10               The Maryland Constitution of 1864.            [356

and there was no standard which could be appealed to as
fixing the value of the slave as property. Maryland was
neither a slave nor a free state."⁵

Among the many reasons for this state of affairs may
be mentioned, first of all, the fact that the radical wing of
the Republican party, which now largely favored emanci-
pation, had almost complete control of the National Gov-
ernment, and practical control of the Maryland state gov-
ernment as well, through the presence of the armed mili-
tary and the provost-marshals. Also, by the state of semi-
anarchy which always accompanies a war waged near by,
the social and industrial orders were almost paralyzed in
Maryland, and legal remedies were more slow and uncer-
tain. Again, the Federal forces regularly seized slaves,
either for enlistment or for bodily labor in connection with
the forts or supply departments, and they refused to return
them (or even runaway slaves), to their masters. These
facts are more than enough to explain the demoralized con-
dition of slavery.

Although useless for all practical purposes, this institu-
tion was by no means dead politically, as following events
will show. The people of Maryland were born and bred
during its life and strongest influence, so that it was hard
for many of them to realize the fact of its practical annihila-
tion. In addition, they desired, if slavery must go, to pro-
cure some return for their lost property.

In an aggregate population of 687,000 in 1860, there
were 83,942 free negroes and 87,189 slaves. The number
of slave-owners was estimated at about 16,000, though
many of these owned only one or two slaves.⁶ A state
with so nearly a numerical equality between free negroes
and slaves, offered an excellent opportunity for pushing a
policy of emancipation, and this opportunity the emancipa-
tion advocates were not slow to seize.

⁵ Inaugural address of Governor Swann, Jan. 11, 1865.
⁶ "Debates," i, 616.