subjects, that state of things has long since
ceased to exist. These vast works of internal
improvement had then no existence, in which the
State has invested immense sums of money. The
complex system of laws connecting these opera-
tions with the State, involving the receipt and
payment, annually, of hundreds of thousands of
dollars, to or by the State, has arisen since that
time. To protect the State against these Argus-
eyed improvement companies, and other corpora-
tions, with which the State has constantly to deal
through its Treasury, (truly Argus-eyed in always
having in their employment many of the most
able counsel of the State, to set forth most ad-
vantageously their rights, entirely regardless, as
they have ever been, of the interest of the State,
when it all conflicts with their own,) to meet and
cope with this array of talents, learning, and in-
fluence, the Treasurer stands alone. No matter
how able and faithful, one man could not do jus-
tice to the State, attend to all the details of re-
ceiving and disbursing the public money, and
have a correct, comprehensive, and minute know-
ledge of all these various subjects.
Again, he believed that a Comptroller's office,
properly organised, would save the State many
times as much, every year, as the amount of its
cost. From the necessity of the case, some of
our Governors have recommended and urged up-
on the State various plans for the improvement
of its finances, by which thousands have yearly
been added to its revenue, although it has been
doubted, officially, if the Governor has any such
right.
Be that as it may, no man doubts that such a
duty should be reposed in some one officer of this
State. By this article, it is made the duty of the
comptroller to have a general superintendence
of the fiscal affairs of the State—digest and pre-
pare plans for the improvement and management
of the revenue, and for the support of the public
credit, &c., &c., duties which have not been re-
quired hitherto expressly of any officer of the
State. His colleagues, (Messrs. Dorsey and
Donaldson,) had shown on different occasions
most ably and clearly, the imminent liability to
loss to which the State was subjected by the unguarded
condition of the office of the commissioner
of loans. This officer without control, and
without even the check of a countersignature of
any other officer of the government, by his single
act, has the power to issue certificates of stock
for millions of dollars when he pleases, and of
which there may not exist any record other than
the one he may choose to keep under his own absolute
control. This article proposes to regulate
that important subject, so as to protect the State
from the losses, (bat might otherwise arise; to
effect the very object which his friend and col |
league, (Mr. Dorsey,) sometime since, so faithfully
and forcibly urged upon this Convention as
a matter requiring immediate and radical refor-
mation. But it has been said that the proposed
article, would violate the faith of the State,
which is pledged to pay the interest on these cer-
tificates at the loan office in Baltimore. I cannot
perceive the force of this objection.
The money may still be paid in Baltimore, in-
deed must be paid there, if the faith of the State
he so pledged—there is and can be nothing in
this article to prevent its payment there. Surely
the State of Maryland never can be consider-
ed as pledging itself that there shall ever con-
tinue to be in the city of Baltimore, a loan office,
at which place, and no where else, in the city of
Baltimore the interest of the State debt is to be
paid. But that point has been already, and can
be again fully answered by the able members of
this committee,
The plan here proposed would be effectual in
preventing new issues of certificates, until those
they were to supersede, should be delivered up,
and in preventing any one State officer from ex-
ercising the power now possessed by the com-
missioner of loans, of issuing untold certificates
of stock, pledging the faith of the State without
limit.
This power by some of the articles in the pro-
posed Constitution is to be denied to the legisla-
ture itself, and yet some object to this restriction
upon one of its officers. It is here proposed that
all these issues of certificates of stock should be
made at the seat of government, signed and coun-
tersigned by the treasurer and comptroller, be-
fore they have any validity. The difficulty sug-
gested in having these transfers made at the seat
of government is imaginary. The same mode of
transfer and issuing new certificates of stock ex-
ist at Washington and Richmond, in regard to
the stock of the United States and of the State of
Virginia, and yet these transfers are of daily oc-
currence, those of stocks bought and sold in ev-
ery State of the Union, a few days delay in re-
ceiving the new certificate through the mail, un-
der any circumstances, is the only inconvenience.
Thus is it evident to all, that all the debts due to
the State, might be received by the treasurer
without any control whatever—that all the mon-
ey in the treasury might be disposed of by him
alone, without the concurrence or even knowl-
edge of any other persons for any purpose he
pleased, and the only security for the State, was
a right to sue on his bond, and recover back at
most, but a small part of what may have been
lost.
Then, again, the commissioners of loans may
issue and sell millions of your bonds in due form
of law, which the State without receiving one
dollar, would be bound to pay. Thus, the mon-
ey of the State, and its credit, are under the con-
trol of one officer exclusively, and the right to is-
sue certificates of stock, and to pledge the pub-
lic faith to any amount is under the exclusive
control of another officer of the State.
Sir, it is unwise to talk aboat the honesty of
men, as being sufficient security, and to appeal to |
