The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924027057383 
 
Cornell University Library 
 E 512.F97 
 
 Southern Rights' and "Union" parties in 
 
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 3 1924 027 057 383 
 
 SOUTHERN RIGHTS 
 
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 AND 
 
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 UNION.:: ;,I 
 
 PARTIES m MARYLAND 
 
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 CONT 
 
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 'ED. 
 
 BALTIMOKK: 
 
 
 PRINTED BY W. >f. l^JNES, 
 
 ADAUS EXPRKS9 BUILDIN8. 
 
 1863. 
 
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THE 
 
 '^SOUTHERN RIGHTS" 
 
 AND 
 
 cc 
 
 UNION" 
 
 PARTIES IN MARYLAND 
 
 CONTEASTED. 
 
 BALTIMORE: 
 
 PRINTED BY W. M. INNES, 
 
 ADAU8 EXPitSSS BUILDINQ. 
 1863. 
 
 Ctii 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 While the general questions at issue between the North 
 and South, and the varying phases of the contest between the 
 two great sections have 'been widely discussed, both at home 
 and abroad, comparatively little has been said of the position 
 of the people of the "Border States." The more momentous 
 or more exciting incidents of the war have, in a great measure, 
 absorbed the attention of the world. Moreover, the almost 
 total subversion of their political institutions, and the enforced 
 silence of a large proportion of their citizens, have made it 
 difficult for persons at a distance to form an accurate idea of the 
 real condition of things in those States. In addition to this, 
 the Federal Government and its partisans have resorted, with- 
 out shame or scruple, to the most scandalous and wilful mis- 
 representations, in order to destroy the power and credit of 
 their opponents. 
 
 It is time that something more was said about the struggle 
 made by the Southern men of the "Border States" for the 
 preservation of their rights, and the means by which their 
 adversaries have sought to disfranchise and enslave them. It 
 
4 
 
 especially becomes the Southern men of Maryland, who have 
 suffered so much, and have been traduced so shamelessly, to 
 speak again in vindication of themselves and their cause. And 
 it behooves them, moreover, to point out the marked contrast 
 between their course and that of the Union men of the State — a 
 contrast which reflects as mucb honor on the former as it does 
 discredit on their opponents and oppressors. It is the object of 
 these pages merely to throw together, in a cursory way, a few 
 prominent facts, illustrative of the course of the two parties in 
 this State. To this sad portion of the annals of Maryland, full 
 justice will some day be done by the historian who shall tell the 
 story of the Kevolution in which the great Republic of the 
 West went down. 
 
 Baltimore, January, 1863. 
 
THE SODTHERN RIGHTS" PARTY. 
 
 In considering the aims and conduct of what was termed the ' ' Southern 
 Rights Party" in Maryland, it is necessary to a proper understanding of 
 these, to advert briefly to the general views and feeling of the people of 
 the State prior to Mr. Lincoln's election. 
 
 It is a well known fact that for some time before the Presidential elec- 
 tion of 1860, many men in the South, and even in the North, were satisfied 
 that a revolution was impending which would probably separate forever 
 the two sections of t'.ie country. Though many others refused to accept 
 this conclusion, they could not deny that the signs of the times seemed 
 very significantly to foreshadow the end they so much dreaded. 
 
 The people of the South, though unwilling to abandon the Union, had 
 for a long time regarded with feelings of alarm and indigaation the growth 
 of a spirit in the North, fiercely hostile to them and their institutions. 
 The increasing frequency and bitterness of the assaults made upon them 
 through the press, in the pulpit and on the hustings, satisfied them that 
 interference with their rights would soon take a more practical shape. 
 Nor were they without more definite grounds for this belief. Acts had 
 been deliberately passed by the Legislatures of many States for the pur- 
 pose of punishing Southern men who should venture to assert their rights 
 in those States. A Governor of the most important of the Western States, 
 had refused to surrender, on the demand of the Governor of Kentucky, a 
 man who had been indicted in the latter State; and, this refusal was per- 
 sisted in, notwithstanding the decision of the Supreme Court which deter- 
 mined that the Governor of Ohio was violating a plain constitutional 
 obligation. A raid had been made into Virginia by a handful of fanatics, 
 and although they failed to effect their objects, their endeavor was 
 applauded in the most extravagant terms by thousands of the Northern 
 people. Even in the Halls of Congress, speeches in which the most 
 denunciatory and threatening language was used towards the South, were 
 almost of weekly occurrence; and the endorsement of the infamous 
 "Helper book" by a large proportion of the Northern representatives, 
 showed how little the South could rely for justice on the fairness or good 
 will of the Republican party. That party had, in the course of a few 
 years, grown from a petty faction into an all powerful organization. 
 With the increase of its numbers, the expansion of its political creed had 
 kept pace. Its hostility towards the institutions of the South, and its 
 determination to avail itself of the first pretext in order to assail them, 
 became more and more manifest from year to year ; and there was no 
 longer room to doubt its ultimate purpose when it planted itself upon the 
 Chicago Platform and nominated Abraham Lincoln. At that time, this 
 
party was in the ascendant throughout the wealthiest and most populous 
 portion of the country, and was strong enough to control the Electoral 
 College, whose votes were to make the next President. But it is not 
 necessary to adduce other instances to show how well grounded were the 
 apprehensions of the people of the Southern States* That these misgivings 
 were shared by the vast mass of the people of ^^a^yland is indisputable. 
 Even those of them who supported the policy of !Mr. Lincoln after his 
 inauguration, and who aided or approved his despotic proceedings in that 
 State, had been as earnest as others in pointing opt the wrongs and 
 dangers of the South, ?nd had constantly predicted that the ruin of the 
 nation would follow upon the triumph of the Republican party. Innu- 
 merable extracts might be given in illustration of the fact, were it not so 
 familiar as to be altogether beyond question : a few examples will suffice. 
 
 They will serve to show how the aggressions of the North were regarded 
 by those who afterwards asserted that the popular movement in the South 
 was a wanton rebellion, for which there was no shadow of excuse. 
 
 In March, 1858, Mr. Reverdy Johnson was invited to attend a meeting 
 of the friends of the then Administration in Baltimore. In his letter 
 responding to the invitation he said : 
 
 "The institution of Slavery, so inseparably connected with the very exist- 
 ence and honor of the Southern States — without which the most of them would 
 soon be as desolate as the British Isles, one vast scene of ruin, visiting upon 
 the other States a pecuniary loss, scarcely, if at all, less severe and destructive, 
 and a political calamity in extent and consequences incalculable — ^is daily, 
 hourly, made the topic of unfraternal, bitter, insulting reproach and invective. 
 Every opprobious epithet our language contains, and the industrious research 
 of the demagogue can discover is, in this regard, heaped upon Southern 
 citizens, who in every thing that imparts dignity to humanity — talents, attain- 
 ments, patriotism, morality, religion — are more than their equals. * * * 
 It was but the other day that a Senator from a Northern State, « * * 
 in a speech carefully elaborated, and in print before spoken, desecrated the 
 Senate Chamber by virtually threatening the South with early practical subju- 
 gation, hurling the bitterest anathemas at their system of labor, denouncing it 
 as at war with the Declaration of Independence, repugnant to the instincts of 
 humanity, and an outrage upon the laws of God. Never was there a more 
 direct incentive to servile insurrection." 
 
 In 1859, in a pamphlet written in reply to Judge Black, and entitled 
 "Remarks on Popular Sovereignty," Mr. Johnson said: 
 
 ' ' The success of the Republicans will be a calamity, it is feared, beyond 
 remedy, perpetual and fatal." 
 
 In June, 1860, a few months before Mr, Lincoln's election, in a speech 
 delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, he remarked: 
 
 ' ' Distraction now is full of peril to this national party, this heretofore con- 
 sistent, zealous, powerful friend of the South. On its defeat, the almost cer- 
 tain result of their dissensions. Republican ascendency ensues ; every branch 
 of the Government will then, in a short interval, be under Republican control. 
 And then where will the nation be? Where the South, on this great question 
 of Southern rights? Wilmot Provisoes, the abolition of slavery everywhere 
 where it is maintained by that party, the power in Congress to abolish it exists, 
 the prevention of what is called the domestic slave trade, and a supreme 
 judiciary certain to affirm the constitutionality of such legislation. The Dred 
 Scott decision, — what will be its authority then? it will be derided and trampled 
 upon. All the security it justly throws around slave property will at the ear- 
 
liest moment be torn away. And these things happening, what is to follow? 
 As sure as Heaven's clouds of fire and tempest carry desmation in their train, 
 so sure is it that this now peaceful and happy land will be shaken to its very 
 foundations, and the Union, the glorious Union of our noble ancestors, an 
 inheritance to us more precious than was ever conferred on a people, will be 
 tumbled into ruins, and the fondest hopes of the human race blasted forever." 
 
 And in the preceding month he wrote a letter to the Chairman df a 
 "Douglas Meeting" in New York, in which he deprecated any divisioas 
 in the Democratic party ; and the most appalling consequence df such dis- 
 .sensions which his imagination could suggest, was the election to the Pre- 
 sidency of "the Republican, Lincdin, reeking with the grossest heresies 
 of political abolitionism, the true author of the irreconcilable conflict" 
 
 Similar views were entertained by Governor Hicks. He had been not 
 less decided than the party with whicli he acted in the State, in asserting 
 that the rights of the South were seriously nienaced ; and this opinion he 
 maintained down to the moment of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. On the 
 6th of December, 1860, in a letter to a gentleman of the State, he re- 
 marked in reference to tbe "Personal Liberty Bills" which had been passed 
 by Northern Legislatures : 
 
 "These laws should be repealed at once, and the rights of the South guar- 
 anteed by the Constitution, should be respected and enforced. After allowing 
 a reasonable time for action on the part of Northern States, if they shall 
 neglect or refuse to observe the plain requirements of the Constitution, then , 
 in my judgment, we shall be fully warranted in demanding a division of the 
 country. ' ' 
 
 On the 9th of December, he stated his determination to use all his 
 powers, to secure the rights of Maryland, "after full consultation and in 
 fraternal concert, with the other Border States," and added: 
 
 ' ' I am now in correspondence with the Governors of those States, and I 
 await with solicitude for the indication of the course to be pursued by them. 
 When this is made known to me I shall be ready to take such steps as our duty 
 and interest shall demand, and I do not doubt the people of Maryland are 
 ready to go with the people of those States for weal or woe." 
 
 He also said in an address to the people of the State, dated January 3d, 
 1861: 
 
 "Believing that the interests of Maryland were bound up with those of thfe 
 Border Slaveholding States, I have been engaged, for months past, in a full 
 interchange of views with the Governors of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and 
 Missouri, with a view to concerted action upon our part. These consultations, 
 which are still in progress, I feel justified in saying, have resulted in good ; so 
 that when the proper time for action arrives, these sister States, bound up 
 in a common destiny, will I trust, be prepared to act together." 
 
 In that address he stated his reasons for not calling the Legislature, 
 and observed : 
 
 "If the action of the Legislature would be simply to declare that Maryland, 
 is with the South in sympathy and feeling — that she demands from the North a 
 repeal of offensive and unconstitutional statutes ; and appeals to it for new 
 guarantees — that she will wait a reasonable time for the North to purge her 
 statute books, and do justice to her Southern brethren, and, if her appeals are 
 vain, will make common cause with her sister Border States in resistance to 
 tyranny, if need be — they would be only saying what the whole country well 
 
knows, and what may be said much more effectually by her people themselves 
 in their meetings, than by a Legislature chosen eighteen months since, when 
 none of these questions were raised before them. That Maryland is a conser- 
 ■«ative Southern State, all know who know anything of her people or her his- 
 tory." 
 
 Not only did Governor Hieks think that Maryland would ' ' make com- 
 mon cause with her sister Border States in resistance to tyranny," but he 
 was perfectly willing, immediately after Mr. Lincoln's election, to send to 
 the States further South such arms as could not be used here. Mr. E. H. 
 Webster, of Harford County, and then a member of Congress, had made 
 or endorsed an application for arms for a Militia Company in his County. 
 In a letter to him dated the 9th of November, 1860, Grovernor Hicks said 
 ' ' We expect at an early day an additional supply, and, of the first received, 
 your people shall be furnished. Will they be good men to send out to 
 kill Lincoln and his men? If not, suppose the arms would be better sent 
 South." Certainly Governor Hicks thought the South had grievances to 
 be redressed. 
 
 The Baltimore American, whose opinions, dishonest and unstable as 
 they usually were, were nevertheless always in accordance with what it 
 supposed to be the popular feeling in the State, spoke constantly in the 
 same tone and to the same effect. It was afterwards the leading organ of 
 the Union party. 
 
 Now the language above referred to, was that of men who voted against 
 Mr. Breckenridge ; and who, after his accession to power, supported the 
 usurpations of Mr. Lincoln. When such men so spoke, the feeling of the 
 mass of the people of Maryland, can be readily inferred. 
 
 But while they thus sympathized with their brethren of the South, and 
 resented the aggressive attitude which the North had assumed, nine-tenths 
 of the people of the State hoped and labored up to the last moment, for 
 the preservation of the Union. They deplored the action of South Caro- 
 lina, which, at the time, seemed to them unduly precipitate, and with an 
 unexampled unanimity they urged the Northern people to offer or accept 
 some compromise which would provide further guarantees for the rights of 
 the South. But the representatives of the North rejected all overtures. 
 In Congress they defeated propositions which they knew would satisfy the 
 South, and they pertinaciously prevented the "Peace Conference" from 
 arriving at any result. All this was productive of bitter disappointment 
 to all parties in Maryland. The Union men, as they afterwards called 
 themselves, were as zealous as any others in insisting on such legislation 
 as would raise new barriers between the South and its assailants. Gover- 
 nor Hicks in an interview at Washington with Governor Morehead, of 
 Kentucky, a member of the "Peace Conference," said to the latter, just 
 before the "Conference" finally adjourned, that, unless the North offered 
 the Crittenden Compromise or its equivalent to the South, he would go 
 back to Maryland and urge her people to espouse the cause of the South. 
 
 Such was the state of feeling in Maryland when Mr. Lincoln took his 
 seat as President. At that time, seven States had withdrawn from the 
 Union, but the other Southern States still remained in the old Confederacy, 
 and still hoped that the new President would pursue such a course as 
 would not only satisfy their people but induce those of the seceded States 
 to resume their former places. They were again doomed to disappoint- 
 
ment. Mr. Lincoln had before his election avowed his purpose to disre- 
 gard a decision of the Supreme Court adjudicating an important question 
 of constitutional law. Having taken this ground, upon what the South 
 regarded as a vital point, the "Border States" had every reason to fear 
 that he might on all other occasions interpret the Constitution for himself, 
 or ignore it altogether. That the spirit with which he went into oflBce had 
 not changed since the time when he had thus repudiated the law of the 
 land, was soon made manifest. He had shown in the speeches which he 
 made on his way to Washington, that he utterly failed to comprehend, or 
 was absolutely indifferent to the danger that menaced the nation. He 
 immediately appointed as members of his Cabinet, and as Diplomatic and 
 Consular representatives of the country, men who had not only expressed 
 for years the most rancorous hostility towards the Southern people, but of 
 whom many had avowed their determination to interfere with the institu- 
 tions of that section whenever opportunity might offer. Wm. H. Seward, 
 Salmon P. Chase, Montgomery Blair, Joshua R. Giddings, James S. 
 Pike, Jas. B. Harvey, Carl Schurz, Robert Dale Owen, Cassius M. Clay, 
 Thos. Corwin and Anson Burlinghame were among those selected as his 
 advisers at home or agents abroad. 
 
 Such being Mr. Lincoln's antecedents, what, when he had obtained con- 
 trol of the Army, Navy, Treasury, Post Office, and to a certain extent of 
 the Judiciary, might not the ' ' Border States " expect ? Their people felt that 
 he might, and probably would make a show of conforming for a time to the 
 Constitution; but should they acquiesce in the then position of affairs, the 
 whole North, which gave his party so large a vote in 1860, would, they 
 they thought, be certain in 1862, to send large Republican delegations to 
 Congress — -that he would by that time have garrisoned the Forts and filled 
 the offices in the South with his creatures — and that in such case the fate 
 of all the Southern States would be well nigh sealed. It was clear that 
 he believed, with his party, that a large proportion of the non-slavehold- 
 ing people of" the South were friendly to his views, and that another por- 
 tion was so wedded to the " Union," as to be willing to sacrifice all things 
 else to maintain it, and he supposed he could carry out successfully the 
 principles of his party. His subsequent course proved how lightly he 
 regarded his constitutional obligations, and it is fair to presume that he 
 would not have permitted these to stand between him and the consumma- 
 tion of his hopes. It is not then to be wondered at that a majority of the 
 people of Maryland not only watched Mr. Lincoln's course with painful 
 anxiety, but began to think that the action of South Carolina had been 
 wisely taken as the only measure of self-defence left her. Many, how- 
 ever, still clung to the hope that the Union might yet survive. 
 
 It became very . evident, a few weeks after his inauguration that Mr. 
 Lincoln had no intention of making any compromise with, or of trying 
 to conciliate the South, and that the latter was, under such circumstances 
 determined to maintain its position by an appeal to arms. He had one 
 of two courses to pursue. If he believed, as he asserted, that the uprising 
 in the South was nothing more than a local insurrection in each of the 
 seceded States, to which the great mass of the people in each was utterly 
 opposed, he could have sent into each of those States a military force 
 large enough to protect the officers of the Federal Courts and to enable 
 them to discharge their duties. He could then, if his view of the "rebel- 
 
10 
 
 lion" was a correct one, hare brought die guilty parties to justice by due 
 process of law. This was the case provided for by the Act of Congress 
 under which he professed to act. If on the other hand he was satisfied 
 that the Southern people had inaugurated a Revolution which he thought 
 should be resisted, and resistance to which would involve a war between 
 the two sections of the country, it was then his duty to consult the repre- 
 sentatives of the country before he resorted to coercive measures and 
 initiated a war against the people of eight or nine populous and powerful 
 States CertMnly the people of those States which remained under his 
 jurisdiction and who would have to fight the battles and bear the taxes 
 consequent upon such a struggle, had the right to be consulted as to 
 whether they would re-model their Constitution, or become parties to the 
 sEupenduoui war that was impending. But Mr. Lincoln pursued neither 
 of these courses. He did not think the Southern people were really 
 united and in earnest, and he supposed that whatever might be their de- 
 termination, the force he could array against them would speedily reduce 
 them to unconditional submission. Backed, thwefore, by the Eepublican 
 party which controlled tie resources of the North as well as public opinion 
 in tiat section, he resolved to "crush the rebellion" after his own high- 
 handed fashion. This he did, regardless alike of the rights or interests of 
 the South, of the wishes of a large portion of the people of the North, 
 and of the laws he was sworn to obey. 
 
 On the loth of April, some sis weeks after his inauguration, he issued 
 a proclamation calling on the militia of the several States to the number 
 of seventy-five thousand. He at the same time convened an estraordinaiy 
 session of Congress designating the 4th of July asthe day on which it 
 should assemble. It was clear that he did not desire the advice or inter- 
 ference of Congress until he had given to events the direction he was de- 
 termined they should take. On the 15th of April he issued another Pro- 
 clamation announcing that the Ports of seven States were to be regarded 
 as blockaded, and declaring his purpose to send an adequate force to pre- 
 vent the "entrance and exit of vessels from the Ports aforesaid." 
 
 These violations of his Constitutional powers, and the disingenuous and 
 arrogant manner in which he dealt with the Commissionere from the Vir- 
 ginia Convention, satisfied the people of that State that he would not 
 approach the questions before him in a spirit of practical and conciliating 
 stetesmanship, but that he was preparing to settle them by an unscrupu- 
 lous and arbitrary resort to brute force. Virginia and North Carolina 
 then seceded. 
 
 A large majority — certainly a very large proportion of the people of 
 Maryland, agreed upon aU poLats with the people of Virginia. That 
 party in the former State which more earnestly sympathized with the 
 Southern people, and unqualifiedly recognized the justice of their cause, 
 had for months urged the Governor to call the Legislature together that 
 it might deliberate upon the position of affairs, adopt measures to protect 
 the interests and honor of the State, and also designate the mode in which 
 the sense of her people might be taken in regard to their future course. 
 Governor Hicks, however, had steadily refused to convene the Legislature. 
 This loyal gentleman, who has since been so ardent a "coercionist."' and 
 who has sacrificed himself to the Union cause by accepting a seat in the 
 
11 
 
 United States Senate, at that time urged that the State should maintain a 
 neutral attitude. 
 
 Such was the condition of things in Maryland up to the 19th of April, 
 1861. On that day a Massachusetts Regiment arrived at Baltimore on 
 its way to Washington, under the President'.s call of the 15th. The 
 people were at that time greatly exasperated against the Administration 
 They had not been permitted to express their opinions through their repre- 
 sentatives upon the grave questions that affected them so nearly. They 
 knew that they had not been fairly dealt with by their own Governor and 
 his advisers; and they felt, moreover, that their rights and liberties were 
 then at the mercy of a President who was ready to sacrifice them to 
 advance the ends of a fanatical sectional party. "•*» 
 
 The Massachusetts troops therefore, met, when they reached Baltimore, 
 with anything but a cordial greeting. Groans and hisses broke from the 
 crowds which gathered to see them pass, and finally an attack was made 
 upon them. In the riot which ensued, the soldiers fired at random as they 
 ran, and three soldiers and twelve citizens were killed, and nine soldiers 
 and three citizens were wounded. The assault was an unpremeditated 
 one, and the authorities did all in their power to preserve the peace. The 
 Police Commissioners had not only been unable to obtain any information 
 in regard to the precise time at which the troops were expected to reach 
 Baltimore, but there is every reason to believe that such information was 
 designedly withheld. But they were not the less energetic in their efforts 
 to protect the troops. Whatever might have been their opinions upon the 
 momentous questions of the day, they were determined to discharge the 
 duties imposed upon them by the laws of Maryland, and they did so faith- 
 fully. The police bad been on duty in force the previous day and even- 
 ing, awaiting the arrival of these very troops. When the latter reached 
 Baltimore at an unexpected hour, the police were sent to the Camden 
 Street Depot, where most of the soldiers were assembled. It was not 
 known to Marshal Kane that another detachment was on its march through 
 the City, until he received information that it was then being attacked 
 about half a mile from where he was stationed. He instantly marched a 
 police force to the place, and as he met the retreating soldiers, he formed 
 his men, with their revolvers in hand, across the street between the troops 
 and their assailants. The police of Baltimore that day saved the soldiers 
 from extermination. No one doubted the good faith and efficiency of the 
 authorities. The evidence on this point is conclusive. Governor Hieks, 
 in his message to the Legislature, dated April 25th, said: "the Mayor 
 and Police Board gave to the Massachusetts soldiers all the protection 
 they could afford, acting with the utmost promptness and bravery." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, at an interview between him and the Mayor and other 
 gentlemen of Baltimore, on the 22d of April, " recognized the good faith 
 of the City and State authorities" 
 
 Captain Dike, one of the Massachusetts officers who was wounded on 
 the occasion, published the following card in the Boston Courier : 
 
 "Baltimore, April 25, 1861. 
 
 "It is but an act of justice that induces me to say to my friends who may feel 
 any interest, and to the community generally, that in the afifair which occurred 
 in this city on Friday, the 19th instant, the Mayor and city authorities should 
 
12 
 
 be fSKmeratedfrom blame or censare^ as rt<y did cdl im fheir poieer. asfw as mg 
 imotcUdge extends, to queR ike riot, and Jfagor Brown aUesied fMe sincerUjiofhis 
 desire iopreserre He peace^ and pass our reffiment safelji Oarough the eitg,^^ 
 martMnti at tJle luad of its eobann, and remaining tlierr td the rish of his life. 
 '•Candor conld not permit me to say less, and a desire to place the conduct of 
 the authorities here, on the occasion, in a right position, as well as to allay 
 feelings, urges me to this act of sheer jcsdce. 
 
 •JOHX H. DIKE, 
 "Copt Co. C. Itk Beg., backed to 61k Beg. Jlass., V. Jf." 
 
 Colonel Jones, who was in command of the Regiment on the 19Jh_ of 
 April, wrote t» Marshal Kane, ten dajs afterwards, and said in conduding 
 his letter, "many thanks for the Christian conduct of the anthorities of 
 Baltimore in this trnlj nnforttmate af^ir." 
 
 The affiiir of the 19th of April, naturallj produced intent excitement 
 in the commumtY : and though die feeling against the Administration and 
 tiie North was verr general, almost aD. citizens regrened the colliaon that 
 had taken place. 
 
 But the feeling of the people of Baltimore was changed firom one of 
 mere excitement to one of stem determination, when they heard on the 
 night of the 19th, and on the following morning that other Xorthern B^i- 
 ments, then on the way to Baltimore, were loud in their threats of ven- 
 geance against the people of the City. These troops were approaching 
 Baltimore from the North and the East, and thousands of them were 
 within twenty-five or thirty miles of it. Information was also received by 
 the telegraph, that the most vindictive feeling against the whole pop\ua- 
 tion of Baltimore had been aroused in die Northern cities, and that numer- 
 ous bodies of men were organizing for the avowed purpcse of marching, on 
 dieir own re5j:-jnsibility, to inflict punishment upon our p-eojle. The 
 Northern papers, too, trere filled widi tiie most savage denimciations and 
 brutal threats. The majority of our citizens, apart fit)m dieir sympathy 
 with the South, knew that the evasive Proclamation under which the 
 troops had been summoned to Washington, was in violation of the Consti- 
 tution, and that as a matter of law, the State of Maryland had the right to 
 resist, if she pleased, the march of such an army through Maryland. But, 
 however much some men might have dissented from this view, all were 
 tmited in the resolution not to accept at the hands of Northern regiments, 
 the punishment with which they indiscriminately threatened Baltimore. 
 It is not necessary at this time to enter upon a narrative of the events of 
 the succeeding days A few fects will stiffice to show that almost die 
 whole population of the State and City was united ucou that occasion. 
 The men who had most strongly sympathised with the South, and who. as 
 the preceding Presidential Election had shown . were largely in die majoritv 
 in the City, were of course prepared to oppose all the illegal measures of 
 the Administration, and all attempts on the part of Northern soldiers to 
 regulate matters in Maryland. But this feeling was not confined to one 
 political organization. It was almost universal. The feet is notorious; 
 as a few references to the cotirse pursued by those who had been most 
 prominently opposed to the election of Mr. Breckenridge and the revolu- 
 tion in the South, will show. On die afternoon of the 19th of April, a 
 town-meeting was held, at which Governor Hicks appeared, and in the 
 course of his remarks, he said that ' ' he was a Marylander and would 
 
13 
 
 sooner have his right arm cut off than raise it against a sister Southern 
 State." On the same evening, the following editorial article appeared in 
 the American newspaper : 
 
 "LET US UNITE. 
 
 "The results of this morning must determine the position of all men. We 
 must agree, first : to secure the re-establishment of harmony among ourselves, 
 and all then join in whatever measures may be determined upon. Whatever 
 differences may have or do yet exist, the blood of our citizens shed in our streets 
 is an irresistible appeal to us all to unite as Marylanders, to meet firmly and 
 together the responsibilities clustering thickly about us. 
 
 "There can be no difiBculty now in the Grovernor, the Mayor and the Police 
 authorities from together concerting those measures which are necessary to 
 the public safety. Let us first seek unity among ourselves, and then act In 
 such a crisis as this, all other considerations must give way to our duty towards 
 one another and to the State and City." 
 
 On that night, the Mayor and Police Commissioners determined, Gov- 
 ernor Hicks consenting, to burn the bridges on the "Philadelphia and 
 Wilmington" .and the "Northern Central" Eail Roads. The citizens 
 also turned out en masse with arms in their hands, and began to enrol 
 themselves in companies, and the Police Commissioners thought it the 
 wisest, as indeed it was their only course, to assume command of these 
 volunteer organizations. The action of the Police Board was subsequently 
 explained by them in their report to the Legislature, from which the 
 following is an extract: 
 
 "The absolute necessity of the measures thus determined upon by the Gov- 
 ernor, Mayor and Police Board, is fully illustrated by the fact, that early on 
 Sunday morning, reliable information reached the City, of the presence of a 
 large body of Pennsylvania troops amounting to about twenty-four hundred 
 men, who had reached Ashland near Cockeysville, by the way of the Northern 
 Central Rail Road, and were stopped in their progress towards Baltimore, by 
 the partial destruction of the Ashland Bridge. Every intelligent citizen at all 
 acquainted with the state of feeling then existing, must be satisfied, that if 
 these troops had attempted to march through the City, an immense loss of 
 life would have ensued, in the conflict which would necessarily have taken 
 place. The bitter feelings already engendered, would have been intensely 
 increased by such a conflict: all attempts at conciliation would have been vain, 
 and terrible destruction would have been the consequence, if as is certain, 
 other bodies of troops had insisted upon forcing their way through the City. 
 
 "The tone of the ^hole of the Northern press, and of the mass of the popula- 
 tion, was vrolent in the extreme. Incursions upon our City were daily 
 threatened, not only by troops in the service of the Federal Government, but 
 by the vilest and most reckless deperadoes, acting independently, and, as they 
 threatened, in despite of the Government, backed by well known influential 
 citizens, and sworn to the commission of all kinds of excesses. In short, every 
 possible effort was made to alarm this community. In this condition of things, 
 the Board felt it to be their solemn duty to continue the organization which 
 had already been commenced, for the purpose of assuring the people of Balti- 
 more that no effort would be spared to protect all within its borders to the full 
 extent of their ability. All the means employed were devoted to this end, and 
 with no view of producing a collision with the General Government, which the 
 Board were particularly anxious to avoid, and an arrangement was happily 
 effected by the Mayor with the General Government that no troops should be 
 passed through the City." 
 
 The proceedings of the State and Municipal authorities were heartily 
 sustained by the community. On the morning of the 20th, the City Coun- 
 
14 
 
 cil passed an ordinance appropriating the sum of five hundred tnousana 
 dollars "to be expended under the direction of the Mayor," "for the pur- 
 pose of putting the City in a complete state of defence against any de- 
 scription of danger arising, or which may arise out of the present crisis. 
 The ordinance passed both Branches of the Council unanimously. A few 
 hours after the City Council had taken this action, Messrs. Columbus 
 O'Donnell, Johns Hopkins and John Clarke, as a Committee on the part 
 of the Banks of the City, waited on the Mayor and informed him that 
 they were authorized to advance the sum voted by the City Council for 
 the purpose designated. Mr. O'Donnell, as spokesman of the Committee, 
 expressed his gratification at being the medium through which the t-ender 
 of this loan to the City was ofiered. On the same afternoon, the American 
 put forth another appeal to the people, as follows: 
 
 "PEEPABATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 "It is no longer a time to discuss, but to act so as to direct them. We haTe 
 through our constituted authorities declared that the Northern troops shall not 
 be passed through our City, and that declaration must now be supported with 
 determination, energy and unanimity. There must be preparation, organiza- 
 tion and good counsel. To prevent the passage of these troops they should be 
 met beyond the limits of the City by such an organized force as will mate the 
 prohibition effectual. We must keep the war away from our homes, if possible. 
 The facts stated elsewhere show what measures have already been taken to 
 secure these ends." 
 
 In the same article it referred to the specific measures which had been 
 taken to place the City in a state of defence, all of which it evidently 
 approved. It said: 
 
 " The bridges on the Philadelphia and Northern Central Rail Roads have 
 been destroyed by order of the Mayor. This will prevent the attempt to 
 suddenly precipitate any large bodies of troops upon us, and give time for 
 preparation." 
 
 It is true that the American in an article written in January, 1863, 
 when Mr. Lincoln still exercised absolute sway over Maryland, strenu- 
 ously asserted that its own course upon the 19th and 20th of April, 1861, 
 was altogether a dishonest one. It assured its readers that when it had 
 apparently approved the action of the authorities and people, it was play- 
 ing them false in the hope of luring them to destruction ; q,nd that the 
 gentlemen who, on the part of the Banks, had offered money to the Mayor, 
 were animated by motives little creditable to men of integrity or courage. 
 The American will probably be believed by most people when it assever- 
 ates its own baseness on any specific occasion. - But the evidence in this 
 case, strange to say, will not sustain its statement. It is pretty certain 
 that the language which the American now says was used for the purpose 
 of deceiving the public really meant what it professed to mean, and 
 that the duplicity of which it desires to stand convicted, is to be found 
 in its article of January 7th, 1863, and not in those of April 19th and 
 20th, 1861. 
 
 The Baltimore County American, which then was, and afterwards again 
 became, a violent Union paper, published an "Extra" on the afternoon of 
 the 20th, in which it said: 
 
15 
 
 "Civil war is in our midst. A riot has occurred between soldiers from the 
 North and the citizens of Baltimore, and unarmed men have fallen beneath 
 the musket shots of soldiers from another State. We have stood long by the 
 UNION FLAG — we have contended thus far beneath its folds, but now we 
 must coincide with Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown, as well as with the 
 sentiment of the people of the entire State, in saying that Northern troops 
 shall not pass unharmed through the State of Maryland for the purpose of sub- 
 jugating the South. Northern troops are now, it is said, marching to Wash- 
 ington intending to force themselves through Maryland, and we can but say to 
 our people, respond to the call issued by the Governor, and defend your 
 State." 
 
 At this time a fewgentlemen, acting simply upon their own responsi- 
 bility, undertook to obtain subscriptions among the merchants in their 
 immediate neighborhood to be devoted to the purchase of arms, or placing 
 the City, otherwise, in a defensible position. Among the firms that sub- 
 scribed and paid one hundred dollars each, were Messrs. Benner, Denni- 
 son & Co. ; Isaac Coale, Jr. & Bro. , TurnbuU, Slade & Co. ; Mills, May- 
 hew & Co.; Cushing & Bailey; John TurnbuU, Jr.; F. Fickey & Sons; 
 Rice, Chase & Co. A memorandum was annexed to the signature of the 
 last named firm as follows: " with the hope that the above arms may be 
 placed in the hands of the Police Commissioners for distribution." Many 
 other Union men were also subscribers. When it is remembered that the 
 gentlemen composing the Committee from the Banks, and those belonging 
 to the above named firms, and the editors of the newspapers referred to 
 were recognized shortly afterwards as among the most violent partisans of 
 Mr. Lincoln, it is not reasonable to suppose that there was much division 
 of sentiment in Baltimore on and immediately after the 19th of April. 
 
 It is equally capable of proof that though the people were thus united, 
 no violence was, with a solitary exception, done to the few whose opinions 
 differed radically from those of the mass of the community. Men who 
 were known always to have been strenuous supporters of Mr. Lincoln, and 
 to have sympathized warmly with the most extreme politicians of the 
 North, walked the streets unmolested. One individual's house was 
 invaded by a self constituted military company, and in spite of the efforts 
 of the policemen present, he was assaulted. But the leader of the party 
 was arrested within a few hours by the police, and subsequently tried and 
 punished. The people of Baltimore, though bent upon vindicating their 
 own rights, did not then, or afterwards, desire or attempt to compel any 
 citizen to forego his political opinions. 
 
 On the 22d of April, G-overnor Hicks issued a Proclamation, convening 
 a special session of the Legislature. It became necessary to elect dele- 
 gates from Baltimore City, and the "State Rights' Convention" nomi- 
 nated ten gentlemen of high character and ability. There was no opposi- 
 tion to their election. The gentlemen thus elected had been recognized 
 for months preceding, as among the most earnest and efiicient advocates of 
 the rights of the South. But they also, like the large majority of their 
 fellow-citizens, had been ardently desirous of the preservation of the 
 Union. Their views were those which had been expressed during the 
 previous winter by various "Conferences" and "Conventions" which 
 had been held in Baltimore, and in which many of them had participated. 
 At a meeting held on the 11th of January, 1861, at which representatives 
 of the different Counties of the State were present, the following resolu- 
 tions were among those unanimously adopted : 
 
16 
 
 ' Resolved, As the opinion of this Conference, that Maryland is ttis day, as she 
 ever has been, true to the American Union ; that she will exert all her influ- 
 ence for its peaceful preservation, and that in lier efforts to that end, she wiU 
 rely upon the wisdom and patriotism of her tried and faithful sons, and upon 
 an all-wise and overruling Providence. 
 
 Resolved, That the people of Maryland are deeply impressed with the dangers 
 which are threatening the Union, and have an abiding confidence that there is 
 nothing in the grave questions at issue which is not susceptible of adjustment 
 by fail constitutional compromise ; and it is the opinion of this meeting that 
 the people of Maryland will accept the proposed constitutional and legislative 
 guarantees known as the Crittenden compromise, as a fair and proper settle- 
 ment of the fatal controversy which is now distracting the republic. 
 
 At a meeting of the " Southern Eights Convention" in Baltimore on 
 the 19th of February, an address was adopted from which the following 
 extracts are taken : 
 
 It is untrue, therefore, that the Southern Rights men of Maryland desired 
 the election of a Sovereign Convention, in order that they might carry Mary- 
 land out of the Union. Their earnest purpose, on the contrary, waste pre- 
 vent secession and disunion, by a formidable movement to obtain such a settle- 
 ment as could alone preserve the Union, and failing in that, then to avert the 
 calamities of fratricidal war by a peaceable separation. * * * * 
 All that we ask, all that we shall demand and insist upon is, that the people of 
 Maryland may settle at the ballot box these great issues, which no other power 
 on earth has the right to decide for them. 
 
 Thus the men who at that time sympathised with the Southern cause, 
 were laboring for the preservation of the Union. They were urging upon 
 Congress and the Northern people the necessity of resorting to compro- 
 mising rather than coercive measures, and they simply asked that the 
 people of Maryland should be afforded an opportunity to take counsel 
 together, and that in case of a dissolution of the Union, the State s'lould 
 be permitted to exercise her undoubted rights in determining her future 
 political position. 
 
 On the 26th of April, Annapolis being then occupied by Federal troops, 
 the Legislature met at Frederick, in pursuance of a Proclamation of Gov- 
 ernor Hicks, who being, as he said, "desirous of the safety and comfort 
 of the members of the Legislature," had changed their place of meeting. 
 At the time when the Legislature assepibled, it was the general desire of 
 its members and of the public, that the sense of the people should be 
 taken in regard to the course that the State shovld pursue in so grave an 
 emergency. The calling of a popular Convention was the object that a 
 large majority had in view. Governor Hicks, in his message to the Legis- 
 lature, dated the 25th of April, while recognizing the fact that the State 
 of Maryland had some sovereign rights, gave no evidence of a disposition 
 to do battle for the Union, but advised that she should preserve "a neu- 
 tral position" between the two sections. 
 
 On the 3d of May, only a week after the Legislature met, Mr. Lincoln 
 issued a Proclamation, calling out forty-two thousand volunteers for three, 
 years service, and directing the Kegular Army to be increased by the 
 enlistment of twenty-two thousand and seven hundred additional men, and 
 the Navy to be increased by the enlistment of eighteen thousand additional 
 seamen. That this Proclamation was in flagrant violation of the Consti- 
 tution, no man North or South could doubt. 
 
11 
 
 The proposition to call a Sovereign Convention having been referred in 
 the Legislature to the Committee on ' ' Federal Eelations," the Committee, 
 through its Chairman, Mr. Walhs, reported adversely to it on the 9th of 
 May. After discussing the manifest violations of the Constitution of 
 which Mr. Lincoln had been guilty, the Committee referred to the ques- 
 tion immediately before it, and spoke thus of the then situation of Mary- 
 land: 
 
 "A State of the Union, held to the obligations of that relation, and having 
 never through her constituted authorities pretended to repudiate or abjure 
 them, she is 'treated as a conquered enemy. Her soil is occupied ; her pro- 
 perty and that of her citizens are sequestered ; her public highways are seized 
 and obstructed; her laws are suspended; her capital is converted into a mili- 
 tary post ; her Legislature is compelled, in the language of her Executive, to 
 Consult its "safety" by holding its sessions at a distance from her offices an.d 
 archives ; troops are quartered around the peaceful homesteads of her people ; 
 her citizens are subjected to the illegal and arbitrary violence of military arrest 
 and confiuenient ; her very freedom, in fine, all that distinguished her from a 
 Neapolitan province, before Naples was liberated, is under the armed heel of 
 the Government. That such a fate is imposed upon her, without constitu- 
 tional authority ; that indeed no respect to the Constitution is even pretended 
 in her regard ; the frank admission of the Federal authorities to the Commis- 
 sioners recently accredited to them by this Legislature, renders a mortifying 
 and almost intolerable certainty. * * * * jj ,jQgg hq^ become 
 the dignity of the State of Maryland to attempt the performance of an act of 
 sovereignty, absolute or qualified, at a moment when not only her sovereignty 
 but her Pedeiral equality is subordinated to the law of the drum- head. No 
 election, held at such a time and with such surroundings, could by possibility 
 be fair or free. No result which could be reached by it would command the 
 confidence or secure the willing obedience of the people. The Committee 
 therefore feel it their duty to recommend the postponement of the subject fOr 
 the present." 
 
 After this time the continued occupation of the whole State by an over- 
 whelming force, acting under the orders of Mr. Lincoln, rendered it 
 absolutely impossible for the Legislature to take any action looking to the 
 due maintenance of the rights and interests of Maryland. That body 
 therefore adjourned from time to time, and could only, at its different 
 sessions, protest against the wrongs done its constituents, and denounce 
 the despotism which had superseded the laws and Constitution. But the 
 Legislature did not, as has been falsely charged, contemplate taking any 
 action save such as was clearly within the sphere of its duty and its dele- 
 gated powers. It has been alleged over and over again, by persoris who 
 were not particularly scrupulous about the truth or falsity of their state- 
 ments, that the Legislature contemplated passing an ordinance of Seces- 
 sion in utter disregard of the laws or Constitution of the State, and of 
 the rights of a portion of its people. Though not a tittle of evidence ever 
 has been or can be oflFered to sustain the charge, it may be as well to quote 
 the report of the Committee to whom was referred a petition from two 
 hundred and sixteen voters of Prince George's County, praying the 
 ' ' Legislature, if in its judgment it possessed the power, to pass an Ordi- 
 nance of Secession without delay." The Chairman of the Committee, 
 Mr. Wallis, reported on the very same morning aflversely to the petition, 
 saying that, in the judgment of the Committee, the Legislature did not 
 possess the power to pass such an Ordinance. The report was adopted by 
 a vote of fifty- three to thirteen. That question was thus set at rest, and 
 was never again mooted. 
 
18 
 
 It has been, moreover, said that the Legislature intended to pass a bill 
 entitled ' ' An act to provide for the Safety and Peace of the people of 
 Maryland," which was presented in the Senate and passed in secret session, 
 to a second reading. This statement also is wholly unfounded. The Bill 
 provided for the appointment of a "Board of Public Safety," and named 
 six leading citizens of the State as its members. This Board was to pro- 
 vide for the arming and organization of the militia, and was to report to 
 the Legislature until a Sovereign Convention was elected. The Bill was 
 introduced in the Senate on the first of May, and was hastily passed to a 
 second reading, simply because of a misunderstanding as to its origin and 
 purport on the part of a majority of the Senators, and of misrepresenta- 
 tions on the part of some who were favorable to it. But few of the Sena- 
 tors had any knowledge of the -existence of such a Bill before it was read 
 in the Senate; and scarcely any of the Members of the other House had 
 heard of it until it had passed to its secon 1 reading in the Senate. Only 
 one member of the Baltimore City delegation had any knowledge of it up 
 to that moment, and he had objected to it, and had in vain sought to pro- 
 cure a copy of it. When its character became known to some of the dele- 
 gates of the lower House, they went into the Senate Chamber and pro- 
 tested against the measure, and convinced a number of Senators that they 
 were acting under a serious misunderstanding. It became evident that 
 the Bill could not, under the circumstances, get a majority in the Senate, 
 and those who had been supporting it, suffered it to be re-committed on 
 the morning of the fourth, and that was the last that was ever heard of it. 
 It is a notorious fact, that if the measure had passed the Senate, it would 
 have been rejected in the other House by a majority of seven or eight out 
 of every ten votes. 
 
 The history of that session of the Legislature will constitute a brilliant 
 page in the history of the State. No men have ever assembled in her 
 Legislative halls who more manfully struggled for the rights of their con- 
 stituents or who manifested less disposition to use power for the oppres- 
 sion of their opponents. But they did not hesitate to express their con- 
 victions upon the grave issues with which they were face to face. Early 
 in May, 1861, they adopted resolutions which neither they nor their constit- 
 uents need ever be ashamed to re-read. They said: 
 
 ' ' Whereas, In the judgment of the General Assembly of Maryland, the war 
 now waged by the Governmentof the United States upon the people of the 
 Confederate States, is unconstitutional in its origin^ purposes and conduct; 
 repugnant to civilization and sound policy ; subversive of the free principles 
 upon which the Federal Union was founded, and certain to result in the hope- 
 less and bloody overthrow of our existing institutions ; and, 
 
 "Whereas, The people of Maryland, while recognizing the obligation of 
 their State, as a member of the Union, to submit in good faith to the exercise 
 of all the legal and constitutional powers of the General Government, and to 
 join as one man in fighting its authorized battles, do reverence, nevertheless 
 the great American principle of self-government, and sympathize deeply with 
 their Southern brethren in their noble and manly determination to uphold the 
 same; and, 
 
 "Whereas, Not merely on their own account and to turn away from their 
 own soil the calamities of civil war, but for the blessed sake of humanity and 
 to avoid the wanton shedding of fraternal blood, in a miserable contest which 
 can bring nothing with it but sorrow, shame and desolation, the people of 
 
Maryland are enlisted, with their whole hearts, on the side of reconciliation 
 and peace ; now, therefore, it is hereby 
 
 '■^Resolved by the General Assemhly of Maryland, That the State of Maryland 
 owes it to her own self-respect and her respect for the Constitution, not less 
 than to her deepest and most honorable sympathies, to register this, her 
 solemn protest, against the war which the Federal Government has declared 
 upon the Confederate States of the South, and our sister and neighbor Vir- 
 ginia, and to announce her resolute determination to have no part or lot, 
 directly or indirectly, in its prosecution. 
 
 " Eesolved, That the State of Maryland earnestly and anxiously desires the 
 restoration of peace between the belligerent sections of the country; and the 
 President, authorities, and people of the Confederate States, having, over and 
 over again, oflScially and unofficially, declared that they seek only peace and 
 self-defence, and to be let alone, and that they are willing to throw down the 
 sword, the instant that the sword now drawn against them shall be sheathed, 
 the Senators and Delegates of Maryland do beseech and implore the President 
 of the United States to accept the olive branch which is thus held out to him : 
 and in the name of God and humanity, to cease this unholy and most wretched 
 and unprofitable strife, at least until the assembling of Congress in Washington 
 shall have given time for the prevalence of cooler and better counsels. 
 
 '■■ Resolved, That the State of Maryland desires the peaceful and immediate 
 recognition of the independence of the Confederate States, and hereby gives 
 her cordial assent thereunto, as a member of the Union: entertaining the pro- 
 found conviction that the willing return of the Southern people to their former 
 Federal relations is a thing beyond hope, and that the attempt to coerce them 
 will only add slaughter and hate to impossibility. 
 
 "Resolved, That the present military occupation of Maryland, being for 
 purposes, in the opinion of this Legislature, in flagrant violation of the Con- 
 stitution, the General Assembly of the State, in the name of her people, does 
 hereby protest against the same, and against the oppressive restrictions and 
 illegalities with which it is attended ; calling upon all good citizens, at the same 
 time, in the most earnest and authoritative manner, to abstain from all violent 
 and unlawful interference, of every sort; with the troops in transit through our 
 territory or quartered among us, and patiently and peacefully to leave to time 
 and reason the ultimate and certain re- establishment and vindication of the 
 right." 
 
 Such were the views of the "Southern Rights" men of Maryland. 
 There was nothing treasonable in such language then, nor is there now, 
 notwithstanding all that Mr. Lincoln and his obsequious followers may- 
 say to the contrary. And it would have been well for him and for his 
 country had he hearkened to the brave words of 'remonstrance and warning 
 then so eloquently uttered. The blood that has since reddened the land 
 would not now have been upon the heads of him and his. 
 
 The Legislature and the people for whom it spoke, knew that it was 
 their undoubted privilege to canvas at all times the policy and principles 
 of the Federal Government — nay, even to advocate, if they so pleased, a 
 change in the form of Grovernment itself. They knew they had the same 
 right to oppose a war for which they were to be taxed and drafted, that 
 Mr Lincoln and his partisans had to wage- it; and they knew, moreover-, 
 that they might lawfully resist all such measures of the Federal Govern- 
 ment as were clearly in violation of the Constitution. They exercised 
 merely the privileges to which they had been born, and which they had 
 been taught to believe were immutably secured to them by the form of 
 Government under which they lived. Upon these principles they acted, 
 but they acted fairly. While advocating their own views, they desired 
 that the people of Maryland should be permitted to speek freely. As they 
 
20 
 
 resented the subjugation of the State by Northern troops, so they would 
 never have consented that it should belong to the Southern Confederacy 
 by right of conquest. 
 
 But, for expressing these opinions, the Legislature was finally sup- 
 pressed by the arrest of many of its leading members, in September, 1861, 
 just as it was about again to assemble. With its suppression, closed for 
 a time the public record of the party which it more particularly repre- 
 sented. That record has stood, and can stand the test of the most malig- 
 nant criticism. That there were some extreme men connected with that 
 party, who, more than once, were the advocates of extreme measures, was 
 true of it, as of all the political organizations that ever existed, but they were 
 few and wholly powerless. The fact that the "Southern Rights" party, 
 while defending the liberties of Maryland and of the South, never sought 
 to trench upon the rights of what it believed to be a small minority of the 
 people of the State, is indisputable. Let its course be contrasted with 
 that of its opponents. 
 
THE "UNION" PARTY. 
 
 Within a month after the 19th of April, 1861, the State of Maryland was 
 occupied by Federal troops, in such force as to render freedom of action 
 on the part of her people an impossibility. Her rivers, roads and rail^ 
 ways were occupied by the Federal fleets and armies; her chief cities were 
 eomma,nded by forts and gunboats, and the legions of the North were daily 
 swarming in overwhelming numbers across her borders. Then the ' ' Union 
 party" began to gather strength and grow vociferous. It clamored for 
 war, and denounced as " disloyal" all who opposed the coercive measures 
 of the Administration. Men who had for years, and up to a recent date, 
 predicted that the aggressions of the Northern people, and the possible 
 ascendency of the Republican party, would drive the Southern States out 
 of the Union, suddenly found that the secession of those States was a 
 "causeless" rebellion, instigated by a few ambitious politicians. Capital- 
 ists who had offered money for the purchase of arms with which to resist 
 the Northern troops after the 19th of April, discovered that the very 
 measures of the Municipal authorities, which at that time they themselves 
 had applauded, were heinous acts of treason. The American not only 
 tried to convince itself that its articles of the 19th and 20th of April were 
 written in a spirit friendly to Mr. Lincoln, but tried to convince other 
 people that its editors had then risked life and property in resisting the 
 popular outbreak. But the Federal Government manifested, day after 
 day, a more significant determination to resort to arbitrary measures to 
 suppress all opposition, and its power to enforce its decrees, became more 
 and more obvious; and the Union party increased in numbers and in 
 patriotic devotion to the Federal Government. The Federal bayonets 
 were at their command, and their will was to be thenceforth the standard 
 of law and duty to the people of Maryland. 
 
 On the 27th of June, the Marshal of Police was arrested and taken to 
 Fort McHenry. A "Provost Marshal" was, on the same day, appointed 
 by General Banks and directed to take charge of the Police force. The 
 Police Commissioners were summarily seized on the morning of July 1st, 
 and at once sent to Fort McHenry. In that Fort, there was even then a 
 prisoner who had vainly appealed to the Courts for justice. He had been 
 arrested and was then held in open defiance of the requirements of the law 
 by a military officer acting under the orders of Mr. Lincoln, and the writ 
 which had been issued by direction of the Chief Justice of the United 
 States, was treated with contempt. After the incarceration of Mr. Merry- 
 man, and the refusal of Mr. Lincoln's officials to respect the decision of 
 Judge Taney, it was but mocking the people of Maryland to tell them to 
 appeal to the laws and Constitution in defence of their rights. 
 
22 
 
 The City was taken possession of by the Federal troops, whose com- 
 mander subsequently appointed a Police force which was paid by the Federal 
 Government. From that time no man's rights were respected — to no law 
 could he successfully appeal foi' protection. Some weeks afterwards, the 
 Legislature was suppressed by the seizure of its most influential members, 
 and at the same time three of the editors of two newspapers which steadily 
 opposed Mr. Lincoln's usurpations, were arrested and lodged in Grovern- 
 ment Forts. Neither then, nor afterwards, did the authors or agents of 
 these wrongs pretend to respect the forms of law, nor did they generally 
 condescend to prefer, even informally, any specific charges against those 
 whom they thus thrust into prison. Nor was it merely in its over- 
 throw of the laws and Constitution of the State, that the "Union" party 
 aided and abetted the Federal Government. They equally countenanced 
 and apologized for the insolent and barbarous treatment to which indi- 
 vidual citizens were subjected. Brutal outrages such as had never dis- 
 graced the soil of Maryland, and acts of petty tyranny which any man 
 would, a twelvemonth before, have been ashamed to order or execute, 
 were perpetrated without eliciting a word of public remonstrance or de- 
 nunciation from the "Union" party. Persons were dragged from their 
 homes upon the mere order of some contemptible underling of the Govern- 
 ment. The houses of citizens were invaded and ransacked in the search 
 for arms, papers and flags ; and oftentimes without even the pretext of an 
 excuse for the outrage being vouchsafed to the occupants. Newspapers 
 were denied the privilege of passing through the mails, and were finally 
 suppressed by the arrest of their editors. Men and women were stopped 
 on the streets and ordered to strip from their persons ribbons or scarfs, of 
 which the colors were obnoxious. Nurses were borne ofi' to the Station 
 House for carrying in their arms babies wearing red and white socks. Free 
 speech became an act of treason, which the Government agents punished 
 when they chose ; and persons of both sexes and of all ages were over and 
 over again arrested for some casual remark which was disrespectful to the 
 Government, and was therefore deemed to be " disloyal." Even the un- 
 conscious utterances of the drunken reveller were noted by the active agents 
 of Mr. Lincoln, and numbers of men were arrested for having in their cups 
 said something that savored of respect for Mr. Jefiersou Davis or "Stone- 
 wall" Jackson . In the shameless race for pre-eminence in servility to the all- 
 powerful dictator, spies and policemen had not the foremost place ; for the 
 Judge upon the bench of the Criminal Court, and the State's Attorney, 
 gravely asserted, when a man was on trial before them, that it was illegal 
 and treasonable to drink the health of Mr. Jefferson Davis. And the Coun- 
 sel who denied the ridiculous proposition, was sent for months to Fort La 
 Fayette, by the Provost Marshal. All this time the "Union" party 
 hounded on the Government oflScials to acts of increased severity. The 
 rights of their opponents were alluded to, only to be derided. It was 
 assumed that all the privileges to which those opposing Mr. Lincoln's pro- 
 ceedings had been born, were abrogated; and that the protection which 
 the laws nominally threw around them, had been dissipated by a whisper 
 from the autocrat at Washington. The Baltimore American was blatant 
 in its outcries for the initiation of more stringent measures, which should 
 crush out every vestige of free thought and free speech, in a community 
 in which its own base teachings had been always tolerated. Politicians who 
 
23 
 
 had enjoyed all the rewards and honors which the State could once confer, 
 and who still professed to have its dignity as well as interest at heart, saw 
 its representatives driven from their place at the point of the bayonet, and 
 merely sneered at what they called the "defunct Legislature." A dozen 
 or more of the most wealthy and influential members of the "Union" 
 party, not content with silent gratitude to the man who had lent them 
 regiments, went to render their humble homage in person. Bowing before 
 the despot's throne, they thanked him for having removed from their 
 midst, those whom they designated as "incendiary politicians," and 
 assured him that he had thereby laid, though they did not say where, 
 "the foundations of affection and gratitude." And there was not a man 
 among them who did not know that his own character for integrity and 
 manhood would, in the community in which he lived, suffer by a compari- 
 son with that of more than one of the prisoners whom he thus infa- 
 mously libelled, and who were then in Port Warren, and defenceless. 
 
 As tbo election, appointed to be held November 6th, 1861 approached, 
 it became manifest that the right of suffrage was to be accorded to the peo- 
 ple of the State, only to such extent as might be consistent with the objects 
 of the "Union" party. The National Intelligencer, which in Washington 
 City and elsewhere, was properly regarded, at that time, as a leading organ 
 of the Administration, published on the 31st of October, an article upon the 
 approaching elections in Maryland. The object of the Intelligencer was 
 to intimidate the candidates and the voters who dared to differ from Mr. 
 Lincoln and his party, and the threats so plainly thrown out were un- 
 doubtedly to be regarded as intimations from high ofiicial quarters of the 
 purposes of the Administration. After stating that the previous acts of 
 the Grovernment were to be interpreted as emphatically declaring "its 
 determination, that Maryland shall be governed loyally," the Intelligencer 
 said : 
 
 "The nominations have already advised tlie G-overnment who they are 
 whom their friends deem worthy the honors of Port La Payette, and whom, 
 without injustice, it can suspect. This is information which the Government 
 has long desired. It knows precisely who are the most active in instigating 
 treason and inciting rebellion. It needs farther only to know by whom these 
 leading conspirators are Supported. This it will learn by forbearing arrests till 
 after the day of election, and taking its observations as events on that day 
 transpire. Neither the Grovernment nor the friends of Union iu the State 
 could have desired a plan which would so effectually have furnished the Gov- 
 ernment the information needed to enable it to act energetically and efficiently. 
 Its alert and vigilant agents in Baltimore, will not fail to avail themselves of 
 this golden opportunity. 
 
 The nomination, and the election of traitors could produce no other result than 
 their removal. If madness and folly in wantonness, a spirit of bravado, or a 
 lust of notoriety, will toy with treason and incite rebellion, they but make their 
 posessors the target of a Government which in Baltimore and Maryland is 
 irresistible; and they will find, too late for their comfort, that the day for for- 
 bearance and leniency is past. Sui^cess or defeat of secession at the polls is 
 all one to the status of Maryland, hut defeat will be most profitable to the 
 leaders who are in nomination. We will wait to see who recklessly brave the 
 Government. We are sure what course the Government will, for we know 
 what coarse it must, pursue." 
 
 Lest this distinct announcement of the disgraceful purposes of the 
 Federal authorities, should fail to give the "Union" party the power and 
 
24 
 
 offices it so much coveted, General Dix seized the opportunity of letting 
 the people of Baltimore know that he took a profound interest in the 
 election, and that the United States Marshal and the Provost Marshal pro- 
 posed to give it their attention likewise. On the 1st of November, Gen- 
 eral Dix issued a Proclamation in which he alleged that ' ' certain 
 individuals," who had been in arms against the United States in Virginia, 
 had returned to their former homes for the purpose of taking part in the 
 elections, and thus " carrying out at the polls the treason they had com- 
 mitted in the field;" and -that "other individuals lately residents of 
 Maryland," who had aided and abetted those in arms against the United 
 States," were "about to participate in the election for the same treacherous 
 purpose." He therefore directed the " United States Marshal of Mary- 
 land, and the Provost Marshal of the City of Baltimore," to arrest all 
 such persons. He further requested the tfudges of Election to commit 
 any such persons; and called on all "good and loyal citizens" to support 
 the Judges of Election, the United States Marshal and the Provost 
 Marshal in their efforts to secure a ' ' free and fair expression of the voice 
 of the people of Maryland, and at the same time to prevent the ballot box 
 from being polluted by treasonable votes." 
 
 At the polls the following placard was conspicuously displayed : 
 
 ''NOTICE. 
 
 "PROCLAMATION OP GENL. DIX. 
 
 "All persons are requested to point out to the Judges of Election, and to 
 THE Police, any individual attempting to vote, or who may be present at this 
 Poll, who may have been actually ' engaged in acts of hostility to the United 
 States, or in actively aiding and abetting those in arms against the United 
 States; ' and especially those who, on the 19th of April, and subsequent days, 
 took part in opposing the march of the United Utates troops, or in traiismitUng 
 stores and supplies or forwarding persons or communications into States en- 
 gaged in the rebellion. 
 
 "John W. Woods, Steam Booh and Job Printer, 202 Baltimore Street." 
 
 As General Dix had taken so much pains to suppress free thought and 
 free speech in Maryland, it is not probable that, his warmest partisans 
 could have honestly believed that he really desired a ' ' free and fair ex- 
 pression of the voice of the people of Maryland." They too, knew as 
 well as General Dix, that of the "individuals" who had left the State 
 and had become citizens or soldiers of the Southern Confederacy, not 
 many enough to change the election in a single precinct would retui'n for 
 the purpose of voting. His speciously worded Proclamation deceived no 
 one. It was indisputably, as was the placard posted at the Polls, a direct 
 invitation to the officials and agents of the Government to use their power 
 for the purpose of intimidating or otherwise excluding from the ballot box, 
 all voters who were likely to cast their ballots against the Administration 
 candidates. The "Union" party and its opponents understood this fully, 
 and the former acted accordingly. But the scenes which characterized the 
 election would, apart from the previous intimations from high quarters to 
 that effect, have sufficiently proved that Mr. Lincoln's partisans had deter- 
 mined that the ' ' voice of the people of Maryland " should be made to 
 speak in commendation of his usurpations. Soldiers were stationed at 
 
25 
 
 the polls in numerous places throughout the State. Many hundreds of 
 citizens were arrested in the various counties, and in the City of Balti- 
 more, without the slightest pretext, and evidently for the mere purpose of 
 deterring their neighbors and political friends from attempting to exercise 
 their rights. The vast majority of those so arrested were men who, as 
 was perfectly well known, had not, since the beginning of the war, been 
 out of Maryland. Test oaths, which had, eince the Revolution of 1776, 
 been unheard of among the laws of the State, were offered to other citi- 
 zens, whose votes were refused when they declined to submit to so gross 
 an outrage. Small as the vote was, it is a notorious fact that an immense 
 number of illegal votes were everywhere cast for the Administration can- 
 didates, Massachusetts soldiers are known to have boasted in Boston that 
 they voted on that day in Baltimore as often as they pleased. General 
 Dix informed Mr. Brown, the Mayor of Baltimore, at Fort Warren, that 
 not more than a thousand illegal votes had been cast, and was, it may be 
 presumed, satisfied with himself for having permitted the ballot box to be 
 "polluted" only by his friends, and only to that extent. His statement 
 was about on a par, in point of truthfulness, with his afiFectation of a desire 
 to obtain "a free and fair expression of the voice of the people of Mary- 
 land." That people knows full well, and General Dix knows likewise, 
 that the election was a shameless mockery, and that its results were but 
 the work of fraud and violence. But the "Union" party applauded this 
 wanton violation of the rights of their fellow-citizens, and the laws of 
 their State, and accepted such an election as an honest popular decision 
 upon the momentous issues involved. 
 
 Men enough were found who were willing to accept the fruits of suc- 
 cesses so achieved; and a Governor of Maryland,- and a large portion of 
 her Legislature and Judiciary, went into office with the knowledge that 
 they owed their elevation to power to those who controlled the Northern 
 bayonets then within her borders. 
 
 The Legislature met in December, 1861, and among the resolutions 
 passed within the first few weeks of the session, was one in which the 
 country was assured that the "people of Maryland" did "not hesitate to 
 express their approval of the course and policy of the President in the 
 conduct of the war thus far, as exemplified by his official acts." Not one 
 word had these representatives to say in condemnation of the usurpations 
 which had changed a free government into the most offensive of despot- 
 isms, or of arbitrary proceedings which had annulled for a time the la,wg 
 of Maryland. Not one word of remonstrance or denunciation did they 
 utter while their fellow citizens were daily outraged in their own homets, 
 or seized in violation of right, law and justice, and borne off to be im- 
 prisoned in other States. So far from protesting against the arbitrary 
 measures which had been adopted for the suppression of free, speech in 
 Maryland, they did their uttermost to give the sanction of law to the 
 system of government adopted by Mr. Lincoln's Generails. They passed 
 an Act which will hereafter stand pre-eminent as the most disgraceful 
 that was ever before a Legislature of any State. By this grossly uncon- 
 stitutional law, it was made a Penitentiary offence to hold a public meeting, 
 intended to promote or encourage the separation of Maryland "from the 
 Government or Union of the United States," or to promote or encourage 
 
26 
 
 the union of Maryland with the Southern Confederacy. To "offer induce- 
 ments to any minor or other person to abandon his home or place of 
 temporary residence for the purpose of going into any of the States in 
 rebellion," was "to be deemed evidence of disloyalty," for which "dis- 
 loyalty" the party convicted was to be fined. It was further provided 
 that any party should be fined or sent to the Penitentiary who should 
 " attempt to seduce, entice or persuade" any other person to commit any 
 one of the "offences" prohibited by the Act, even though no such offence 
 should be committed. Under cover of this enactment it was supposed the 
 press could be effectually muzzled. Thus, for the first time in Maryland, 
 it became a crime in her citizens to advocate in a public meeting, a change 
 in the form of Government under which they lived. It became an offence 
 to send any one to the South for any purpose whatsoever, because it was 
 presumed that none but a "disloyal" man would hold any intercourse, 
 even with his nearest relatives, in that section. And in order that Mr. 
 Lincoln's detectives might have the broadest field within which to scatter 
 accusations broadcast, they were authorized not only to hunt up the indi- 
 vidual who might have thought of committing one of the newly devised 
 offences and had abandoned his purpose, but also to call to account those who 
 could be charged with having persuaded any such person, at any time, to 
 entertain a proscribed intention. This high-handed and infamous attempt 
 to throttle their political opponents, and to abrogate in Maryland the right 
 of free speech upon the issues of the day, was supported by an overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the Legislature. Outside of the Legislature, it met with 
 an equally cordial endorsement from the "Union" party. 
 
 That the Legislature was fully determined to give its sanction to the 
 most arbitrary measures that could be devised by Mr. Lincoln to suppress 
 all opposition to his will, was proven not less by what it refused to do, 
 than by what it did. As early as the 13th of December, 1861, Mr. 
 Harris, of St Mary's County, introduced in the House of Delegates, a 
 very temperate resolution proposing that the Committees on Federal Re- 
 lations of the House and Senate should proceed to Washington and see 
 Mr. Lincoln in relation to those citizens who had been arbitrarily arrested 
 and were then held by the Government. The Committees were, in the 
 language of the resolution, to "request an interview with his Excellency, 
 the President of the United States, and express to him the strong desire 
 of the General Assembly of Maryland for the release of our imprisoned 
 fellow-citizens, and urge upon him the propriety of their early uncondi- 
 tional discharge from prison." This resolution was referred to the Com- 
 mittee on Federal Relations, of which Mr. Reverdy Johnson was Chair- 
 maa. That gentlemen, for reasons best Jsnown to himself and the party 
 friends who subsequently elected him to She United States Senate, did not 
 trouble himself to make any report whatever upon the resolution. He 
 could approach Mr. Seward, as the counsel of prisoners who had retained 
 him, but he and his party declined to place themselves publicly, in 
 antagonism to the all powerful potentate at the Capital. 
 
 The First Branch of the City Council which was elected under the 
 auspices of the Military Governor of Baltimore, in October, 1861, pursued 
 to the extent of its power the" loyal" course which characterized all other 
 representatives of the "Union" party. It sanctioned or applauded all 
 
27 
 
 the tyrannical measures which had placed the people of Baltimore bound 
 and silenced at the feet of Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 Among other proceedings, it adopted an ordinance prescribing a test- 
 oath, which was to be administered to the teachers in the Public Schools ; 
 and the School Commissioners ejected from their places numbers of these 
 teachers, and among them many women who refused to submit their polit- 
 ical opiuions to any such examination. The Second Branch of the Council 
 for many months honestly discharged its duty, in the face of innumerable 
 attempts to intimidate it. But when it stood in the way of measures the 
 passage of which was a matter of importance to the Administration, Gen- 
 eral Wool interposed his advice and influence; and the Second Branch, as 
 then constituted, ceased to exist. His own account of the matter shows 
 the nature of the demands made upon him by the "Union" party, and 
 the sort of aid he rendered it. ' When Mr. Lincoln, after General 
 McClellan had been driven back from Richmond to the James River, 
 called for three hundred thousand men, "the Union men of Baltimore," 
 says General Wool, " called on the City Council for an appropriation of 
 $300,000 to be applied to the raising of four or five regiments re- 
 quired for the city. The First Branch of the Common Council voted 
 for the appropriation ; the Second Branch refused to vote for it ; soon 
 after which I was waited upon by some who called themselves Union men, 
 and was urged to use coercive measures." General Wool, strange to say, 
 was, at the moment, seized with some conscientious scruples about coer- 
 cing "a legislative body, constitutionally elected, to vote as he might 
 dictate," and so expressed himself to these "Union" men. "This," he 
 says, "did not satisfy the gentlemen, when I replied that I thought, if 
 they would not interfere, I could arrange the matter without resorting to 
 force or dictation. I made good the declaration, and produced the ar- 
 rangement, which gave the Union party a Common Council which voted, 
 I believe, the sum of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars." The 
 arrangement thus produced, to quote still further General Wool's account, 
 was ' ' that the members of the Second Branch of the Council not in favor 
 of the appropriation, after consultation with myself, resigned, and their 
 places were afterwards filled by Union men." Thus did Mr. Lincoln's 
 General, and, of course, without resorting to "dictation," intimidate and 
 eject from office one Branch of the Municipal Government, because it refused 
 to appropriate three hundred thousand dollars to further the ends of the 
 Administration. And this outrageous proceeding, also, was sanctioned, 
 or acquiesced in, by the "loyal" patriots of Baltimore, who were 
 " fighting for the Constitution." 
 
 Nor was it only through the action of the Legislature and City Councils 
 that the "Union" party endeavored to make the people of Baltimore 
 deport themselves as the obsequious slaves of the Federal Government. 
 Through the press and through resolutions at public meetings it invoked 
 the passions of the most violent and depraved of its followers, as well as 
 the power of the Government, to aid it in crushing its opponents. At a 
 large public meeting, held on the 29th of July, 1862, and at which the 
 Governor, who was indebted to Federal bayonets for his position, presided, 
 a resolution was adopted requesting the President to "instruct the Gen- 
 eral in command of this Military Department to require all male citizens 
 above the age of eighteen to come forward" and take an oath to 
 
28 
 
 "maintain the National Sovereignty paramount to that of all State, 
 county^ or corporate powers," and to "discourage, discountenance, and 
 forever oppose secession, rebellion, and the disintegration of the Federal 
 Union." Those who should refuse to take the oath which it was thus 
 proposed to tender them, and which was to bind every man to "forever 
 oppose what was already an accomplished fact, were, if the President had 
 endorsed the resolution, to be banished from their homes. The proposi- 
 tion brought forth no public remonstrance from any portion of the 
 "Union" party. On the contrarj, the First Branch of the City Council 
 adopted a resolution, a few days afterwards, requesting General Wool "to 
 administer such an oath to all the citizens of the City of Baltimore at the 
 earliest possible period." G-eneral Wool rejected this advice, "for the 
 reason," as he said, that it would, at a critical moment, "send twenty 
 thousand men to swell the army of Jefferson Davis " But the suggestion 
 was not the less disgraceful to the party which sanctioned it, because it 
 proved to be impracticable. 
 
 What might not have been the extent of the violence which the 
 leaders of the "Union" party would have instigated, had not the Military 
 Commanders of the Department thought it politic to check them, it is 
 impossible to say. But if ruffians were not omnipotent, and if their will 
 was not the law to the people of Maryland, and especially of Baltimore, 
 it was not for want of encouragement on the part of the " Union" party. 
 The journals which represented that party, day after day, urged upon the 
 Administration measures which would have been regarded as rigorous in 
 Warsaw. And the apparent approbation with which on one occasion the 
 outrages of a band of notorious outlaws were regarded, affords conclusive 
 evidence of the spirit in which the " Union" party would have ruled the 
 City, had a superior power permitted it to have its way. When these men 
 whose names had long been familiar to the records of the Criminal Court, 
 wantonly and murderously assailed numbers of peaceable citizens on the 
 most public streets of Baltimore, and were subsequently arrested by order 
 of the military authorities, and committed to Fort McHenry, instant and 
 successful efforts were made for their release. Individuals who had influ- 
 ence in official quarters hurried to Washington to procure the liberation of 
 their useful friends, and many of the staunchest supporters of the Admin- 
 istration grew eloquent, for the first time, in denunciation of illegal arrests 
 and arbitrary imprisonment. The rights of upright and honorable citi- 
 zens were recklessly trampled upon daily, but the most abandoned follow- 
 ers of the Government were shielded from punishment for outrages of 
 unprovoked brutality, openly perpetrated. And not content with affording 
 protection to such men as these, the " Union" party deemed them worthy 
 of rewards and honors, and some of those who had participated in the 
 very scenes referred to, and who could not have been at any fair election, 
 elected constables of their wards, held then or afterwards. Commissions in 
 the Army. 
 
 Throughout the State the people groaned under the same tyrannical rule 
 as that which so heavily pressed upon the population of her chief City. 
 And not only were the laws daily and hourly set at naught, but it was 
 regarded as an offence against the Dictator to appeal to them for protec- 
 tion. One of the most upright and honored Judges of the State — a man 
 whose unimpeachable character not even the breath of slander had ever 
 
29 
 
 ventured to assail — was dragged from the Bench while engaged in the 
 discharge of his judicial duties. For not yielding a ready and unmur- 
 muring assent to the demand of the Government oEScials who went to 
 seize him, he was brutally beaten, and faint and bleeding, was carried like 
 a common felon qn board of a steamboat, and conveyed to Fort McHenry. 
 His crime was, that in his charge to the Grand Jury, he had cited the 
 laws of Maryland and the Constitution of the United States, in proof of 
 the illegality of the arbitrary arrests made by order of Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 It would require too much space and time to state in detail all the un- 
 justifiable and infamous proceedings to which the " Union" party resorted 
 in order to gag and manacle the " Southern Rights" men of Maryland. 
 Because the latter dared to exercise what had been recognized for seventy 
 years as their indisputable rights, they were treated as though they had 
 placed themselves beyond the pale of the law. Their houses were invaded, 
 their correspondence violated, their business interfered with by the impo- 
 sition of all manner of illegal restrictions, their arms seized, and they 
 themselves by hundreds imprisoned or disfranchised. And all these out- 
 rages were sanctioned and applauded by the " Union" party. The 
 system by which her rulers had endeavored to stifle disaffection in Eng- 
 land two centuries before, was deliberately selected as a precedent, by the 
 men who usurped power in Maryland in 1861. And for what was this 
 party contending 1 It had earnestly insisted before Mr. Lincoln's inau- 
 guration, upon some recognition by Congress of the rights of the South, 
 and the adoption of the Crittenden or some equivalent Compromise ; but 
 when the North refused to accept any Compromise whatever, the ' ' Union" 
 party acquiesced in that decision. It vehemently opposed any attempt to 
 coerce the South, but when a coercive policy was resorted to by Mr. 
 Lincoln, it energetically supported him. It loudly asserted that the 
 subjugation of the South was an impossibility, but when this was at- 
 tempted, it lent its aid to the Administration. It professed then to 
 advocate the war only while it should be carried on under the forms 
 of the Constitution, and for the reconstruction of the Union, but it 
 continued earnestly to support a war waged in defiance of all laws^ 
 and for the destruction of the State Governments in the South. It 
 followed Mr. Lincoln step by step, in every usurpation and outrage- 
 of which he was guilty; and from the time when he asseverated that 
 he had no other object in calling out troops than to defend Wash- 
 ington, down to the time when he appointed Provost Marshals to rule with 
 absolute authority, the Northern States, and indiscriminately confiscated 
 and devastated whole districts in the South, the " Union" party endorsed 
 his policy. The pleas which this party advanced in its own justification, 
 were as little defensible as its conduct. They were not less absurdly 
 inconsistent with each other than at variance with every principle which 
 American freemen had ever been taught to respect, " We are,", said the 
 "Union" party, "maintaining the Constitution;" and these being 
 "revolutionary times, we have the right to resort to all the means which 
 we have adopted to sustain the Government." It claimed to be exempted 
 from legal or Constitutional restraints itself, while it denounced as traitors 
 to the Constitution all who resisted its arbitrary measures. It insisted 
 that it could justifiably revolutionize the Government, but that all those 
 opposing it were bound to adhere to the letter of the law. For men who, 
 
30 
 
 in defense of their rights, were merely appealing to the Constitution and 
 the laws, the "Union" party thought no punishment too severe, but it 
 regarded the obsolete theory of ' ' political necessity " as suflBcient to excuse, 
 on its part, the establishment of a pure and simple military despotism. 
 
 The day is fast approaching when it will no longer be necessary to 
 discuss these puerilities seriously in any intelligent community. It wiU 
 be difficult to make a future generation understand that a party once 
 existed in Maryland which branded as infamous, beyond example, those 
 who resorted to force to maintain their interpretation of the Constitution 
 of the United States, and which, nevertheless, regarded as honest and 
 patriotic, the resort on its own part to the most arbitrary and atrocious 
 acts, in order to make its views of that instrument a law to all other men. 
 It will also be difficult for those who shall come after us, to understand 
 how this party could honestly treat a revolution in the South as a justifica- 
 tion to itself for inflicting all imaginable indignities and wrongs upon a 
 large portion of the people of other States. Because there was a revolu- 
 tion in the South, why, when the Constitution was still said to be supreme 
 in Maryland, should the people of that State have been precluded from 
 expres^sing their opinions as to the most politic and just mode of meeting 
 that revolution? Why should they have been silenced, disfranchised and 
 imprisoned because they desired to deal with a revolution in a conciliatory 
 spirit, instead of adopting the futile and brutal policy of letting loose 
 against the Southern people the incarnate demons of murder, rapine and 
 anarchy ? These are questions which the civilized world elsewhere has 
 resolved already, and which will soon have to be answered here. How 
 they will be answered few men can, in their calmer moments doubt. The 
 written laws and Constitution of the once powe--ful Republic are still 
 extant, and the record of Mr. Lincoln's Administration will not soon be 
 forgotten. The measures to which he had recourse in Maryland to crush 
 out all opposition to his will, and the people who sustained such a des- 
 potism here, will be long remembered. A fearful responsibility is theirs. 
 
 If the Constitution still exists in Maryland, they must answer for having 
 trampled its every provision under foot If a revolution or civil war has 
 superseded all law in this State, they alone inaugurated it, and are respon- 
 sible for its consequences. And in one shape or another, sooner or later, 
 retribution will inevitably overtake the agents and abettors of the despot- 
 ism which has so remorselessly oppressed this people. Unless the courage 
 and constancy which, in other days, established here a constitutional 
 government have altogether departed from among us, the outraged laws 
 will yet vindicate their supremacy, and inflict adequate punishment on 
 those who have been recreant to the faith and example of their fathers. 
 But be the course of events what it may,- something of the old freedom of 
 thought and speech will still survive, and the record which the active 
 supporters of Abraham Lincoln have made for themselves in Maryland 
 will forever bear testimony to their guilt and folly, and the odium that is 
 destined to attach to their names their children's children will not outlive.