Later a controversy over the northern boundary arose. Although Cecil Calvert's patent specified the parallel of 40° N. as the northern boundary of his grant, Penn's charter set forth that Pennsylvania should extend southward to the "beginning of the fortieth degree of Northern Latitude." A difference of interpre tation of this expression led to much litigation which was not settled until Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, English mathematicians, between 1763 and 1767, established the line, since named after them, which followed the parallel 39° 43' 26.3".
While the proprietor was absent defending his claim against Penn, the English Revolution of 1688 occurred. Owing to the death of a messenger, proclamation of the new monarchs in Maryland was long delayed and this, together with a rumour of a Popish plot to slaughter Protestant colonists, caused the over throw of the proprietary government. In 1692 the Crown, in the interests of trade, set up a royal government but permitted the proprietor to retain his territorial rights. Under government by the Crown the Church of England was established. When a Protestant became heir to the proprietorship in 1715, propri etary government was restored. Roman Catholics were dis franchised.
The first serious dispute between proprietor and colonists after the restoration of 1715 concerned the extension of the English statutes to Maryland. The popular chamber of the assembly con tended that all such statutes except those expressly excluded ex tended to the province, and the lord proprietor insisted that only those in which the dominions were expressly mentioned were in force there. Other disputes followed; and when France and England joined in a final struggle for territory in America, a dead lock between the two houses of the assembly prevented Maryland from responding to urgent appeals from England for help in the closing stage of the war.
In the years immediately preceding the Declaration of Inde pendence, the practice of self-government became so intensely an ideal of the people of Maryland that on occasion they offered resistance not only to the proprietary, the royal governor, parlia ment and the king, but also to what they considered the unwar rantable encroachments of the Continental Congress. Maryland was not, however, actually invaded or physically oppressed by the British, and probably for that reason the instructions to her delegates to the Continental Congress, bidding them not to vote for independence, were left unchanged until the Colony found itself almost alone in holding back. The new Constitution drawn
and adopted in 1776 to replace the royal charter was far from democratic in character. By its provisions the property qualifica tion for suffrage was a freehold of so ac. or £30 current money; the property qualifications for delegates isoo, for senators ii,000, and for governor is,000. Four delegates were chosen from each county and two each from Annapolis and Baltimore. In 1802 negroes were enfranchised. In 18io property qualifications for suffrage were abolished. With the growth of the city of Balti more, the prevailing disproportionate representation began to be attacked, but the slave-holding minority in the counties of south ern Maryland, fearing the attitude of the majority toward slavery, prevented any change until 1837. In that year the enthusiasm over internal improvements enabled the opposition to obtain the adoption of amendments which provided for the election of the governor and senators by direct vote of the people, a slight increase in the representation accorded the city of Baltimore and the larger counties, and a slight decrease in that of the less popu lous. Serious financial straits caused by debt incurred through the State's promotion of internal improvements caused a demand for the limitation of the power of the assembly to contract debts. The result was the Constitution of 1851 which established pro portional representation for the counties and increased the num ber of delegates from Baltimore. This was, however, an unsatis factory compromise. When, during the Civil War, Maryland was largely under Federal control and a demand arose for the aboli tion of slavery by the State, a constitutional convention held in 1864 framed a Constitution disfranchising all those who had given aid to the rebellion, and allowing only those possessing the suffrage under the proposed instrument to vote on its adoption.
This was too ill-considered to endure, and in 1867 it was super seded by the present Constitution.