620 



MARYLAND. 



able character, and in not a county of the State out- 

 side of the same Congressional District is there, I 

 believe, a candidate for the Legislature or any State 

 office, whose loyalty is not equally undoubted. In 

 the face of this well-known condition of things, the 

 several classes of persons above enumerated are not 

 only to be arrested at, but "approaching any poll or 

 place of election." And who is to judge whether 

 voters thus on their way to the place of voting have 

 given "aid, comfort, or encouragement" to persons 

 engaged in the rebellion, or that they "do not re- 

 cognize their allegiance to the United States," and 

 may avail themselves of their presence at the polls 

 " to foist enemies of the United States into power" ? 

 As I have already said, in a very large majority of 

 the counties of the State there are not to be found 

 among the candidates any such "enemies of the 

 United States ; " but the provost marshals created 

 for a very different purpose and the other military 

 officials who are thus ordered to arrest approaching 

 voters, are necessarily made by the order the sole and 

 exclusive judges of who fall within the prescribed 

 category an extent of arbitrary discretion, under 

 any circumstances, the most odious, and more espe- 

 cially offensive and dangerous in view of the known 

 fact that tvvo at least of the five provost marshals of 

 the State are themselves candidates for important 

 offices, and sundry of their deputies for others. 



The military order, therefore, is not only without 

 justification when looking to the character of the 

 candidates before the people, and rendered still more 

 obnoxious by the means appointed for its execution, 

 but is equally offensive to the sensibilities of the 

 people themselves, and the authorities of the State, 

 looking to the repeated proofs they have furnished 

 of an unalterable devotion to the Government. For 

 more than two years past there has never been a 

 time when, if every traitor and every treasonable 

 sympathizer in the State had voted, they could have 

 controlled, whoever might Ave been their candi- 

 dates, a single department of the State, or jeopard- 

 ized the success of the General Government. No 

 State in the Union has been, or is now, actuated by 

 more heartfelt or unwavering loyalty than Maryland 

 a loyalty intensified and purified by the ordeal 

 through which it has passed: and yet looking to 

 what nag lately transpired elsewhere, and to the 

 terms and character of this military order, one would 

 think that in Maryland and nowhere else is the 

 Government endangered by the " many evil-disposed 

 persons that are now at large." 



Within less than a month the most important elec- 

 tions have taken place in two of the largest States 

 of the Union ; in each of them candidates were be- 

 fore the people, charged by the particular friends of 

 the Government with being hostile to its interests, 

 and whose election was deprecated as fraught with 

 the most dangerous consequences to its success. 

 One of the most prominent of these candidates was 

 considered so dangerously inimical to the triumph 

 of the National cause that he has been for montns 

 past banished from the country, and yet hundreds 

 of thousands of voters were allowed to approach the 

 polls, and to attempt "to foist" such men into 

 power, and no provost marshals, or other military 

 officers, were ordered to arrest them on the way, or 

 so far as we have ever heard, even test their alle- 

 giance by any oath. 



With these facts before us, it is difficult to believe 

 that the suggestion, that the enemies of the United 

 States may be foisted into power at our coming elec- 

 tion, was the consideration that prompted this order; 

 but whatever may have been that motive, I feel it to 

 be my duty to solemnly protest against such an in- 

 tervention with the privileges of the ballot box, and 

 so offensive a discrimination against the rights of a 

 loyal State. 



I avail myself of the occasion to call to the par- 

 ticular attention of the Judges of Election, the fact 

 that they are on the day of election clothed with all 



the authority of Conservators of the peace, and may 

 summon to their aid any of the executive officers of 

 the county, and the whole power of the county itself, 

 to preserve order at the polls and secure the con- 

 stitutional rights of the voters. 



It is also made their "special duty" to give in- 

 formation to the State's Attorney for the county, of 

 all infractions of the State laws on the subject of 

 elections ; and by these laws it is forbidden to any 

 " commissioned or non-commissioned officers, having 

 command of any soldier or soldiers quartered or 

 posted in any district of any_ county of the State, to 

 muster or embody any of said troops, or march any 

 recruiting party within the view of any place of 

 election during the time of holding said election." 



I need not, I am sure, remind them of the terms 

 of the oath they are required to take before entering 

 upon their duties, and according to which they swear 

 "to permit all persons to vote who shall offer to poll 

 at the election, &c., who in their judgment shall, 

 according to the directions contained in the constitu- 

 tion and laws, be entitled to poll at the same election, 

 and not to permit any person to poll at the same 

 election who is not in (their) judgment qualified to 

 vote as aforesaid." 



It is the judgment of the Judges of Election 

 alone, founded upon the provisions of the constitu- 

 tion and the laws of the State, that must determine 

 the right to vote of any person offering himself for 

 that purpose. I trust ana believe that they will form 

 that judgement, and discharge their duty, as their 

 conscientious convictions of its requirements, under 

 the solemn obligations they assume, shall dictate, 

 undeterred by any order to provost marshals to re- 

 port them to " Headquarters." 



Whatever power the State possesses, shall be ex 

 erted to protect them for anything done in the prop- 

 er execution of its laws. 



Since writing the above, I have seen a copy of the 

 President's letter to the chairman of the Union State 

 Central Committee, bearing the same date with the 

 order, and evidently showing that the order was un- 

 known to him, that it would not have been approved 

 by him if he had known it, and that it is therefore 

 all the more reprehensible. 



By the Governor: A. W. BRADFORD. 



WM. B. HILL, Secretary of State. 



BALTIMORE, MONDAY EVENING, 2for. 2<7, 1863. 

 After the above was in print, at three o'clock this 

 afternoon, I received from the President the follow- 

 ing despatch : 



I revoke the first of the three propositions in Gen. Schenck^i 

 General Order No. 58, not that it is wrong in principle, but 

 because the military being of necessity exclusive judges as 

 to who shall be arrested, the provision is liable to abuse. 

 For the revoked part I substitute the following : "That all 

 provost marshals and other military officers do prevent all 

 disturbance and violence lit or about the polls, whether 

 offered by such persons as above described, or by any othtr 

 person OP persons whomsoever." The other two propositions 

 I allow to stand. My letter at length will reach you tt 

 night A. LINCOLN. 



Whilst this modification revokes the authority of 

 the provost marshals and military officers to arrest 

 the classes of persons enumerated in the preamble 

 to the order " found at or hanging about or ;i; - 

 proaching any poll or place of election," it directs 

 them to prevent all violence or disturbance about 

 the polls, Ac. 



To meet such disturbances the Judges of Election, 

 as I have already stated, are clothed with ampla 

 powers, and I had received no previous intimation 

 that there was any reason to apprehend a disturb- 

 ance of any kind at the polls on the day of election. 

 In the absence of any military display there would 

 certainly seem to be as little cause for such appre- 

 hensions as ever before existed. A preparation by 

 the Government by military means to provide for 

 such a contingency will be quite as likely to provok<) 

 as to subdue such a disposition. Not only so, but 



