Maryland

“ I can't think of a more desolate place than they had in Maryland, by their own account;—a great, dismal house, without chick or child in it for years and years;—full of rooms and furniture and black people, and nowhere the shout and cry of a baby. ”

“ Therefore Maryland grew and prospered without those bitter memories which in New England and in Virginia separated class from class and divided neighbor from neighbor. And whenever their neighbors on the south side of the Potomac were harassed by the savages on their borders, the Marylanders were prompt and generous in spending life, blood, and treasure in their defense. There never was an Indian war in Maryland. ”

“ MARYLAND was the first Proprietary colony established in America; and its charter contained a more ample grant of power than was bestowed upon any other English colony. To Maryland also belongs the honor of having been the first government which proclaimed and practised religious toleration. The charter was granted in 1632, by Charles I., to Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore. But the true founder of Maryland was George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, a man of singular merit, whose influence upon the fortunes of the colony was such that his character and career belong to its history. ”

“ Maryland, under the Baltimores, was the sole colony that not only admitted convicts, but welcomed them. The labor of the branded hand of the malefactor, the education and accomplishments of the social outcast, the acquirements and skill of the intemperate or over-competed tradesman, all were welcome to the Maryland tobacco-planters; and the possibilities of rehabilitation of fortune, health, reputation, or reëstablishment of rectitude, made the custom not unwelcome to the convict or to the redemptioner. ”

“ Henceforth the story of Maryland is sad to the last degree, only relieved by the gallant men who left their homes to fight the battle of State rights when Maryland no longer furnished them a field on which they could maintain the rights their fathers left them. ”

“ The position of Maryland upon the Chesapeake, the Potomac, the Susquehanna, and Atlantic, is most commanding. She surrounds the Capitol. It was her own noble donation, and she is its natural guardian and sentinel. Her waters, cutting the Blue mountains and the Alleghany, flow into the Atlantic and Mississippi, thus making her an eastern and a western State. Throughout all her borders, not a citizen would lose anything by the change proposed, but all would be enriched. Take down the barriers of slavery, and a new and unprecedented current of population and capital would flow into the State. ”

“ I begin with Maryland, because, in proportion to her area, she has greater natural advantages than any one of the thirty-four States, and, if the comparison with the free States is most unfavorable to her, it will be more so as to any other Southern State, as the census shows that, from 1790 to 1860, and from 1850 to 1860, Maryland increased in population per square mile more rapidly than any other slaveholding State. ”

“ Then the wan face of Maryland, haggard and worn,
At that sight, lost the touch of its aspect forlorn,
And she turned on the Foeman full statured in scorn,
Pointing stern to the River.
And Potomac flowed calm, scarcely heaving her breast,
With her low-lying billows all bright in the west,
For the hand of the Lord lulled the waters to rest
Of the fair rolling River.
Passed! passed! the glad thousands march safe through the tide. ”

“ Maryland is considered the most fertile portion of North America, and it were to be wished that it was also the most healthy, though it is more healthy than its neighbor, Virginia, which has to give passage by water through the great bay of ——, [232] to Maryland. It is also very rich in fish as well as in all kinds of water fowl. There are few Indians in comparison with the extent of country. When the English first discovered and settled Virginia and Maryland, they did great [wrong] to these poor people, and almost exterminated them. ”

“ Maryland In Maryland there was little reason why the people should wish for a change of government, save through their honourable sympathy with the general interests of the United Colonies. Not only was the proprietary government deeply rooted in the affections of the people, but Robert Eden, the governor holding office at this particular time, was greatly loved and respected. Maryland had not been insulted by the presence of troops. She had not seen her citizens shot down in cold blood like Massachusetts, or her chief city laid in ashes like Virginia ”

“ This, citizens of Maryland, is our mission, so far as you are concerned. No constraint upon your free will is intended; no intimidation will be allowed within the limits of this army, at least. Marylanders shall once more enjoy their ancient freedom of thought and speech. We know no enemies among you, and will protect all, of every opinion. ”

“ Lord Baltimore did not himself go to America, but sent his brother, Leonard Calvert, as Governor. Maryland was not founded like the Puritan colonies for religious purposes, but like New Hampshire, merely for trade and profit. But in those days religion and religious strife entered into everything. So it did into the founding of Maryland.
For Lord Baltimore was a Catholic, and in England Roman Catholics in their turn, as well as dissenters, were persecuted, and Lord Baltimore hoped to found a refuge for them in his new possessions in America. ”

“ Hereafter, when Maryland is fully redeemed, and a happy people rejoices in all the manifold blessings secured, then will hearts throb and eyes glisten at the mention of this noble name. Better for his memory than any triumph of genius at the bar will be his devoted championship of Human Freedom. Maryland may not now be ready to do fit honor to her departed son ”

“ From the time that Lord Baltimore landed on her shores to the present day no public man has disgraced the fair record or blurred a page of the history of Maryland. And, indeed, the beginning of her civilized days was an eminently fit prelude to her whole subsequent career. From out of the first colony established on the banks of the Chesapeake flowed the doctrines of religious toleration and equal religious rights to all men irrespective of clime and color, at a moment when witch-burning fires lighted up the settlements of Massachusetts. ”

“ The coastal plain embraces that part of Maryland lying to the east of a line passing from Washington to Baltimore, Havre de Grace, and Wilmington. It includes more than half the land area of the State, and is divided by Chesapeake Bay into what is commonly called the ‘eastern shore’ and the ‘western shore’ or Southern Maryland. The ‘eastern shore’ is low and level; only in the north does it reach 100 feet, and most of it is less than 25 feet above the sea. The ‘western shore’ is higher, and rises to 300 feet near the District of Columbia and again near Baltimore. ”

“ After a year of crosses and difficulties in the way of our discovering a suitable and convenient place for our establishment, we found ourselves in Maryland, an excellent province, producing all the necessaries of life in abundance. ”

“ Settlement of Maryland.--Maryland included the most valuable portion of Virginia north of the Potomac. Beside being the owner of all this land, Lord Baltimore was also the ruler of the colony. He invited people to go over and settle in Maryland and offered to give them large tracts of land on the payment of a small sum every year forever. Each man's payment was small. But all the payments taken together, made quite a large amount which went on growing larger and larger as Maryland was settled. The Baltimores were broad-minded men. ”

“ Conditions in Maryland.—Economic conditions in Maryland were similar to those in Virginia, the navigation laws affecting the colony in a similar manner, the price of tobacco falling continually after 1660 for many years. Political discontent also manifested itself, but the religious element played a larger part in Maryland than in Virginia. No widespread rebellion occurred, however, for Baltimore's government was more temperate than that of Berkeley, the settlements were more compact, frontier dangers were less acute, and no popular leader of great ability arose to lead the malcontents. ”

“ The Confederate army began fording the Potomac at a point nearly opposite the Monocacy, and by the 5th of September all of it was on Maryland soil. The bands struck up the popular air, "Maryland, my Maryland," the exultant thousands joining in the tremendous chorus, as they swung off, all in high spirits at the belief that they were entering a land "flowing with milk and honey," where they would find abundant food and be received with outspread arms. ”

“ In 1776 a convention of the people adopted a bill of rights, and a constitution; in the following year, the first elected Legislature was convened at Annapolis, and in March, Thomas Johnson took office as the first republican governor. During the Revolution the Marylanders bore a highly distinguished part, participating in nearly every battle of the war. ”

“ They found that Kent Island had been settled three years before the settlement of Maryland; that Clayborne had been unlawfully dispossessed of it; that Baltimore had exacted oaths of fealty to himself; that several laws of Maryland were repugnant to the statutes of England, such as the one protecting Papists; that persons of Dutch, French, and Italian descent enjoyed equal privileges with the English in Maryland; and that in March, 1652, the governor and council of Maryland had refused to issue writs in the name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England. ”

“ In 1642 Indian hostilities were begun on the Potomac. But the settlements of Maryland were compact, and no great suffering was occasioned. In 1644 the savages agreed to bury the hatchet and to renew the pledges of friendship.
9. In 1650 the legislature of Maryland was divided into two branches. The rights of Lord Baltimore were defined by law. An act was passed declaring that no taxes should be levied without the consent of the assembly. Such was the condition of affairs in the colony of Maryland when the Commonwealth was established in England. ”

“ Maryland's chief city, Baltimore, was founded about 1729. It was named in honor of the Catholic founder of the colony, and it still contains thousands of faithful Roman Catholics.
Owing to mistakes made in drawing up the different grants, the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland became a cause for disputes which lasted about fifty years. Several times surveyors were sent out from England to settle the quarrel, and the line they finally drew is generally known as the Mason and Dixon line. ”

“ Among the Maryland papers is the petition of one Mrs. Beale to the king, complaining that the master of a ship had taken her brother as his apprentice on a voyage to Maryland, and there sold him as a servant. The lord mayor and aldermen of London complained to the Council that “certain persons, called spirits, do inveigle, and, by lewd subtilities, entice away” youth to be sold as servants in the plantations. Owing to its equable climate, Maryland had more of these indented servants than any other colony, and the statute book contains many acts relating to them. ”

“ Maryland (1,042) , a State of the American Union, occupying the basin of the Potomac and of Chesapeake Bay, with Pennsylvania on the N., Delaware on the E., and the Virginias on the W. and S.; has a much indented coast-line affording great facilities for navigation; the soil is throughout fertile; on the level coast plains tobacco and fruit, chiefly peaches, are grown; in the undulating central land wheat; the mountains in the W. are well wooded with pine; there are coal-mines in the W., copper and chrome in the midland, and extensive marble quarries ”

“ As the Governor of Maryland had invited them here to treat about their Lands, and brighten the Chain of Friendship, the united Nations thought themselves so much obliged to them, that they had come to a Resolution in Council to give to the great Man, who is Proprietor of Maryland, a particular Name, by which they might hereafter correspond with him ”

“ Thus developed the Maryland character. Love of country and of friends, regard for truth and justice, toleration of differences of opinion, for five generations had been the directing influence of their lives. So when in 1774 news came that the people of Boston had been shot down in their streets by men in red coats, the people rose as one man. ”

“ Since becoming a state Maryland has had no lieutenant-governor except under the constitution of 1864; and the office of governor is to be filled in case of a vacancy by such person as the General Assembly may elect. [3] Any citizen of Maryland may be elected to the office who is thirty years of age or over, who has been for ten years a citizen of the state, who has lived in the state for five years immediately preceding election, and who is at the time of his election a qualified voter therein. ”

“ The elective legislature of Maryland, which in point of seniority ranks third in America, next after Virginia and Massachusetts, was expressly provided for in the charter. The lord proprietor's sovereignty was limited by this elected assembly of freemen, but his dependence upon the king of [Pg 270] England was little more than nominal. In token of allegiance and homage he was to send to the king each year two Indian arrows. His rent was to be one fifth part of all gold or silver mined in Maryland, but as no precious metals were found there, this rent amounted to nothing. ”

“ The settlement was called Providence, and was destined to play a remarkable part in the history of Maryland.28
When the civil war in England was fairly on, emigration to Virginia was much improved in material, and for many years was very large. The new-comers came to make homes, not merely to make tobacco, and they no longer consisted of servants, but of the merchants and yeomanry of England. ”