MARYLAND. 



453 



of the law those who observed Saturday in 

 place of Sunday, which failed of passage. The 

 whole law remains unchanged. 



Philip Francis Thomas, who was chosen to 

 the United States Senate by the General As- 

 sembly of 1867, was rejected by that body as 

 lacking the requisite qualifications, because he 

 had " given aid and comfort to the rebellion." 

 A notification of this rejection was communi- 

 cated by the Governor to the Legislature at its 

 last session, when the subject was referred to 

 a Joint Committee of the two Houses on Fed- 

 eral Relations. This committee made a unani- 

 mous report, in which they declared that the 

 only specific act of " giving aid and comfort to 

 the rebellion" on the part of Mr. Thomas, 

 which could be ascertained by their investiga- 

 tions, was the giving of one hundred dollars to 

 his son, who went South during the war, after 

 he had used "earnest and anxious eifort to 

 prevent " his going. The report closes with 

 these resolutions : 



Resolved, That the General Assembly of Maryland 

 make this their earnest and solemn protest against 

 the proceeding in the United States Senate whereby 

 a Senator-elect from this State, and duly qualified, 

 has been excluded from the Senate. 



Resolved, That the foregoing statement and the 

 protest be transmitted to the Legislatures of other 

 States now in session, that they may judge what 

 notice it merits from them, in vindication of the law, 

 the Constitution, and the common rights of all the 

 States. 



Resolved, That as the action of the Senate has 

 created a vacancy in the representation of this State 

 in that body, and as it is due to the State and the 

 country that such vacancy should be filled, we will, 

 therefore, in accordance with the provisions of the 

 act of Congress, at the proper time, proceed to fill 

 such vacancy. 



Later in the session, Mr. William T. Hamilton 

 was chosen United States Senator for the term 

 ending in 1875. 



The . question of the discontinuance of the 

 Freedmen's Bureau in the Border States hav- 

 ing been somewhat agitated, a resolution passed 

 the General Assembly of Maryland calling for 

 information on the subject, and in reply three 

 documents were submitted by General Howard. 

 One of these was a letter, written by himself, 

 in which he expresses his belief that, in view 

 of the recent decisions of some of the judges 

 of the State courts with regard to the appren- 

 ticeship laws of the State of Maryland, the in- 

 terference of the Freedmen's Bureau was still 

 necessary to protect the children of colored 

 people wrongfully held as apprentices under 

 those laws. The laws, it will be remembered, 

 had been lately pronounced null and void by 

 Chief-Justice Chase, as being inconsistent 

 with the Civil Rights Bill. A letter from the 

 Sub- Assistant Commissioner at Annapolis de- 

 clared that the State was " entirely under the 

 control of the rebel element," and freedmen 

 were not in so secure a position as those in 

 any of the seceding States. The courts, he 

 said, were all in the power of rebels, and not a 

 State court would recognize the Civil Rights 

 Bill. "Stubborn masters refuse to give up 



apprentices in accordance with the Chase de- 

 cision, but are resisting under the lead of the 

 State judiciary, and since the announcement 

 of the withdrawal of tbe Bureau are more 

 stubborn than ever." He further said that 

 while the better class of whites were in favor 

 of the colored schools, the poorer class opposed 

 them, and would sweep them away if they 

 dared. The third document submitted by 

 General Howard was the following letter : 



Major- General^ 0. 0. Howard : 



The undersigned, members of the Board of Man- 

 agers of the Baltimore Association for the Moral and 

 Educational Improvement of the Colored People, 

 learning that the operations of the Bureau in Mary- 

 land are under existing orders to cease at an early 

 day, desire to express to you, and through you to the 

 Department, their earnest desire, looking to the in- 

 terest of the colored people and the continued exist- 

 ence of the work of their education, that such with- 

 drawal of the Bureau should not take place. 



The Bureau has effected a great deal for the uproot- 

 ing of the system of colored apprenticeship, and 

 though this j>art of the work is not as urgent as be- 

 fore, yet it is still not completed, and, since Judge 

 Chase's decision on habeas corpus, the presence of your 

 agents is very needful to take full advantage of that 

 decision. The school work under our care has now 

 reached a crisis, in the proper management of which 

 will depend its stoppage or its being tided over diffi- 

 culties until the State assumes the schools as part of 

 its general system, or until the colored people shall 

 be able to support them by unaided effort. To with- 

 draw the Bureau now will seriously embarrass and 

 perhaps destroy our efforts in that direction. Indeed, 

 we are of the- opinion that here, as well as in the 

 South, the operations of the Bureau should last, at 

 least in their educational character, until the South is 

 reconstructed and represented in Congress, and such 

 is the opinion we all have of the friends of the colored 

 race in this State. 



We would also allege that the withdrawal of the 

 Bureau now will have decidedly a bad effect on the 

 colored people, and create in them a want of confi- 

 dence and a feeling of desertion. 

 (Signed by) K. M. JANNEY, J. M. GUSHING, 

 A. STIRLING, JE., GEO. A. POPE, 

 WM. McKIM, H. L. BOND, 



K. S. MATTHEWS, and others. 



The Republican State Central Committee in 

 the early part of the year issued a call to the 

 voters of the State who sympathized with the 

 objects and purposes of that party, to gather 

 in primary meetings and choose delegates to a 

 State Convention to be held in the Front Street 

 Theatre, Baltimore, on the 6th of March. Del- 

 egates were accordingly chosen, and the con- 

 vention was held on the day designated, to 

 chose delegates to the National Convention at 

 Chicago, and nominate electors to vote for Pres- 

 ident and Vice-President of the United States, 

 and to issue a platform of principles. The res- 

 olutions constituting this platform were as fol- 

 lows : 



Resolved, That the Union Republican party of Mary- 

 land hereby affirms its devotion to the principles of 

 justice and impartial manhood suffrage, that it declares 

 its approval of the reconstruction measures adopted 

 by Congress, and its unalterable purpose to maintain 

 untarnished and inviolate the public faith and national 

 credit, to lessen the burden of taxation by cutting off 

 all useless expenditures, and insisting upon the most 

 thorough economy in the administration of the Gov- 

 ernment, and confidently anticipates that at an early 



