14               The Maryland Constitution of 1864,            [360

The fall campaign of 1863 was the first general state
election since 1861, and hence the first opportunity for
radicalism to try its strength since the general Union
Party victory when Governor Bradford was elected. A
Comptroller of the Treasury, a Commissioner of the Land
Office, five members of Congress, a State Legislature and
local officials were to be elected. A mass-meeting was
held under the auspices of the Union League at the Mary-
land Institute, Baltimore, on April 20, 1863, which de-
clared for emancipation throughout those parts of the
country in rebellion, according to President Lincoln's
proclamation of September 22, 1862, and for compensated
emancipation in Maryland, according to the President's
recommendation of March 6, 1862. Governor Bradford
presided at this meeting and also addressed it, as did Hon.
Montgomery Blair, ex-Governor Hicks, and other prom-
inent Union men.

The State Central Committee, appointed by the Union
State Convention of May 23, 1861, still controlled the
party machinery, and was far too conservative to carry out
the radical program. At this juncture the Union Leagues
of the state stepped in, and in a convention held in Balti-
more on June 16, 1863, over which Henry Stockbridge
presided, boldly took their stand as "supporting the whole
policy of the Government in suppressing the Rebellion."
This of course included emancipation. The convention
adjourned over till June 23, for which date the State Cen-
tral Committee had called the regular State Convention of
the Union party.

Both conventions met in Baltimore on the same day
and in the same building—the "Temperance Temple" on
North Gay Street.

The Central Committee Convention, refusing the Union
League overtures looking toward a subsequent "fusion"
convention, nominated S. S. Maffitt, of Cecil County, for
Comptroller, and William L. W. Seabrook, of Frederick
County, for Commissioner of the Land Office. The