upon as a martyr to the violation of that
grand habeas corpus which was the right of
the citizen; and Mr. Winans, who was ac-
cused of being actively engaged in building
guns and famishing munitions, of war to the
Southern Confederacy, was also regarded as
a martyr of the same sort.
At the time of the meeting of that Legisla-
ture, there was at Harper's Ferry, within a
distance of twenty-five miles, a beleaguering
army, invading the territory of the State of
Maryland, a foreign army, an army in rebel-
lion against the authority of the United
States, Members knew it; for a large
number of them, on the Sabbath day, which
should have been devoted to rest, went
there and paid their respects to that mil-
itary general, and they came back safely.
They knew that army was there in oc-
cupancy of the soil of Maryland; and yet
not a single word was written in this book,
(the Frederick Journal,) in condemnation of
the forcible, violent and rebellious occupation
of this State. They can say, it is true, that
the passage of the troops through Baltimore
on the 19th of April for the protection of the
capital of the Nation, was an invasion; they
can arraign the President of the United States
and all those in authority with him as having
trodden down the Constitution and the laws
that they were sworn to support and admin-
ister. But not one word have they ever said
which could be tortured into a disapproval
of the occupancy of Maryland Heights by
soldiers, in the service of the State of Virginia,
and in the service of the rebellion of the
South. Why this difference? It was not
only gentlemen either in the Senate or the
House; but the cry has been caught up by
every man opposed to the Union, North or
South.
Mr. Lincoln, whatever his faults or his vir-
tues may be, needs no eulogium at my hands
needs no criticism from me. He has the har-
dest task imposed on him from the beginning
that has ever fallen to the lot of any man. I
believe he is honest. I believe he is trying
to do the best he can. While his enemies are
trying to disconcert his efforts, and criticis-
ing every act of his, I think it is the duty of
every patriotic man to uphold and sustain
him in what he is doing to assist in the re-
storation of this government. [Applause.]
But has not Mr. Davis done any of the
acts charged upon Mr. Lincoln? Why do
we not bear of the suspension of the habeas
corpus and the great violation of the Consti-
tution in the South? Why do we not hear
of the wholesale conscription by which feeble
boys and tottering old men are dragged into
the rebellious army? Tearing down the grand
old flag our fathers reared is not unconstitu-
tional. But we hear nothing at .all about
these things. Mr. Lincoln is the grand une-
qualled villain, and Mr. Davis a saint of
light, in their estimation. |
It is this doctrine, the enforcement of which
at Frederick I believe in my honest heart
would have been established, but for the fact
that the gentlemen were awaiting events,
which did not transpire to their satisfaction ;
and the government at last felt that it was
bound for self-protection to do what it did.
All acts of violence receive at my hands
reprobation. I would that not one single
man in this State, or woman in this State or
land, bad been curtailed of liberty. I take no
pleasure in seeing any one incarcerated. I
cannot boast of it with any feeling of delight.
I would that all these scenes were passed
away. But who brought them upon us?
Not we who are hereto-day trying to support
the government of the United States, but
those who are in active rebellion, and those
who sympathize with the rebellion. Even if
this proposition had never been put into the
Constitution: even if we are mistaken in
supposing that this is a government of the
people, and that supreme sovereignty rests in
the national government, and a qualified sov-
ereignty in the State government. Yet the
very scenes our eyes now look out upon, the
very groans which make our hearts ache with
agony, compel me to believe that it would be
a wise thing and the best thing for Maryland
to inaugurate such an era in her history, and
say, as she said truly with all the induce-
ments and allurements and instigations pre-
sented to her to go with the South, that what-
ever the fate of this Union may be, she will
be with it forever, through good and through
ill report. [Applause,]
Mr. President, there never was, in my esti-
mation, a more flagrant violation of right
and propriety than that committed by gen-
tlemen of the Senate of Maryland and of the
House, when they as a committee stated to
Mr. ''President'' Davis, in Montgomery, his
then capital, that the people of Maryland
were enlisted with their whole hearts upon
the side of reconciliation and peace, and were
for the immediate recognition of the South-
ern Confederacy; to whom Mr. Davis replied
in the following terms: that he was glad
Mars land has held out her hands beseeching-
ly, and the cry has come up to him from
down-trodden, prostrate Maryland to come to
her relief; that she would be received with
open arms when she came, but the true policy
for him and his government was to be let
alone.
He has a strange plan of letting things
alone. We all knew that the people of Vir-
ginia, by a vote of 40,000 to 60,000, had re-
pudiated the rebellion heresy, and had said
they would have no part or parcel with the
rebellion, and it was only by the firing upon
Fort Sumter, arousing a wild sectional feel-
ing, and exercising the most merciless ty-
ranny and despotism, that she was ever
brought, or that her sisters were ever brought
to the point of the degradation which has |
