circumstances require peculiar action. The
gentleman spoke to us of the effect of its
examine; and I will quote an example. Under
an election held in the city of Baltimore in
the beginning of this rebellion, for members
of the Legislature, it was clearly expressed
by their newspapers, that "among arms
laws are silent," and the city of Baltimore
sent delegates, by a vote of secession sympa-
thizers to the Legislature, unauthorized by
law and in direct contravention of the provi-
sions of the laws of Maryland. They justi-
fied it, because Baltimore must be represented,
and there was no time in the emergency for
following out the letter of the law.
The gentleman, I think, forgets that to-
day Maryland is under martial law, and that
all that this Convention has done is to re-
quest that that martial law shall be exercised
in a particular way; to pay losses, which
there is no power in the general or the State
government legally to make good to those
Union people—for neither the State nor the
General Government has ever held itself lia-
ble to pay to citizens losses incurred in actual
warfare, and their property was not taken
by the State nor by the United States for
the public good, but was taken by bands of
marauders and thieves under the authority
of the Confederate States, who descended in
their petty thefts to rifling men's pocket
books and the trunks of women; and it was
a legalized robbery so far as robbery of that
kind can be legalized by a government which
is not at all recognized.
I moreover bold that any known sympa-
thizer with the rebellion in this State is by
that very fact cut off from the privilege of
any of our laws, I hold that any man in
this State who freely and openly expresses his
sympathy with the people in anna against
this State, has no claim to one single right un-
der our hill of rights, under our constitution,
or under any one of our legislative enactments.
He has voluntary and willingly cut himself
off from all his protection as a citizen. I
hold that we ought to have passed another
and more stringent order, similar to that
passed by this State during the Revolution,
that any man who expresses, clearly and de-
cidedly, sympathy with the rebellion and
the invasion of this State, should be put
without the limits of this State, never to re-
turn; just as I have always held that any
man in the Southern States who has raised
his arms to strike down this government , is
not entitled to any constitutional privilege;
that you hive a right to deal with him as
with a murderer on the highway, and shoot
him down.
I hold that any known sympathizer with
the rebellion, wherever the officers of the
United States may reach him, has no claim
to law or the forms of law. This order re-
lates only lo those who have by sympathy or
act favored the rebellion, and does not refer |
to members of this convention, every member
of which, upon taking his seat here, has
sworn that he has "never either directly or
indirectly, by word, act or deed, given any aid,
comfort or encouragement to those in rebel-
lion against the government of the United
States" Every member of this convention,
therefore, has purged himself of all that,
and to assess upon them would be contrary
to the very order which was introduced here
and passed by the convention.
But to tell me that this is improper for the
people of this State, in their collective ca-
pacity here, to say that the people who guided
those troops, the men that pointed out to
them your Governor's house, and the men
that signed the order for the burning of that
house, are entitled to be tried by their peers ;
to tell me that the men who pointed out in
that train Major General Franklin, and asked
them to take him into captivity, are entitled
to a trial of their peers I They are entitled
to a quick, short trial, and an easy death.
I want to say distinctly that my own con-
viction is that that order is right, and that
not one word in the bill of rights or the
constitution, in the slightest degree conflicts
with the propriety of that order. Mot a sin-
gle man touched by the terms of that order,
has any rights under that bill of rights, as a
citizen or resident of Maryland. I hold him
as an outcast before God and man. We have
the right to try him by any law, the quickest
that shall get rid of him. It is a question of
expediency whether this mode of assessing
these men would not be the most effectual
means of preventing these raids in the future.
When the trains went out from Memphis,
and were fired upon every day, what was the
most effectual means of protecting them ?
Not cannon; but all along the sides of the
engine known rebel sympathizers were sta-
tioned, and the trains went free from molest-
ation. If to-day the people in the State
knew that whenever a single sheaf of wheat
was taken, or a horse carried away, or
one of a herd of cattle disturbed, those who
invited them would be taxed for the aggres-
sive incursions of their rebel friends and
would have to foot the bill, I much question
whether you would not find them hurrying
to the BORDER=0 with arms in their hands, to
drive away what to them would be the most
dangerous of enemies, from coming into the
State.
I have heard of them in Baltimore city,
marching up and down our streets with smiles
upon their faces, and in their hands the list
that they had of the men in Baltimore, who
were to be assessed should the rebels come, a
list of ninety names footing up gome
$20,000,000, to be paid by the loyal citizens
of Baltimore when they should come in.
They marched out, and rode out with their
carriages and horses, to dine with the leader
of the rebel band. |
