|
357] The Maryland Constitution of 1864. 11
President Lincoln, on March 6, 1862, sent in his mes-
sage urging a policy of compensated emancipation, and
it was approved by resolution of Congress on April 10.7
He had an interview on this subject with the delegations
from the border states on March 10, 1862, at which two
of the Maryland representatives were present—Cornelius
L. L. Leary and John W. Crisfield—but they gave him
little encouragement. A second interview, four months
later, was no more successful, the border states practically
declining to entertain his proposals.
"Little could be expected from the Maryland Union
representatives at that time in behalf of the President's
policy. They had been elected on June 13, 1861, by the
party organization which still reflected the conservatism
existing before the war, and whose single bond of party
affiliation was opposition to secession and disunion—a
condition of political sentiment at that time common to all
the border slave states and which was formulated by the
Crittenden resolution." 8
The bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia which finally, after much delay, passed Con-
gress in the month of April, 1862, served to show the peo-
ple of Maryland that the cause of emancipation was ad-
vancing, and that they must at once prepare to deal with it.
The Legislature of 1862, still showing the old suspicious
attitude of the slave-owners, who were always on the look-
out for anti-slavery measures, had already passed resolu-
tions of loyalty to the Union, but had also protested against
any agitation of the subject of emancipation. Hon.
Francis Thomas, of Maryland, on January 12, 1863,9 intro-
duced in Congress a resolution looking toward compen-
sated emancipation in Maryland, and a few days later a
7 House Journal, 37th Congress, 2d. Session, p. 528. Senate
Journal, p. 382.
8 Nicolay and Hay, "Life of Lincoln" (from which we have
largely drawn for this period), viii, 452-4.
9 House Journal, 37th Congress, 3rd Session, p. 186.
|
 |
