"They
Shall Not Come Through Baltimore," Said Mr. Lincoln.
"But they
shall come through the State of Maryland.
They shall be passed
over Chesapeake Bay by water to Annapolis, and shall come up by
rail from thence." This arrangement was as distasteful to the
State of Maryland as the other; but Annapolis is a small town
without a mob, and the Marylanders had no means of preventing the
passage of the troops. Attempts were made to refuse the use of the
Annapolis branch railway, but General Butler had the arranging of
that. General Butler was a lawyer from Boston, and by no means
inclined to indulge the scruples of the Marylanders who had so
roughly treated his fellow-citizens from Massachusetts. The troops
did therefore pass by Annapolis, much to the disgust of the State.
On the 27th of April, Governor Hicks, having now had a sufficiency
of individual responsibility, summoned the legislature of which he
had expressed so bad an opinion; but on this occasion he omitted to
repeat that opinion, and submitted his views in very proper terms
to the wisdom of the senators and representatives. He entertains,
as he says, an honest conviction that the safety of Maryland lies
in preserving a neutral position between the North and the South.
Certainly, Governor Hicks, if it were only possible! The
legislature again went to work to prevent, if it might be
prevented, the passage of troops through their State; but luckily
for them, they failed. The President was bound to defend
Washington, and the Marylanders were denied their wish of having
their own fields made the fighting ground of the civil war.
That which appears to me to be the most remarkable feature in all
this is the antagonism between United States law and individual
State feeling. Through the whole proceeding the Governor and the
State of Maryland seemed to have considered it quite reasonable to
oppose the constitutional power of the President and his
government. It is argued in all the speeches and written documents
that were produced in Maryland at the time, that Maryland was true
to the Union; and yet she put herself in opposition to the
constitutional military power of the President. Certain
Commissioners went from the State legislature to Washington in May,
and from their report it appears that the President had expressed
himself of opinion that Maryland might do this or that "as long as
she had not taken and was not about to take a hostile attitude to
the Federal government!" From which we are to gather that a denial
of that military power given to the President by the Constitution
was not considered as an attitude hostile to the Federal
government. At any rate, it was direct disobedience to Federal
law. I cannot but revert from this to the condition of the
Fugitive Slave Law. Federal law, and indeed the original
constitution, plainly declare that fugitive slaves shall be given
up by the free-soil States. Massachusetts proclaims herself to be
specially a Federal law-loving State.
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