But protesting against the effort to deprive me
of an inalienable right, entertaining as I do the
profoundest contempt for that policy which
would build up its supporters by such un-
worthy means, I am forced to the alternative
of either surrendering all my rights of fran-
chise, or else take this oath of paramount al-
legiance which prescribes my political opin-
ion. After the argument I have presented as
to the nature of an oath, no one will doubt
what course duty will point out for me to
pursue.
Then away with your oaths, which but
cumber up a constitution, which violate the
first principles of good government and jus-
tice, upon which men entered into society,
which are contrary to the spirit and genius
of our institutions and only intended to en-
trap the unwary and deprive good men of
their rights. And with it down with this
watch-word of party, "loyalty," in whose
name and behalf more injustice has been done,
more crime committed, than ever the bloodi-
est tyrant conceived of before,
If loyalty means to obey the constitution of
the United States and of this State, and the
laws made in pursuance thereof, then the con-
stituency whom I have the honor in part to
represent, are among the most loyal of the
land, if to cherish the declaration of inde-
pendence, baptized by the blood of our revolu-
tionary sires—if to reverence and plead for
the sacred provisions of our old bill of rights,
be an evidence of loyalty, then we challenge
comparison with the most scrupulous. But
if, on the contrary, to laugh and scoff at all
that it cost our ancestors so much of privation
and bloodshed to establish—if to adopt the
maxim that the end sanctifies the means—if
to violate all the rights both of person and
property, be prerequisites to constitute one of
these latter-day loyalists, then I am thankful
to say I represent the views of no such people.
We are a peace-loving, law-abiding people.
We are in favor of everybody having his
rights, without fear or favor. We are for the
constitution and the laws made in pursuance
thereof, first, last, and all the time. And if
the Union cannot be restored but by the
slaughter of whole hecatombs of our friends
and relatives, and the devastation of their en-
tire country, and the bankruptcy of our own,
(and we verily believe it cannot, ) then we are
for peace on the terms of separation and State
equality, if this be not loyalty, make the
most of it,
As germain to the subject, let us inquire
why it is that the bastiles of the United
States have been crowded from the beginning
of this war with prisoners, not of war but
State prisoners? Well may the American
blush when asked if his constitution has been
repealed—if those provisions prohibiting the
suspension of the habeas corpus act, and pro-
hibiting general search warrant, guarantee-
ing a republican form of government to each |
State, and the trial by jury, and reserving
to the States respectively, all those rights not
expressly delegated to the general govern-
ment or denied to the States, have been blotted
out of his political vocabulary.
1 will not say, like Seneca of old, that the
noblest spectacle which God can behold is a
virtuous man suffering and struggling with
afflictions; but this I will say, that the second
Cato, driven out of the forum and dragged to
prison, enjoyed more inward pleasure, and
maintained more outward dignity, than they
who insulted him, and who triumphed in
the ruin of their country,
I hope I shall never see the time when not
only a single person, but a whole country,
and, in effect, the entire collective body of the
people, may again be robbed of their birth-
right by a proclamation of the President, or
a vote of Congress, or the order of a military
commander.
In the name of loyalty all this is done; in
the name of loyalty your prisons to-day over-
flow; in the name of loyalty the spirit of
the constitution is violated, its essence de-
stroyed, to preserve its mutilated form; in
the name of loyalty civil liberty is put to the
torture. Does not every Marylander re-
member that the gallant secretary who boasts
that sitting in his seat at Washington he can,
by a touch of his bell, cause the prison doors
to fly open or close up in the remotest parts
of the United States, did, by an exercise of
this despotic power, insult the dignity and
usurp the sovereignty of this proud common-
wealth in the persons of those members of
her legislature, whom he sentenced to dun-
geons on a mere suspicion? Does not every
body remember the fate of Carmichael, that
pure and upright judge, whom neither taunts,
nor threats, nor jibes, nor military violence,
could drive from or cause to swerve in the line
of duty? A man whom the good people of this
State will delight to honor) and whose mem-
ory will be most fragrant, when his perse-
cutors will have been forgotten forever, or
else only remembered to be execrated. Does
not every Marylander remember with scorn
and detestation, and a burning feeling of re-
venge, how the bloodhounds of detraction
hunted the footsteps of one of Maryland's
most gifted and favorite sons, Henry May,
and at last, when they could find no act ap-
proximating treason upon his part, from fear
of his persuasive eloquence and forcible pre-
sentation of the truth, the gallant secretary
seized his person and confided him to the
filthy casemate of a fortress, until his health
had so far given way, that his life was in
danger? Do we not all, each one of us re-
member some innocent, inoffensive, upright
citizen, dragged from his home, his business,
his weeping and almost heart-broken wife and
children, to some prison and there confined
for weeks, nay months, without ever bearing
of the nature of the charge against him; and |
