Second Mencken Chrestomathy (52 page)

Section 1. The people of the Maryland Free State consist of all natural persons denizened within its confines, without regard to
age, color, sex, race or national origin. All shall have the equal protection of its laws.

Sec. 2. Voting in the Maryland Free State shall be a privilege, and not a right. Every natural person denizened within the State who is a citizen of the United States and has reached the age of twenty-five years and can speak, read and write the American or English language, shall have the privilege of voting at elections … provided that he or she has been registered as a voter as provided by law, and provided further that no one shall vote who is under guardianship as a lunatic or as a person
non compos mentis
, or who has been convicted, either within the State or elsewhere, of felony or of bribery at any election, or who occupies any office of profit under the Maryland Free State or the United States, or who has been in receipt, during the five years next preceding an election, of any grant or benefit from the public treasury, or from any local treasury, or from the treasury of the United States, save for full value in goods or services.…

Section 1. No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of teaching, but everyone exercising such freedom shall be accountable at law and equity for any actual damage directly and beyond a reasonable doubt flowing therefrom, whether to the common welfare or to private persons.

Sec. 2. No law shall be passed establishing a religion, or favoring the tenets or practises of any faith or sect, or penalizing any discussion thereof as blasphemy, or impeding the conduct of religious exercises at any place or in any manner not imperiling the public peace or health, or appropriating public funds for any religious purpose, or for any institution controlled by a religious body; but the funds of any division or agency of the State may be paid out to such an institution by law to an amount not greater than the reasonable and actual value of its care for public charges.

Sec. 3. The right of the people openly to bear arms and to exercise themselves in the use thereof shall not be infringed, but the
bearing of concealed weapons by any person or of any weapons by persons convicted of felony involving the use of arms may be prohibited.…

Sec. 5. No law shall be passed regulating the conduct of any person in his own house, save such conduct as may be directly invasive of his neighbors’ peace or security, or imminently dangerous to the general health or safety.…

Sec. 11. In all cases wherein prosecutions shall have been initiated on the complaint of a private person, no conviction shall follow save that person appear against the accused in open court.

Sec. 12. In all criminal cases it shall be competent for the prosecution to produce evidence that the accused is an habitual and incorrigible criminal, and the judge and/or jury may take such evidence into account in estimating the degree of his guilt.…

Sec. 15. The writ of
habeas corpus
shall never be suspended, and no person, save members of the militia in actual service, shall be subject to or punishable by martial law.

Sec. 16. Justice shall be free to all, and no officer of any court or any other person employed in the administration of the laws shall be compensated by fees.…

Sec. 19. Large and onerous bail shall not be required save in case of manifest necessity, and in every such case the sitting judge or magistrate shall announce in full, in open court, his reasons for requiring it.…

Sec. 21. No person shall be charged with sedition who advocates the reform of the government by peaceful means, or the orderly substitution of another form of government for it.…

Sec. 24. Any person wrongfully imprisoned, whether by the unlawful act of a judge, jury or magistrate, or by any other failure of justice, may enter suit for compensation in any District Court, sitting without a jury, and the Governor and Legislative Council shall provide by a general law for the payment of any damages therein awarded.…

Sec. 25. The right to private property lawfully acquired shall not be destroyed or diminished by law, save as otherwise provided in this Constitution, but the Governor and Legislative Council may by law limit the value of money or goods devisable by will to any one natural person.

Section 1. It shall be the policy of the Maryland Free State to repay and cancel its present public debt as soon as possible, and to avoid incurring onerous public debts hereafter. No debt shall be incurred save by authority of a majority of the registered voters of the State, ascertained by plebiscite, and no plebiscite or plebiscites shall be submitted in any one calendar year providing for the borrowing of a sum greater than ten per centum of the total revenue actually collected by the State from direct taxes, excluding licenses, during the calendar year preceding. No law providing for a loan shall be valid unless it also provides for the retirement of that loan within ten years, and levies a tax sufficient to meet the necessary amortization and interest. The provisions of this section shall apply
pari passu
to loans made by all divisions and agencies of the State authorized by law to borrow money, to the end that they may reduce their debts as soon as possible.

Sec. 2. No law shall be passed appropriating or authorizing the expenditure of money for the enjoyment or benefit of any person or persons that does not provide for the same or equal enjoyment and benefit to any other person, nor shall any such appropriation be made by any division or agency of the State.

Sec. 3. Divorce in the Maryland Free State shall be granted by a general law only, and no special bill of divorcement shall be passed by the Legislative Council. No divorce shall be granted until the marriage shall have endured at least three years. No testimony shall be taken in a divorce case, save only the testimony of one or both parties to the marriage that he, she or they desire it to end. In case both parties so testify a divorce may be granted forthwith. In case one party dissents no divorce shall be granted until at least two years have passed since the filing of the action.…

Sec. 5. No license to marry shall be granted to any female who has not reached the age of 18 years, nor to any male who has not reached the age of 21, nor to any person of either sex who has been married more than twice previously, or who has been divorced within the two years next preceding.…

Sec. 7. Laws may be passed providing for the sterilization of persons adjudged by due process, by law established, to be biologically unfit for reproduction, whether physically or mentally, and criminality involving violence to the person may be reckoned as an evidence of such unfitness.

Sec. 8. No person shall be paroled, pardoned or released on suspended sentence a second time.

Sec. 9. It shall be competent for any judge, in passing sentence for felony or other grave crimes, to make removal from the Maryland Free State a part of the punishment, whether for a definite time or for life, and to make imprisonment for the same time the alternative.

Sec. 10. All laws carrying punishment by fine shall provide that the fine be apportioned to the known or apparent income of the person fined, whether earned or unearned, to the end that the pains of punishment may be equalized and the equal protection of the laws better effected.…

Sec. 11. No law shall be passed licensing the practise of the healing art, or any part of it, to any person whose qualification is not at least equal to that of a graduate of the Medical School of the University of Maryland, and the Legislative Council, with the approval of the Governor, may pass laws forbidding the said practise to all other persons, on penalty of imprisonment.…

Sec. 15. The Legislative Council, with the approval of the Governor, may provide by law for the payment of old-age pensions to indigent persons beyond the age of 60 years, for the insurance of workers, including farm laborers and domestic servants, against unemployment, and for the humane care of the sick, disabled and indigent, but no person shall have any right to any benefit from such laws who has not been a
bona fide
resident of Maryland for the five years next preceding his application for such benefit.

Sec. 16. The Legislative Council, with the approval of the Governor, may provide by law for the investigation and adjudication of labor disputes, but no law shall be passed compelling any man to work against his will, or to employ another against his will.

Sec. 17. No law shall be passed relieving any corporation or noncorporate association from liability for damages inflicted on others by its officers and members as such, or by any of them.

Section 1. The executive power of the Maryland Free State shall be vested in a Governor, whose term of office shall be continued ten years, or, in case no successor lawfully qualifies at the end of his term, until such successor qualifies.

Sec. 2. No one shall be eligible to the office of Governor save one who is a natural-born citizen of the Maryland Free State, and has resided within its boundaries for the ten years immediately preceding his entrance into office.

Sec. 3. No one shall be eligible to the office of Governor who is less than 30 years of age, or more than 60 years, nor anyone who has held any office of profit under the Maryland Free State or the United States during the five years next preceding the beginning of the term for which he offers to serve, save only that of members of the Legislative Council; nor anyone who has received any fee or other reward during that time for advocating or opposing any legislation in the Maryland Free State.

Sec. 4. The Governor shall be the fount of mercy, and shall have the power to diminish or remit the penalties inflicted in all criminal cases, to issue reprieves of sentence, and to restore to citizenship persons disfranchised for crime, but in every case he shall file with the clerk of the High Court a memorandum setting forth at length his reasons for such action, and embodying a full and true list of the persons who have petitioned or advised him to take it, and in no case shall he pardon or reprieve or diminish the punishment of any person lawfully convicted of bribery at an election or of being an habitual and incorrigible criminal, or of any person impeached by the Grand Inquest. Nor shall he commute the death sentence of any person previously adjudged on true evidence to be an habitual and incorrigible criminal, or convicted of murder committed in the perpetration of a felony with arms.…

Sec. 9. The Executive Authority in each district … shall consist of a District Council of three persons,
^*
to be elected by the voters
of the whole district, without regard to former county lines. No person shall be eligible to election who has not been a
bona fide
resident and taxpayer in the district for at least five years next preceding the election, or who does not meet the qualifications for the office of Governor set forth in Article IV, Section 3 of this Constitution.

Sec. 10. Of the three members of each District Council first elected, one shall be elected for three years, one for six years, and one for nine years, but thereafter all members shall serve for nine years, save as hereinafter provided, and shall be ineligible for reelection.

Sec. 11. The term of any member of a District Council shall terminate forthwith if he shall remove from the district he serves, or if he shall be declared bankrupt, or if he shall be impeached as provided by this Constitution, or if he shall be convicted of bribery or felony, or if he shall come under guardianship as a lunatic or a person
non compos mentis
, or if he shall accept any other office of profit under the Maryland Free State or any of its divisions or agencies, or under the United States.…

Sec. 13. Every District Council shall hold a meeting for the transaction of business not less often than once in every calendar week, and every such meeting shall be open to the press and public.

Sec. 14. The Elective Authority for Baltimore city shall consist of a Mayor and City Council, and it shall be elected in such manner and vested with such powers as the Governor and Legislative Council may from time to time determine by charter, but the qualifications of its members shall be those for members of District Councils, and they may be disqualified when in office for the same reasons, and they shall be bound by all the provisions of this Constitution regarding the incurring of public debts.

Sec. 15. The City Council shall consist of a single chamber of nine members, to be elected for the Metropolitan District as a whole. It shall meet at least once in every calendar week, and the vote of five or more members shall be sufficient to validate its acts. All its meetings shall be open to the press and public.…

Sec. 18. The term of office of every officer and employé of the District Councils and of every officer and employé of the Mayor
and City Council of Baltimore shall be for good behavior, save as otherwise provided in this Constitution, or until he shall have reached the age of 70 years, and every officer and employé, on his honorable retirement by law, shall receive for life an annual pension of sixty per centum of his average annual pay during his last five years in office.

Section 1. The Legislature of the Maryland Free State shall consist of a Legislative Council of fifteen members, to be elected at State-wide elections.…

Sec. 3. No person shall be eligible to election who is less than 30 years of age, or more than 60 years, nor anyone who has held any office of profit under the Maryland Free State or the United States during the five years next preceding the beginning of the first term for which he offers to serve.

Sec. 4. No person shall be eligible who is or has ever been a minister of the gospel, or who has ever been under guardianship as a lunatic, or as a person
non compos mentis
, or who has ever been convicted, either within the State or elsewhere, of felony or of bribery at any election, or who has received any fee or other reward during the five years next preceding the election at which he offers himself, for advocating or opposing any legislation in the State, or who has not been a registered voter in the State for at least five years next preceding the said election, or who is or has ever been declared bankrupt, or who has not been a taxpayer in the State for at least five years, or who has ever failed, within one year of the date they first became due, to pay in full the taxes lawfully levied against him by the State or any division or agency thereof.…