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may have led to the general error abroad. But notwithstanding
that it was followed by the proclamation itself, the assertion was
maintained with a pertinacity of which truth itself alone is worthy.
And grave dissertations based upon this false assumption, flourish-
ed in the press of other States, and were copied into those of our
own without a word of contradiction, while journals of Maryland
continued their iteration of the falsehood to the last. In all this,
added to the most malignant personality, there is a humiliating
illustration, of the licentiousness, in contradistinction to the liberty
of the press.

Martial law subjects a community exclusively to the dominion
of military authority. To declare this law in civil communities
is to supercede all civil authority, to establish in the place of the
ordinary tribunals of justice, courts martial for the trial of all of-
fenders whose proceedings are conducted exclusively under mili-
tary supervision and control. The power to declare martial law
is not vested in the Executive of the State of Maryland and its
exercise was never for a moment a matter of the slightest contem-
plation . What was done in Baltimore is a matter of even frequent
occurrence. That it shall not become still more so, is a matter for
the corrective influence of the people themselves. Nor was this
the first time that I have been called to Baltimore to authorize the
employment of military force. As recently as the spring of the
present year it became my duty to employ the services of the mili-
tary for the defence of the property of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail
Road Company, and the suppression of an organized mob upon
the line of the road beyond the limits of the city. At that time no
whisper was heard of martial law; on the contrary, so general was
the sense of the necessity for the employment of military force,
that I have yet to learn of opposition from any quarter whatever.
Even the Board of Directors of that company, not remarkable for
general concurrence of opinion, was represented to me as a unit
upon that question.

A frivolous objection has been urged to military preparation in
advance of an actual outbreak of violence. This is a thing so com-
mon as to preclude argument about it; in fact the Constitutional
power vested in the Executive to enforce the execution of the laws
would be an absurdity without it, and implies the duty of abun-
dant preparation. I may instance the fact, that in our own State,
a military force was sent a few years ago, from the city of Balti-
more, to one of the counties to prevent a prize fight. The Gov-
ernors of States are constantly in the habit of guarding the jails
with a military force, when there is danger or even threats of sum-
mary punishment of criminals by popular violence. In some
cases convicts have been guarded by military force, until the day
and act of execution was over, to protect them against a mob.
And I saw but a few clays since an account of the execution of a
malefactor upon which occasion an Artillery company was parad-