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Proceedings of the Senate, April Special Session 1861
Volume 429, Page 70   View pdf image (33K)
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70 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [May 6,

circumstances that rendered necessary the extraordinary incidents
accompanying the passage of Federal troops through Maryland, en
route to the city of Washington, and especially in reference to
those acts of the authorities of the city of Baltimore which arrested
the progress of the troops by the railroads leading from Penn-
sylvania and Delaware into Maryland, and of the opposition to
the landing of the troops subsequently at Annapolis by the Gov-
ernor of the State; and in connection with this action of the
authorities of the State, the hostile feeling manifested by the
people to the passage of these troops through Maryland, was
considered and treated with entire frankness by the undersigned,
who, while acknowledging all the legal obligations of the State
to the Federal Government, set forth fully the strength of sym-
pathy felt by a large portion of our people for our Southern
brethren in the present crisis.

Although many of the incidents and circumstances referred to
were regarded in different lights by the undersigned and the
Federal Government, even to the extent of a difference of opinion
as to some of the facts involved, yet in regard to the general
principles at issue, a concurrence of opinion was reached.

The President concurred with the undersigned in opinion,
that so long as Maryland had not taken, and was not about
taking a hostile attitude to the Federal Government, that the
exclusive military occupation of her ways of communication, and
the seizure of the property of her citizens, would be without
justification, and what has been referred to in this connection so
tar as it occurred, was treated by the Government as an act of
necessity or self-preservation.

The undersigned did not feel themselves authorized to enter
into any engagements or arrangements with the Federal Gov-
ernment to induce it to change its relations to the State of
Maryland, considering it proper under the circumstances to
leave the entire discretion and responsibility of the existing state
of things to that Government, making such representations as
they deemed proper to vindicate the moral and legal aspects of
the question; and especially insisting on its obligation to relieve
the State promptly from restraint and indignity; and to abstain
from all action in the transportation of troops that can be re-
garded as intended for chastisement or prompted by resentment.

The undersigned are not able to indicate to what extent or in
what degree the Executive discretion will be exercised in modi-
fying the relations which now exist between the State of Mary-
land and the Federal Government, and in the particular mailer
of the commercial communication between the city of Baltimore
and other parts of the country, brought to the attention of the
General Assembly by the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore;
but they feel authorized to express the opinion that some modi-


 

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Proceedings of the Senate, April Special Session 1861
Volume 429, Page 70   View pdf image (33K)
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