Mr. Giddings, the leading power of aboli
tionism in the North, has again and again, on
the floor of Congress, reiterated the assertion
that be never had attempted and never would
attempt to interfere with the existence of
slavery in the States, which was a matter to
be regulated entirely by themselves. But
they have aroused the spirit of the North and
of the loyal South, and they have inflicted a
death-blow upon their own institution. I
has fallen, if it has fallen at all, in the house
hold of its own friends, Actaeon eaten up by
his own dogs; and they cannot blame any one
but themselves.
My friend has also alluded to another chap-
ter in his history, in which I bore an humble
part. Before coming to that, however, I may
say that the doctrine of States' rights is, that
the people of each State have a right to de-
termine their destiny for themselves. But in
this matter of secession, this horrid and cruel
madness, they have not followed their own
doctrine. They have disobeyed it. Will any
man tell me that the people of Virginia had
any say in the matter of secession? Will
any man tell me that the people of Kentucky,
Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina,
would to-day be in rebellion, if it had not
been for the most infamous tyranny, in which
their rights were entirely overlooked; in
which the juggernautic car of despotism
rolled over the prostrate necks of .men who
would have died rather than yield to the
miserable wrong, the infernal crime of break-
ing up this government, and tearing their
States away from the only security they have
ever had? They have not permitted the
people to say whether they will or will not
adhere to this government. They have, as
my friend from Baltimore city (Mr. Cushing,)
the other day very justly and pathetically
said, strung the railroads of East Tennessee
with the dangling bodies of martyrs; men
whose blood is the seed of the church, through
whose broad aisles shall ever echo' the grand
cry of American redemption, the battle cry
of American freedom. [Applause.]
I come now to speak of the Frederick Leg-
islature of 1861. I have nothing to say about
that branch of the Legislature in which my
friend was. He was in the House: I was in the
Senate. If you will read the history of that
Maryland Legislature, it is written upon the re-
cord, and it cannot be erased. My friend says
that in after time it will beread by adifferent
light. It will be; and the light of truth will
ever condemn the men, in the Senate at least,
who dared to act as that body did in their at-
tempt to drag Maryland into the chaos of
Jefferson Davis's tyranny. We all know,
and the people of Maryland know, that Gov.
Hicks was again and again beseiged to call
the Legislature together. I united in that
call at last. The President of this Convention
united in it; and I believe almost all the
Union members united in it; because they |
believed the calling of that Legislature to-
gether would develop the plans which we
knew were maturing in the State, and give
the people an opportunity to see the danger
that was impending over them. Gov. Hicks
never did a better thing in his life, a thing
for which the people of the State and the
Union ought to thank him more heartily,
than when he assembled that Legislature in
the city of Frederick.
The first thing that was done there in the
Senate—I am only speaking of the Senate—
was to place on the record a solemn declara-
tion that we bad no constitutional right as a
Legislature, to secede. We spoke out on that
subject at once, and said that the apprehen-
sions that were entertained that that Legis-
lature would pass any act by which the State
could secede, were entirely visionary. Every
one knew that the Legislature had no power
to control the destiny of the State in this
matter. If any power could do it at sail, it
was a Convention; and "the majority" did
not think it was exactly the time for even a
Convention to be called. What did they do?
Scarcely a week elapsed before they produced
a bill the most remarkable in its features that
has ever been produced in the halts of Ameri-
can legislation; "a hill for the peace and
safety of the people of Maryland." Why,
the people of Maryland were.' at peace with all
the world and "the rest of mankind." The
safety of the people was involved in the sup-
port and sustenance of the Government of the
United States. The arm of Gov. Hicks, brave
old man, was attempted to be paralyzed, and
the power was to be given into the hands of
a Committee of Peace and Safely of the State
of Maryland. Mr. Mason, the pendulum com-
missioner, who oscillates between France and
England, was there to enlighten our humble
minds upon these important subjects, and re-
mained until he was advised by a Committee
of Peace and Safety of the loyal people, that
he had better leave, which he very unceremo-
niously did.
What was the object? What was the ne-
cessity of striking down the Executive power
of the State of Maryland? What had Gov.
Hicks done, except to stand up as a mighty
wall of fire against the efforts of the seces-
sionists and their sympathizers to carry this
brave old State and lay her down prostrate,
and torn and humbled and degraded into the
lap of that pink and miracle of modesty,
Christianity and purity, Jefferson Davis. He
had done that, and in doing it he had excited
the wrath and the ire of all those, people.—
Talking up this precious volume, (the Journal
of the Frederick Legislature,) and reading it
over from beginning to end, you will find
that resolutions were passed sympathizing
with everybody who was in the least inter-
fered with. Mr. Merryman who was charged
with having assisted in burning tire bridges
on the Northern Central Railroad, was looked |
