of William Pinkney." So finally Mr. Mercer took his seat. Although there was no dispute as to the facts of the case, it gave the speakers a fine opportunity to wrangle, and it took them three days to decide how he should take his seat, all due to the fact that William Pinkney had never taken his seat, nor the oath of office.

On January 27, 1792, in Committee of the whole House, Mr. Mercer addressed the House on the bill for making further and more effectual provision for the protection of the frontiers of the United States, and on March 30th he spoke at greater length on the Public Debt. Again, on March 1, 1793, we find him speaking on Mr. Giles's resolutions,-(which are given in full),— relating to the official conduct of the Secretary of the Treasury, who was charged with having made disbursements of money in violation of law; Mr. Mercer manifestly agreed with Mr. Giles and severely condemned the Secretary of the Treasury. The last mention we find made of Mr. Mercer in Congress is when he was appointed, April 1st, 1794, on a Committee to bring in a bill "to organize and raise a military force-to consist of 25,000 men, rank and file, to serve years, or during a war between the United States and any European power." This was the last service, doubtless, that Mr. Mercer rendered in Congress, for he resigned his seat April 13th, 1794, and retired to his residence, Cedar Park. It may be remembered that this number, 25,000 men, was the maximum limit of the regular U. S. Army until 1861.

It is a matter of regret that so few private letters of Mr. Mercer remain, and we are entirely dependent upon his public career and letters for our idea of the man. In the correspondence

formerly in the Library of the State Department at Washington, and now in the MSS. Department of the Congressional Library, will be found letters of his to Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. It would prolong this paper to too great length to quote freely from them. There is one letter, however, to Jefferson, which must serve as an exposition of his political principles, written soon after he left the Governor's chair.

Some years after his retirement from Congress he entered the

State Legislature again. On November 4, 1800, we find him representing Anne Arundel County in the House of Delegates, serving as chairman of the Committee on Finance and on several other committees, but lack of space will not permit details. At the November session, 1801, he was elected Governor of the State, receiving 59 votes to 26 for Mr. James Murray, and at the November session, 1802, he was re-elected, receiving 53 votes to 22 for Mr. James Murray, who alone was nominated in opposition on each occasion. After the expiration of his term as Governor, he was again sent to the House of Delegates from Anne Arundel County, and one of the important committees on which he served at this session was that to inquire into and report whether and what further measures are necessary and any proper on the part of this State in order to establish the western boundary thereof, that perennial question of the boundary line between Maryland and Virginia, which, however often settled, always bobs up serenely on some future occasion, but this time it was the western, and not the southern boundary that was in question. On December 24, 1803, "Mr. Mercer from the Committee delivers to the Speaker the following report,” but it must suffice to quote only the appended resolution :

"Resolved-That the governor and council be and they are hereby authorized and required to adopt the measures necessary to carry into effect, as soon as may be, in concert with the State of Virginia, the resolution of the legislature of this State, passed during the November session, 1801, so far as the same can be effected conformably with the resolution of the legislature of Virginia of the 26th day of January, 1802, by causing to be run by commissioners, as therein proposed, a line from the most western source of the north branch of Patowmack, due north, till it intersects the Pennsylvania line, which line, when agreed upon, run and marked, by and under the authority of the said commissioners, shall be considered and held as the western boundary line between this State and the State of Virginia, until farther and definite measures shall be taken to ascertain the southern boundary of this State,"

It is now more than one hundred years since this report was made, and we have still to await "definitive measures—to ascertain the southern boundary of this State," so it might be concluded that said boundary is undiscoverable.

The last record that I can find of Gov. Mercer's services in the Legislature is his membership during the sessions of 1804-5 and 1805-6, so that he served continuously in the House of Delegates for three years after the expiration of his term as Governor. I do not know whether it was then common for governors of Maryland to return to the Legislature after the expiration of their terms as Governor, but this instance shows that it was not then considered beneath the dignity of a Governor to serve his county as a member of the House of Delegates.

I must now recur to the letter referred to above from ex-Governor Mercer to President Jefferson, begun at West River, October 19, 1804, and completed at Annapolis, October 27. It seems that Gov. Mercer had recommended for appointment as Commissioner of Loans a certain Mr. Harwood, but it pleased President Jefferson to appoint a certain Mr. Hall, which mortified Gov. Mercer very much; but the special interest of the letter for us is the exposition it gives of his political principles, so the major part of the letter will be omitted. Gov. Mercer writes: "My Politics [are] now and always have been very simple; they have been fundamentally the same thro' life and ever openly declared. I was decidedly opposed to the adoption of the Federal Government, and was termed an Anti-Federal with about as much justice as one generally experiences from party. All the objections I then urged against the Constitution have been since confirmed by experience; they chiefly were that they changed the principle of our Government from Republican to Monarchical. I had ever believed, and still do believe, that the People themselves are the best Electors of their own Officers, and where they cannot well be brought into action, I would prefer those large Assemblages of functionaries who partake most of the qualities of the people. When the source of the appointment remains with the people themselves, or even a numerous body of Representatives, the route to office must be by open, generous, disinterested and independent

efforts to serve them. Public virtue and patriotism will constitute the best claims to office, and that species of virtue which alone can support republican institutions becomes gradually the basis of private character and the only means by which even Ambition can mount to Power; but when one man or a few men appoint, the access to office is too generally by intrigue, cunning, flattery and servility. How seldom have we read in history of a single magistrate, or a secret Council, employing the disinterested or independent? They are rejected because too unaccommodating; it appears to be more flattering to self-love to seek out some servile, cringing dependent, and to say, 'This man owes his greatness all to me; the more weak or even the more wicked, the more dependent he must be on me; as he has risen, so he must fall with me; I may therefore safely rely on his attachment.'

"Such has been generally, and I fear too often will be, the sentiment and language of power in all ages and all climes. Such is the genius of monarchy, and I lamented that, altho' it was not the basis, it was made the dome that connected and crowned the Pillars of our Constitution. I lamented also that the great and indeed only security of a confederation of Republics was destroyed by so far consolidating the general Government as to sink the distinctive spirit of separate States. A diversity of State-interests, prejudices and parties, (for parties will exist in some degree where there is freedom,) acting without uniformity and frequently counteracting each other, leaves the great majority of the Component Members sound and cool to repress the agitation of a part. Parties in politics, like sects in Religion, can only be divested of their danger by multiplying their number and diversifying their objects. Now one universal sympathy pervades the whole Continent on every public question; the individuality of States is solv'd into two great parties, which, as they alternately command the majority, will inflict increasing injuries on each other, until violence and rancour, with their concomitants, anarchy and bloodshed, can admit of no other remedy than the bayonet of a military despot.

"General Washington might have ended the drama before it well began, but a Royal or Hereditary Government cannot be

established here now without some military force, and it will not, I apprehend, require a large one, but from the contempt of the military for the civil character, I suppose it must be by a military Leader. Unless therefore effectual measures are taken to calm the animosity and rancour of party, I do apprehend that the first war we are engaged in will verify my predictions that the Federal Government must soon terminate in a military despotism. An unambitious, unenterprizing man may be selected to command the Army, but he can never hold the station. An Army presupposes something more than mortal in him who commands, and little more than passive mechanism in those who obey. As the strongest spirits must ascend when mixed with a weaker medium, so genius and enterprize will find their way to the head of the Army, or there will soon be no Army. An able enterprizing military Leader at the head of a few troops between two contending hostile factions, who would prefer anything to the success of their adversaries, will not require the talents of a Bonaparte to play the same game that has been repeated over and over from the beginning of the world.

"As to the changes which you consider as contemplated by one of our parties, or a British form of Government, which justly has its admirers among the best of all parties, I cannot but consider them as idle dreams; they can never be carried by suffrage, and they never will be carried by the bayonet; the man who has power to place himself at the head of an Empire, will never in reality limit his own authority, for Helvetius has very truly said that every man would rather be Grand Seignior than King of England.

"Such was my language respecting the new Constitution 16 years ago; my disapprobation was founded on what I thought fundamental errors, and altho' I had many minor objections, they were but as boils and blotches on the body of a criminal already sentenced to die.

"From the progress, however, which I had observed in public opinion, I had no doubt that any change that could be made would be from bad to worse, and when the Constitution was established, as I could see no other resting-place, I determined