Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States

MARYLAND

MARYLAND, a state of the American Union. The patent for its territory was first applied for by Sir George Calvert, "baron of Baltimore," and after his death was made out to his son and heir, Cecil, June 20, 1632. Calvert at first intended that it should be called "Crescentia"; but the patent gave it the name of "Terra Mariae, Anglice Maryland," by which latter name it has since been known. The name was given in honor of Henrietta Maria, Charles I.'s queen. The proprietorship remained in the Calvert family until its extinction, with the exception of the period 1691-1715, when the crown made Maryland a royal colony because of the asserted disloyalty of the proprietor. In 1771 the last Calvert died, leaving the province to his illegitimate son, Henry Hartford; but the revolution which immediately followed put an end to his proprietorship.

—BOUNDARIES. The charter gave the colony as a northern boundary the 40th parallel of north latitude; as an eastern boundary Delaware bay and the ocean; as a southern boundary a due east line from Watkin's point to the ocean; and as a western boundary the "Pattowmack" river to its "first fountain," and thence due north by a true meridian. The grant, therefore, evidently embraced the whole of the modern state of Delaware, and a wide strip of southern Pennsylvania, including the city of Philadelphia. Penn claimed the parallel of 39° as "the beginning of the parallel of 40°," which was to be his southern boundary; and disputed Baltimore's claim to Delaware, since the Maryland patent was for "uncultivated lands," and Delaware was already settled by the Swedes. Penn's influence with Charles II. obtained a verdict in his favor from the board of trade in 1685, but the Baltimore family did not finally submit until 1766. In that year the two proprietors sent Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two English surveyors, who marked off "Mason and Dixon's line," as decided by the board of trade, placing at the end of each mile a stone with the letter P and the Penn arms on the north side, and the letter M and the Baltimore arms on the south side. (See PENNSYLVANIA. DELAWARE). The southern boundary was settled with Virginia in 1668; but in 1858 the commissioners appointed to restore it found that it had not been drawn due east, varying slightly to the north. Maryland, however, did not attempt to change the ancient line. On the west, Maryland always claimed the south branch as the true origin of the Potomac; but Virginia has successfully maintained the north branch as the boundary, though the question has never been formally settled.

—CONSTITUTIONS. The colony was established as a refuge for Roman Catholics, but absolute toleration was given from the first settlement to the religious beliefs of all settlers. From 1691 until the revolution the Protestants were strong enough to disfranchise the Roman Catholics. The charter was also careful to secure the organization of a popular assembly, which shared the government of the colony. The first constitution was framed by a convention at Annapolis, Aug. 14-Nov. 11, 1776, and was not submitted to popular vote. The right of suffrage was given to freemen over twenty-one, having a freehold of fifty acres, of £30 in property. The legislature was to be composed of a senate and a house of delegates. (See ASSEMBLY.) Delegates were to be chosen annually, four from each county, two from Annapolis, and two from Baltimore; and were to have £500 in property. There were to be fifteen senators, nine from the eastern shore, and six from the western shore, who were to be chosen by electors chosen by the people, and were to be owners of £1,000 in property. They were to serve five years. The governor was to be chosen annually by the legislature on joint ballot, with a council of five. The choice of the capital was left to the legislature, which selected Annapolis. In 1810 an amendment abolished property qualifications for office, and gave the right of suffrage to white males over twenty-one, on one year's residence. In 1837 several amendments were made. The constitution of the senate was abolished, and a new apportionment of delegates was made; twenty-one senators were now to be chosen, one from each county and one from Baltimore; the governor was made elective by the people; and the legislature was empowered to abolish slavery, with compensation to owners, provided the necessary act should be passed unanimously by both houses of two successive legislatures, with three months' publication between.

—The second constitution was framed by a convention at Annapolis, Nov. 4, 1850-May 13, 1851, and ratified by popular vote June 4, 1851. Its principal changes were as follows: the governor was to hold office for four years, senators for four years, and delegates for two years; a new apportionment of delegates was made; and the legislature was to create corporations by general laws, never to grant state and to corporations, and never to abolish slavery.

—The third constitution was framed by a convention at Annapolis, April 27-Sept. 16, 1864, and was ratified, Oct. 12-13, 1864, by the following close vote; in favor, home vote 27,541, soldiers' vote 2,633; against, home vote 29,536, soldiers' vote 263; majority in favor, 375. It declared the paramount allegiance of the citizen to be due to the government and constitution of the United States; abolished slavery, forbade compensation to owners by the legislature; made a new apportionment of delegates according to population, disfranchised all persons who had borne arms against the United States or had even "expressed a desire for the triumph of enemies over the arms of the United States"; and applied the disfranchisement clause to the vote on the new constitution itself.

—The fourth constitution was framed by a convention at Annapolis, May 8 - Aug. 17, and ratified by popular vote, Sept. 18, 1867. It omitted the disfranchisement clauses, and instead of the "paramount allegiance" clause used the "supreme law" clause of the federal constitution. (Art. VI., ¶ 2.)

—GOVERNORS. Thomas Johnson, 1777-9; Thomas Sim Lee, 1779-82; Wm. Paca, 1782-5; Wm. Smallwood, 1785-8; John Eager Howard, 1788-91, George Plater, 1791-2; Thomas Sim Lee, 1792-4; John H. Stone, 1794-7; John Henry, 1797-8, Benj. Ogle, 1798-1801; John Francis Mercer, 1801-3; Robert Bowie, 1803-6; Robert Wright, 1806-9; Edward Lloyd, 1809-11; Robert Bowie, 1811-12; Levin Winder, 1812-15; Charles Ridgely, 1815-18; Charles Goldsborough, 1818-19; Samuel Sprigg, 1819-22; Samuel Stevens, Jr. 1822-5; Joseph Kent, 1825-8; Daniel Martin, 1828-9; Thomas King Carroll, 1829-30; Daniel Martin, 1830-31; George Howard, 1831-2, Jas. Thomas, 1832-5; Thomas W. Veazey, 1835-8; Wm Grayson, 1838-41; Francis Thomas, 1841-4; Thos. G. Pratt, 1844-7; Philip Francis Thomas, 1847-50; Enoch L. Lowe, 1850-54; Thos, Watkins Ligon, 1854-7; Thos, Holladay Hicks, 1857-61; Augustus W. Bradford, 1861-5. Thos. Swann, 1865-7, Oden Bowie, 1867-71; Wm. Pinkney Whyte, 1871-5; John Lee Carroll, 1875-9; Wm. T. Hamilton, 1879-83.

—POLITICAL HISTORY. From the first organization of political parties in the United States, Maryland was a very reliably federalist state. In this she seems to have been influenced, at least in part, by the general feeling of opposition to the politics of her neighboring state of Virginia, which was the rule until 1860, and which, indeed, seems to have been inherited from colonial times. The federalist control of the state lasted until 1802, but sometimes by a precarious tenure. In 1797 the legislature was so evenly divided that, while the democrats elected the governor, the federalists elected a United States senator, to succeed the new governor, by a majority of one. With the beginning of the century the current turned the other way. The democrats elected the presidential electors and a majority of the lower house in 1800, a majority of the whole legislature in 1801, and a majority of both houses and of the congressmen in 1802. The democratic control of the state brought about the widening of the right of suffrage in 1810, referred to above. It was preceded by an enlargement of the right of suffrage by statute, which was passed early in 1802 after a two years' resistance by the federalist senate, and then only after an implied threat of a convention to revise the constitution, and abolish the electoral character of the senate. Presidential electors were chosen by districts, and the federalists secured two of the eleven electors in 1804 and 1808, and five in 1812.

—July 26-27, 1812, occurred the Hanson riots in Baltimore, occasioned by Hanson's persistence in publishing a federalist newspaper, "The Federal Republican," there. The mob sacked the office, and killed or cruelly beat twenty-five or thirty persons who defended it. Among these was the partisan leader "light-horse Harry" Lee, of the revolutionary army, who was crippled for life. The feeling, which this affair aroused, restored the state to the federalists in the October election of the same year. Their majority in the lower house was so large as to more than offset a unanimously democratic senate, chosen the previous year. The federalist control lasted until the extinction of the party, with occasional democratic successes. As a general rule, however, the federalists were in a popular minority, and their control of the state was due to the features of the state constitution, which gave the growing city of Baltimore but half as much influence in the legislature as the weakest of the counties.

—The growth of Baltimore and the western counties made the electoral constitution of the senate very unpopular, but the minority resisted all attempts to change it until 1837, when the amendments referred to under the first constitution above were adopted. These reforms were forced by the refusal of the democratic senatorial electors to qualify and form a quorum in 1836, and by an attempt, June 6, 1836, of a popular convention of Baltimore and other counties to call a convention to revise the constitution, "without the aid of the legislature." The attempt created great excitement, but was never brought to an open election for the proposed convention.

—From 1820 until 1852 the popular majority in the state was anti-democratic in every presidential election, though the district system of choosing electors gave Jackson seven of the eleven in 1824. The majority, however, was never large; in 1832 it was but four out of nearly 40,000 votes. During the same period the legislatures were very steadily whig, and consequently the United States senators, and the governors until 1837, were of that party. After 1837, when the election of governor was given to the people, there was but one whig governor chosen, Thos. G. Pratt. In the presidential election of 1852 the democrats carried the state. After the destruction of the whig party in 1854-5 its Maryland organization, taking the name of the American party, controlled the state until 1859, electing the governor, United States senator, four of the six congressmen, and a majority of the legislatures, and casting the electoral vote of the state for Fillmore in 1856. (See AMERICAN PARTY.) In 1859 the democrats obtained a majority of both houses of the legislature, and in 1860 they secured the electoral vote of the state for Breckinridge, but only by a very narrow plurality over Bell, (See CONSTITUTIONAL UNION PARTY )

—At the outbreak of the rebellion in 1860-61, the addition of Maryland to the southern confederacy was warmly desired by the leaders of the secession movement, in order thus to bring Washington city within the pale and into the possession of the confederacy, and make the new government, in the eyes of foreign nations, at least the de facto successor of the government of the United States. This desire was shared by many of the state's democratic politicians, who had long been used to the idea of secession as an antidote to abolition, and by many of the younger men. These two classes brought a strong pressure to bear on Gov. Hicks, to induce him to call a special session of the legislature, without which no state convention was constitutionally possible. The governor refused to convene the legislature, and asserted that all the arrangements had already been made to force an ordinance of secession through the proposed convention.

—This excitement, however, as in other southern states, was almost entirely confined to the politicians; the people, except in the extreme southern counties, were almost unanimously against secession. The feeling, indeed, was not based upon a disbelief in the right of secession (see ALLEGIANCE, II.), so much as on economic reasons, such as the inevitable transfer of the war from Virginia to Maryland, and the immediate loss of $50,000,000 in slave property, but its existence, from whatever cause, can not be doubted, nor should it be denied the fair credit for its results. Any reader can easily estimate the increased probability of European recognition which would have followed a secession of Maryland in February, 1861, the irruption of rebel troops over her territory, and the inauguration of the confederate government in Washington instead of in Montgomery.

—The fall of Sumter, the president's call for troops, and the armed conflict in Baltimore (see REBELLION) so moved the disaffected classes that they had actually issued an unauthorized call for a meeting of the legislature at Baltimore, when the governor anticipated it by summoning the legislature to meet at Frederick, a more loyal city, April 26. When this body met, it was found to be unionist, but more from policy than from principle: in the house of delegates a motion looking toward secession was rejected by a vote of fifty-three to thirteen, and a resolution condemning the war against the south was carried by a vote of forty-three to twelve. In September, 1861, a large number of the members were subjected to military arrest (see HABEAS CORPUS), on strong suspicions of secessionist intentions, and the session came to an abrupt end. The governor, in his message to the new legislature, a strongly unionist body, which met Dec. 3, 1861, expressed his own and the popular condemnation of the dispersed legislature for "passing treasonable resolutions," "squandering the people's money," and "trying to plunge us into the vortex of secession."

—Throughout the war the state's congressional representation was unanimously unionist, the pro-southern members of the legislature were a very meagre minority, and even when rebel armies entered the state for its "redemption," their reception was so chilling that they finally treated Maryland as enemy's territory. Nevertheless the early neutral attitude of the state, and particularly the Baltimore riots of 1861, influenced the other loyal states to see with comparative indifference a continuance of military arrests and confiscations in Maryland which is still remembered there with some bitterness. One result of this régime was the adoption of the constitution of 1864. (See ABOLITION, III.) Its disfranchising clauses, which the convention assumed to apply to the vote on the constitution itself, awoke general opposition, and in the next constitution were omitted. The memories of this period have since made Maryland very steadily democratic. In 1868, after the remission of disfranchisement by the constitution of 1867, the legislature became unanimously democratic, and in 1882 the republican vote is but ten out of twenty-six in the senate, and thirty out of eighty-four in the house of delegates. In the Frederick congressional district, however, the republican vote has continued strong; in 1874 and 1876 it was only beaten by seventy-eight and fourteen votes respectively out of about 30,000, and in 1878 and 1880 it elected its candidate, who has been the only republican congressman in the state since 1868.

—Chief Justice Taney, and Henry Winter Davis (see those names) are the most prominent Maryland names in our national political history. Among the other leaders of state politics have been the following: Charles Carroll, "of Carrollton," one of the early revolutionary leaders, a signer of the declaration of independence, United States senator (federalist) 1789-92; Samuel Chase, a signer of the declaration, supreme court justice 1796-1811 (see IMPEACHMENTS, III.); J. A. J. Creswell, postmaster general under Grant; Chas. W. Goldsborough, federalist representative 1805-17, and governor 1818-19; Alexander C. Hanson, federalist representative 1813-17, and United States senator 1817-19; Robert G. Harper, United States senator in 1816 (see SOUTH CAROLINA); Reverdy Johnson, whig United States senator 1845-9, attorney general under Taylor, democratic United States senator 1863-8, and minister to England 1868-9; Wm. Cost Johnson, whig representative 1833-5 and 1837-43; John P. Kennedy, whig representative 1838-9 and 1841-5, and secretary of the navy under Fillmore; Joseph Kent, federalist representative 1811-15 and 1819-26, governor 1826-9, and whig United States senator 1833-7; Philip B. Key, federalist representative 1807-13, Edward Lloyd, federalist representative 1806-9, governor 1809-11, United States senator 1819-26, and president of the state senate 1826-31; Luther Martin, at first the leading anti-federalist of his state, but afterward one of the most distinguished federalist lawyers of the country (see BURR, AARON); Wm. Vans Murray, federalist representative 1791-7, and minister to the Netherlands 1797-1801 (see X. Y. Z MISSION): William Pinkney, minister to Great Britain 1806-11, attorney general under Madison, democratic representative in 1816, minister to Russia 1816-18, and United States senator 1820-22; Thos. Swann, democratic governor 1865-7, and representative 1869-79; Francis Thomas, democratic representative 1831-41, governor 1841-4, republican representative 1861-9, and minister to Peru 1872-5; Wm. Pinkney Whyte, democratic United States senator 1868-9, governor 1871-5, and United States senator 1875-81.

—See Bozman's History of Maryland (to 1660); 1 Poore's Federal and State Constitutions; Neill's Terra Marial; 4 Griffith's Early History of Maryland; J. Dunlop's Memoir of the Penn-Baltimore Controversy (in 1 Penn Hist. Soc. Mem., Part 1); Latrobe's History of Mason and Dixon's Line; Veech's History of Mason and Dixon's Line; Hinkley's Maryland Constitution of 1867; Documents accompanying Governor's Messages, Jan. 1, 1864, and Jan. 1, 1865; McSherry's History of Maryland (to 1848); Scharff's Chronicles of Baltimore (1873); Onderdonk's History of Maryland (to 1867); Goldsborough's Maryland Line in the Confederate States Army (1869); Tuckerman's Life of J. P. Kennedy; Wheaton's Life of Pinkney; Pinkney's Life of Pinkney; Tyler's Life of Taney; Scharff's History of Maryland (1879).

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.