Clothed with the authority to see that the laws are executed
throughout the entire State, I cannot comprehend how the city
of Baltimore or its Mayor recognizes no subordination to the
State Executive His power is created by the Constitution, that
organic instrument also defines his duties. Has the Mayor of
Baltimore any co-ordinate position in that charter, or are not his
authority and that of his city the mere endowments of ordinary
legislation?

I am mortified and pained to notice that spirit in a municipal
agent of government, which if generally adopted, would sub-
vert the whole theory of our institutions, and end in jealous rival-
ries among the chain of officials.

Under your view, it would seem that any officer of a muni-
cipality elected by the people became by that circumstance subor-
dinate to no one, and only accountable to them for the manner
in which "he" discharged "his trust."

I will not now indulge in any protracted repetition of an error
which must rather be the growth of official sensibility than of
mistaken conceptions of constitutional position. The natural
sequel of such an error is the further implication that my powers
and duties are to be initiated into activity by the discretion of
municipal subordinates. Do you thus await the application of
your subordinates? If not, why? Simply because you are
sworn to see the laws executed, and whilst in general you con-
fide in the fulfilment of their duties, you still hold in reserve
those powers of supervision, which are made necessary by the
fact that these subordinates may not recognise their own defaults,
and their serious bearing on the general welfare.

Is not the city filled with clubs of lawless and violent parti-
zans, whose very appellatives brandish defiance at order, and
make the peaceable prefer to surrender rights rather than claim
them at the risk of life. Sir: is there no law and no authority
somewhere to curb the one class and shield the other? If the
ordinary civil power of the city is insufficient, what is the inevi-
table deduction? Is it not better that you should admit its inade-
quacy, and be cordially grateful that the constitution has sup-
plied other powers, and permitted for your aid that executive to
interfere who has not been at all complicated in past animositirs.

You mention in your communication that one of your police-
men was "murdered" at the recent election. What guarantee is
there that a similar occurrence may not happen again at the ap-
proaching election, unless more adequate arrangements are pre-
pared for the suppression of lawlessness. I have not come here
to empower assaults upon your police, but to protect them, and
invigorate every arm that will be sincerely extended in behalf of
individual security and constitutional liberty. And I feel that it
is a circumstance of just mortification, that a State Executive who
has repaired to a city in which the press has not hesitated to de-

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