14 MARYLAND MANUAL.

equipments. After the battle of Lexington, the Convention
prepared a declaration and pledge, declaring the purpose of
the people to resist force by force, and warlike preparations
went on rapidly. The militia was drilled and kept in
readiness; minute-men were enlisted, and Maryland's con-
tingent, known as the Maryland Line, placed at the disposi-
tion of Congress.

Governor Eden, finding that his presence in the colony
was worse than useless, left the province on June 24, 1776,
and the last phantom of proprietary government vanished.
Maryland was now a self-governed republic, and the Con-
vention emphasized the fact by issuing a formal Declaration
of Independence on the third of July.

The Convention had always recognized itself to be a
merely provisional government, uniting functions and
powers which in a free State should be kept distinct. It
therefore drew up a Bill of Eights and Constitution, to be
submitted to the people, and then abdicated its authority
by a simple adjournment, leaving the directions of affairs in
the hands of the Council of Safety, and thus the wisest and
most patriotic body that ever governed Maryland ceased to
exist

The Constitution provided for a government consisting
of a Governor and Council, a legislative body consisting of
a Senate and House of Delegates, and other inferior
executive officers. It was adopted by the people and rati-
fied at the elections. Thomas Johnson, the first elected
Governor, was inaugurated in March, 1777, and the Council
of Safety dissolved itself. Maryland thus became a sover-
eign and independent State, but she did not enter the Con-
federation until 1781, when she came in as the thirteenth
and last State.

After the successful close of the war, General Washington
resigned hie commission to Congress in the Senate Chamber
of the State House, at Annapolis, on December 22, 1783.

Maryland ratified the Federal Constitution, April 28,
1787, and entered the Federal Union, being the eighth
State in the ratification of that instrument.

In 1791 Maryland ceded to the United States the present
District of Columbia, to be the permanent seat of the
federal Government.