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on the last Wednesday of April (27th), 1864. Sixty-five delegates of the total of ninety-six were to be elected before the Convention assembled, and fifty members were necessary for a quorum. No delegate was to take his seat till he had taken before the Governor a certain stringent oath of loyalty. The compensation was five dollars a day and the mileage allowed members of the Legislature. A reporter of debates and proceedings was to be provided by the Convention. The Constitution and form of government adopted was to be submitted to the legal and qualified voters of the state "at such time, in such manner, and subject to such rules and regulations as said Convention may prescribe." In case of the adoption of the new Constitution, the Governor was to issue a proclamation to that effect, and take the necessary steps to put it into operation. At the elections provided, the tickets were to be printed on white paper, other ballots not to be received, and heavy penalties were imposed on those judges of election or other civil officers who failed to do their prescribed duty.

The campaign, in consequence of the above, began early. As the state had declared for emancipation by the previous fall election, the question now before the people was in regard to the form that this action was to take. The Unconditional Union party of the state boldly took its stand in favor of immediate emancipation without either compensation of slave-owners or "negro apprenticeship," and the election, in a great measure, favorably settled this as far as the people were concerned.

The Conservative Union State Central Committee, at a meeting held in Baltimore on December 16, 1863, led by Thomas Swann and John P. Kennedy, had declared for immediate emancipation in the manner easiest for master and slave, since the people had willed it at the last election. This evidently in large measure accounts for the fact that in Baltimore City and several counties there were merely "Union" candidates, with no opposition. In others of the counties, however, there were three tickets-" Uncon

ditional" and "Conservative" Union and Democratic. As in the previous election, the Democrats were not organized throughout the state, their nominations for Convention delegates being mainly in the lower counties. They had no candidates in Baltimore City, and those in Baltimore County were withdrawn before the election, leaving the Union nominees alone in the field. Wherever there were Democratic party organizations, they generally declared themselves opposed to emancipation on any terms." In fact, the declared tactics of those opposed to the Unconditional Union program were to delay the call of a Convention till "all the people of the state could vote," claiming that they would then defeat the movement. Failing that, they fought for compensation for slaves and some system of negro apprenticeship.

General Schenck had resigned his command soon after the election in the fall of 1863, in order to accept the seat in Congress to which he had been elected as a representative from Ohio. Brigadier-General Lockwood temporarily filled the position of commanding general till Major-General Lew Wallace was appointed to the command of the Middle Department on March 17, 1864.

General Wallace was, on the whole, more aggressive than General Schenck in the administration of his department, boldly taking his stand at the outset on the public declaration that a "rebel and a traitor had no political rights" whatever. However, on March 30, 1864, he wrote a letter to Governor Bradford, saying that he was anxious to frustrate the attempts of disloyal persons (some of them candidates) to vote on April 6, and asking if there were state laws and legislative action sufficient to prevent it. The Governor answered the next day, saying that the laws were entirely sufficient, if faithfully executed, as he had every reason to hope they would be, to exclude disloyal voters from the polls. Therefore General Wallace issued

Also see p. 63.

no general military orders like those of General Schenck, though he compelled Mr. E. G. Kilbourn, a candidate in Anne Arundel County, to withdraw on account of his questionable position in 1861 at the outbreak of the war. But like his predecessor, General Wallace also made the mistake of publicly showing his sympathy in the election, saying at an Unconditional Union mass-meeting at the Maryland Institute in Baltimore on April 1, 1864, that “so far as in him lay, the liberty-loving people of the good old state should have his assistance."

The Unconditional Union policy was a second time overwhelmingly victorious on April 6, 1864. The vote on the Convention was 31,593 "for," to 19,524 "against," a favorable majority of 12,069, but yet about 8000 less than Goldsborough's majority in November, 1863, although the total vote was about the same. The northern and western counties gave large majorities for the Convention, while the southern districts went heavily against it. In Baltimore City the vote was 9102 favorable, with only 87 opposed. This shows that some sort of intimidation must have been practiced," although the American stated that "the election proceeded very quietly in the city, perfect order being observed without even the shadow of military interference."

It appears that soldiers were well distributed throughout the state, either near the polls or within striking distance, but the cases of direct interference were not nearly so numerous, and were much more scattered than in the previous election," while there are even some records of fraud and

43

It was claimed that the total vote was only one-third the usual number hitherto cast. Debates i, 639.

45

"See Steiner's "Citizenship and Suffrage in Maryland," p. 42. Issue of April 7. It also urged that the small vote in the city was due to lack of organization, no opposition, and to no canvassing of candidates who were seeking office. See also "Sun," Nov. 7.

40 66

Sun," April 7; Annapolis "Republican" (quoted in "American," April 11); Frederick "Examiner," April 13; Debates i,

On the

outrage on the part of Southern sympathizers." whole, intimidation rather than violence was the cause of many citizens failing to vote. The judges of election reported only one case of military interference, that in the Rockville District of Montgomery County. A second election was held in this district according to the provisions of the Convention Bill, but as the total county vote had shown a sufficient Democratic majority to elect the three candidates on that ticket without any doubt, the final result was not much affected thereby.

Out of the total of 96 delegates elected, there were 61 Union men, nearly all pledged to unconditional emancipation, and 35 Democrats, coming mainly from the southern part of the state.

Governor Bradford, immediately upon the receipt of the official returns, issued a proclamation for the assembling of the Convention on Wednesday, April 27, 1864.

The first act of the emancipation drama was now complete. As we have attempted to show, the movement was aided more by the general policy of armed restraint exercised upon the Southern sympathizers of the state by the National Government since the beginning of the war, than by any of the above-mentioned instances of military interference. The radical Union program had been a success.

582, 639-40; ii, 915-6; iii, 1726, 1763. Scharf, "History of Maryland," iii, 579-80, gives an account of a most unfair system of challenging and questioning, aimed against those under suspicion of being Southern sympathizers. Also see Nelson, History of Baltimore," 551-2.

47

66

Frederick “Examiner," April 13; "Sun," April 7; "American," April 7, 8.

II.

The Convention met at the State House in Annapolis on Wednesday, April 27, 1864. Of the ninety-six members elected, eighty were present on the first day. The remaining sixteen, of whom fifteen were from the southern counties, appeared within the next week or two, with the exception of John F. Dent, of St. Mary's, who did not take his seat in the Convention till July 7, having been detained by illness in his family and other domestic causes.

It would have been difficult to have found at that time a more representative body of Maryland men, nearly all of them native-born to the state, with two striking exceptions -Henry Stockbridge, of Baltimore City, a native of Massachusetts, and Oliver Miller, of Anne Arundel, a native of Connecticut-who were prominent in the councils of the majority and minority respectively. The members from the southern part of the state in particular, were largely from the oldest and best known families of Maryland, and showed their conservatism in the fact that they formed the minority which not only opposed emancipation, but also nearly all other measures of reform introduced in the Convention.

Five of the members had been in the Convention of 1850-1 which had formed the old Constitution-Messrs. Chambers, Dennis, Dent, Lee and Ridgely—and J. S. Berry, of Baltimore County, had been Speaker of the House of Delegates of the "Know Nothing" Legislature of 1858, and at this time held the office of Adjutant-General of the Messrs. Goldsborough, Smith of Carroll, Briscoe and Dennis had been members of the celebrated "Frederick Legislature" of 1861, the two former as pronounced

1

1

1 Suppressed by the military authorities.

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