446 



MARYLAND. 



should the animosities and bickerings of the past be 

 forgotten, and all strike hands in the bold cause of re- 

 storing peace to our State and to our country. I hon- 

 estly and most earnestly entertain the conviction that 

 the only safety of Maryland lies in preserving a neutral 

 position between our brethren of the North and of the 

 South. We have violated no right of either section. 

 We have been loyal to the Union. The unhappy con- 

 test between the two sections has not been commenced 

 or encouraged by us, although we have suffered from 

 it in the past. The impending war has not come by 

 any act or any wish of ours. We have done all we could 

 to avert it. We have hoped that Maryland and other 

 border slave States, by tlieir conservative position and 

 love for the Union, might have acted as mediators be- 

 tween the extremes of both sections, and thus have 

 prevented the terrible evils of a prolonged civil war. 



The majority of the Committee on Federal 

 Relations, to whom had been referred a memo- 

 rial of 216 voters of Prince George's County, 

 praying the Legislature, if in its judgment it pos- 

 sesses the power, to pass an ordinance of seces- 

 sion without delay, reported that in their judg- 

 ment the Legislature did not possess the power 

 to pass such an ordinance, and that the prayer of 

 the said memorialists cannot therefore be grant- 

 ed. The minority reported favorably to the 

 prayer of the petitioners. On the question to 

 substitute the minority report for that of the 

 majority, it was rejected; ayes, 13 noes, 53. 

 This was considered as settling the question 

 against any constitutional power on the part 

 of the Legislature to pass an act of secession. 



The change in public sentiment was very 

 rapid. Soon after the disturbances in Balti- 

 more, the determination became strong to 

 stand by the Government and its laws, without 

 meaning thereby to endorse the President or 

 his policy. The 13th of June was designated 

 by the Governor as the day for the election of 

 the members of Congress to represent the State 

 at the extra session. 



The Commissioners appointed by the Legis- 

 lature to wait upon President Lincoln, sub- 

 mitted a report to that body on the 6th of May, 

 in which, after stating that they were cour- 

 teously received by the President, and had 

 represented to him the sense X>f the Legislature 

 of Maryland in relation to the occupation of a 

 portion of thesoil of that State by the Federal 

 troops, they proceed to say : 



" Full explanations were exchanged between 

 the undersigned and the Secretary of War and 

 Secretary of State, who were present, and par- 

 ticipated in the discussion, as to the facts and 

 circumstances that rendered necessary the ex- 

 traordinary incidents accompanying the passage 

 of Federal troops through Maryland en route 

 to the city of Washington, and especially in 

 reference to those acts of the authorities of the 

 city of Baltimore which arrested the progress 

 of the troops by the railroads leading from 

 Pennsylvania and Delaware into Maryland, and 

 of the opposition to the landing of the troops 

 subsequently at Annapolis by the Governor of 

 the State. And in connection with this action 

 of the authorities of the State, the hostile feel- 

 ing manifested by the people to the passage of 



these troops through Maryland was considered 

 and treated with entire frankness by the under- 

 signed, who, while acknowledging all the legal 

 obligations of the State to the Federal Govern- 

 ment, set forth fully the strength of sympathy 

 felt by a large portion of our people for our 

 Southern brethren in the present crisis. Al- 

 though many of the incidents and circumstances 

 referred to, were regarded in different lights 

 by the undersigned and the Federal Govern- 

 ment, even to the extent of a difference of 

 opinion as to some of the facts involved, yet in 

 regard to the general principle at issue, a con- 

 currence of opinion was reached. The Presi- 

 dent concurred with the undersigned in the 

 opinion that so long as Maryland had not taken, 

 and was not about taking, a hostile attitude to 

 the Federal Government, that the exclusive 

 military occupation of her ways of communica- 

 tion, and the seizure of the property of her 

 citizens, would be without justification ; and 

 what has been referred to in this connection, so 

 far as it occurred, was treated by the Govern- 

 ment as an act of necessity and self-preservation. 



" The undersigned did not feel themselves 

 authorized to enter into any arrangements with 

 the Federal Government, to induce it to change 

 its relations to the State of Maryland, consider- 

 ing it proper, under the circumstances, to leave 

 the entire discretion and responsibility of the 

 existing state of things to that Government, 

 making such representations as they deemed 

 proper, to vindicate the moral and legal aspects 

 of the question, and especially insisting on its 

 obligation to relieve the State promptly from 

 restraint and indignity, and to abstain from all 

 action in the transportation of troops that can 

 be regarded as intended for chastisement or 

 prompted by resentment. 



" The undersigned are not able to indicate to 

 what extent or to what degree the Executive 

 discretion will be exercised in modifying the 

 relations which exist between the State of 

 Maryland and the Federal Government, and in 

 the particular matter of the commercial com- 

 munications between the city of Baltimore and 

 other parts of the country, brought to the at- 

 tention of the General Assembly by the Mayor 

 and City Council of Baltimore. But they feel 

 authorized to express the opinion that some 

 modification may be expected." 



In the Legislature, stay laws were passed, 

 also an act to relieve the Governor and Mayor 

 of Baltimore, and all acting vinder their orders, 

 from prosecutions, on and after the 19th of 

 April. 



The Governor replied to a call for informa- 

 tion by the Legislature, " if he consented to or 

 authorized the burning of the bridges on the 

 Baltimore and Harrisburg, and Baltimore and 

 Philadelphia Eailroads," that he " neither au- 

 thorized nor consented to the destruction of the 

 bridges, but left the whole matter in the hands 

 of the Mayor of the city of Baltimore, with the 

 declaration that he had no authority in the 

 premises ; I was a lover of law and order, and 



