126 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [May 11,

The committee on the Militia, to whom was referred the
memorial of Tench Tilghman, of Talbot county, asking the
Legislature to enquire into the correctness of the allegation
contained in the proclamation of the Governor, issued on the
5th of May, 1861, viz : That the said Tench Tilghman does
not hold a lawful commission in the 2nd Division of the Ma-
ryland Militia ; and also to enquire whether a military officer
can be deprived of his commission by Executive Proclama-
tion, or in any other mode than by the sentence of a Court
Martial, beg leave to submit the following report:

That on the 27th day of July, 1860, a commission was
issued by the Governor of Maryland to Tench Tilghman, of
Talbot county, as Major General of the 2nd Division of Mary-
laud Militia. That on the 15th of August, 1860, the said
Tench Tilghman notified the Adjutant General, by letter, of
the acceptance of said commission. That the official oath
was endorsed on said commission at the request of General
Tilghman, by the Clerk of the Circuit Conrt for Talbot coun-
ty, and should have been administered by said officer ; but
owning to want of information on the part of said clerk, (in
common with many other officers of the State, both civil and
military,) in obedience to this requirement of the new Code,
said oath was taken before a Magistrate in accordance with
the previous custom in this State.

That on ascertaining the existence of that provision of the
Code, and before there had been any official objection to the
validity of his commission, viz : on the 23rd day of April
1861, the said Tilghman proceeded to qualify before the clerk,
and that the only informality in said commission consists in
the fact, that said qualification was not made within thirty
days after the said commission was received.

Your committee think that it was the duty of the clerk to
have known this provision, he being the officer by whom it
was to be administered, and who had been furnished by the
State with a copy of the Code—and that the said Tilghman
should not be held accountable for the want of such informa-
tion, as the law in reference to oaths had never been publish-
ed in the newspapers and was unknown at that time to -most
of the military and many of the civil officers of the State.

The Legislation of the State contains numerous instances
of the existence of similar defects and their correction by the
Legislature, the most recent of which is an act passed by this
body on the 10th of January, 1860, in reference to Levi Rice,
who had been elected a Commissioner in Allegany county,
and failed to qualify within the term required by law.