At a large and enthusiastic town meeting, held at the Maryland Institute, in the City of Baltimore, on the 1st of February, Hon. S. Teackle Wallis, in a speech of great power and eloquence, thus reviewed the course of Governor Hicks in relation to calling an extra session of the Legislature:

"On the 27th of November, 1860, Governor Hicks addressed a letter to the Hon. Thomas G. Pratt, and other gentlemen, who prayed him to exercise his powers and discharge his duty, by calling an extra session of the Legislature. He declined to comply with their solicitations on the following grounds: 'I cannot but believe that the convening of the Legislature in extra session at this time, would only have the effect of increasing and reviving the excitement now pervading the country, and now apparently on the decline. It would at once be heralded by the sensitive newspapers and alarmists throughout the country, as evidence that Maryland had abandoned all hope of the Union, and was preparing to join the traitors to destroy it. You, gentlemen, favor an extra session only because of the importance of the present crisis; but there are others who think of their own interests rather than those of the State, who would be found seeking to monopolise the valuable time of the body in furthering schemes of personal advantage, which can well afford to await the meeting at the regular session.' Nevertheless, he said that the wishes of the people should certainly be respected in this matter,' and after insisting on the propriety of waiting until we should 'hear from the National Executive,' from the other Border Slave States,' and from 'the congregated wisdom of Congress,' he declared 'I shall hold myself ready to act promptly, when I shall believe the honor and safety of Maryland require me to act in the premises.' Time wore on. The National Executive had been heard from, and it seems without much consolation, for the governor had waxed nigh to being a secessionist.' On the 6th of December, he addressed a letter to Captain John Contee, of Prince George's, which stepped, as it seems to me, far over the boundaries of what he now supposes to be 'treason.'

S. TEACKLE WALLIS.1

1 Severn Teackle Wallis, A.M., LL.D., was born in Baltimore, September 8, 1816, and graduated at St. Mary's College, in the same city, in 1832, at the age of sixteen years. In the fall of 1832, he entered the office of William Wirt, as a student at law, remaining there until the death of Mr. Wirt, in 1834, when he entered the office of the late Judge John Glenn, where he continued his studies until September, 1837, when he was admitted to the bar. At eighteen, he received the degree of Artum Magister from St. Mary's College, and the honorary degree of Legum Doctor, in 1841. In early life, Mr. Wallis had a taste for literature, and contributed a good deal, in both prose and verse, to the magazines and periodicals of the day-the prose articles consisted mostly of literary or historical criticism. He early became a proficient in the Spanish language, and was devoted to the history and literature of Spain, receiving, in consequence, in 1843, the rare honor of election as a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Madrid. In 1846, he was chosen a fellow of

the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen. In 1847, Mr. Wallis visited Spain, and, in 1849, published the result of his observations in his Glimpses of Spain. Later in 1849, he was sent to Madrid by the United States Government, for the purpose of examining into the title to the public lands in East Florida, and, on his return, prepared a work on Spain-Her Institutions, Politics and Public Men, which was published in 1853. From 1859 to 1861, he contributed largely to the editorial department of the Baltimore Exchange. He was a whig in politics, down to the organization of the knownothing party, when he identified himself with the democratic party, and voted for Mr. Buchanan. In 1857, he was tendered the position of United States district-attorney, but declined it. In 1861, he was elected to the House of Delegates, and took a leading part in the proceedings of the Legislature of that year, at Frederick. In September of that year, the Legislature was suppressed by military force, and Mr. Wallis was arrested, with many of its members and

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"If the Union must be dissolved,' he says, 'let it be done calmly, deliberately, and after full reflection on the part of a united South.'

"He then discusses the Personal Liberty Laws, and proceeds to declare that— "These laws should be repealed at once, and the rights of the South guaranteed by the Constitution, should be respected and enforced. After allowing a reasonable time for action on the part of the Northern States, if they shall neglect or refuse to observe the plain requirements of the Constitution, then, in my judgment, we shall be fully warranted in demanding a division of the country.'

"We shall have done our duty to the Constitution, to the memory of our fathers, to ourselves and posterity, and the South can honorably take such steps as patriotism and honor may demand either in or out of the Union.'

"In conclusion, he adds: 'I shall be the last one to object to a withdrawal of our State from a Confederacy that denies to us the enjoyment of our undoubted rights; but believing that neither her honor nor interests will suffer by a proper and just delay, I cannot assist in placing her in a position from which we may hereafter wish to recede. When she moves in the matter, I wish to be side by side with Virginia-our nearest neighbor-Kentucky and Tennessee.'

"If all this be not rank 'secession,' as the governor now understands it, I cannot understand him. I do solemnly pronounce it treason, for which he ought certainly to be hanged (laughter and applause)-according to his doctrines, I beg you to understand me-not according to mine. But whether it be treason or not, I ask you emphatically to note the sentiments declared from the executive chamber. I ask you to bear witness from the governor's own unequivocal, and I trust conscientious language, that on the 6th of December he called for the action of 'a united South;' that he recognized the right of the South to demand a division of the country,' if its constitutional guarantees were not protected; and declared, that he would be 'the last man to object to the withdrawal of our State' from the Union, in such a contingency. All that he asked for was 'reasonable' delay-all that he claimed for Maryland was that she should be 'side by side with Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.' Time still went on. Upon the 9th of December it became the duty of Governor Hicks to respond to the communication addressed him by a commissioner from Mississippi. Again his plea was only that time be given, and opportunity afforded for a fair and honorable adjustment.' About the course to be adopted, in case that adjustment could not be made, he had neither doubt nor difficulty. Fraternal concert with the other Border States' wa3 still his alternative. Here is his language:

other prominent citizens of the State, and imprisoned for over fourteen months, in Fort McHenry, Fortress Monroe, Fort La Fayette, and Fort Warren, successively. No charge was ever made against him by the government; and, having steadfastly insisted upon being either lawfully tried or discharged, he was finally released, in November, 1862, without condition, and without having ever been informed, to the present day, of the cause of his arrest. In the winter of 1862-3, Mr. Wallis had a controversial correspondence (which attracted considerable attention) with the Hon. John Sherman, then of the United States Senate, concerning the suppression of the Maryland Legislature and the arrest of its members, and of the mayor and police commissioners of Baltimore, in 1861. Besides being a frequent contributor to the press, Mr. Wallis has also been called upon frequently for addresses upon occasions of interest.

In 1870, being one of the trustees of the

Peabody Institute in Baltimore, he delivered a discourse upon the Life and Character of George Peabody, which, upon invitation of the General Assembly of Maryland, was repeated in the State House, at Annapolis. Upon the death of Hon. John P. Kennedy, Mr. Wallis was elected to succeed him as provost of the University of Maryland, and, in December, 1872, he delivered in the Senate Chamber, at Annapolis, the address upon the unveiling of Rinehart's statue of Chief Justice Taney. Down to the breaking out of the civil war, Mr. Wallis was an ardent advocate for the Union. His sympathies, however, were altogether and warmly with the South after the struggle began; and, although he did not recognize secession as a constitutional right, he regarded the Federal Government as entirely without constitutional authority to interfere with the States, by coercion, if they saw fit to retire from the compact, as they had seen fit to enter into it.

666 Whatever powers I may have, I shall use only after full consultation, and in fraternal concert with the other Border States, since we, and they, in the event of any dismemberment of the Union, will suffer more than all others combined.'

"I am now in correspondence with the governors of those States, and I await with solicitude for the indications of the course to be pursued by them. When this is made known to me I shall be ready to take such steps as our duty and interest shall demand, and I do not doubt the people of Maryland are ready to go with the people of those States for weal or woe.'

"And he added-'I fully agree with all that you have said as to the necessity for protection to the rights of the South; and my sympathies are entirely with the gallant people of Mississippi, who stand ready to resent any infringement of those rights. But I earnestly hope they will act with prudence as well as with courage.'

"On the 3d of January, 1861, being pressed by a majority of the Senators of Maryland to call the Legislature together, he published an address to the people, in which he protested and enlarged upon his own patriotism in refusing to convoke the Legislature; denounced the motives and principles of 'the men embarked in the scheme' of calling it together; charged the existence of a conspiracy to capture the Capitol and the Federal archives, which was at the bottom of the movement he was resisting, and endeavored to rally the citizens of the State around himself and his policy, by every appeal to their fears, their sympathies, their credulity and their prejudices. Yet even in this, the most elaborate and passionate of his efforts, he does not venture to desert the plan of consultation and united action with the slave States of the Border.

"Believing,' he declares, 'that the interests of Maryland were bound up with those of the Border slaveholding States, I have been engaged, for months past, in a full interchange of views with the Governors of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, with a view to concerted action upon our part. These consultations, which are still in progress, I feel justified in saying have resulted in good; so that when the proper time for action arrives, these sister States, bound up in a common destiny, will, I trust, be prepared to act together.'

And, he adds, with increasing emphasis:

"I firmly believe that the salvation of the Union depends upon the Border Slave States. Without their aid, the Cotton States could never command the influence and credit and men essential to their existence as a nation. Without them the Northern half of the republic would be shorn of its power and influence. Within the Union, I firmly believe we can secure guarantees for our protection, which will remove these distressing causes of irritation.

666

‘If we find hereafter that the North shall, after due deliberation, refuse to give them, we will, in a united body, demand and receive a fair division of the national domain.'

"On January 12th, a conmittee of most respectable gentlemen, deputed by a conference from all portions of the State, and held in the Law Buildings of this city, had an interview with the Governor. The conference had deferred to his declared objections to the convocation of the Legislature, and the committee were instructed merely to solicit that he would issue his proclamation inviting the people to determine, by their ballots, whether they desired a convention to be called. In case of an affirmative response to the appeal, the Governor was requested to designate a day for the election of members to the contemplated body. The Governor declined. He still desired delay. He preferred waiting' (according to the announcement in the Baltimore American) 'until Mr. Crittenden's compromise resolutions should be finally acted upon, before taking any decisive step upon the subject at issue.' On the 24th of January, to the astonishment of everybody, except those initiated in the mystery, there appeared in the Annapolis Republican, a copy of a letter bearing date as far back as the eighth of that month, and addressed to the Hon. J. L. Corry, Commissioner of Alabama, wherein every previous suggestion of the Governor, and of everybody else, looking to a united South,' a 'concert of the Border States,' a 'united body,' a 'position side by side with Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky,' an

6

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association for weal or woe,' with those States, or any other States, 'in common destiny,' is utterly repudiated and denounced, as a flagrant violation of the constitutiona step to whieh the people of Maryland will never consent!' Such 'fraternal concert,' for any purpose or in any shape, is not (he says) for an instant to be tolerated. Let us hear the language in which this doctrine is proclaimed, from the same lips by which the people of Maryland were so often assured, as I have shown you, that the identical course, now so bitterly denounced, was nearest the Governor's heart.

"I cannot see how, while the constitutional prohibition stands against compacts of agreements between any of the States, any mutual league' can be had, even between those whose hopes and hazards are alike. And if this prohibition has been judicially declared to include 'every agreement, written or verbal, formal or informal, positive or implied, by the mutual understanding of the parties,' then I am unable to imagine how any league or covenant or understanding whatever, unauthorized or unapproved by Congress, even though it should be in furtherance of the laws and for strengthening the Confederacy, can be otherwise than in plain violation of the clearest provisions of the supreme law of the land.”

"Instead, therefore, of hearkening to any such treason-instead of proceeding with the Border States in a united body, to demand and receive a division of the national domain ;' instead of 'demanding a division of the country;' instead of having our Governor to lead us, in fraternal concert with other Border States,' in the ultimate vindication of our common rights and 'common destiny'-we are to do what? Submit to the action of Congress?

"The Congress of the United States,' says the Governor, offers the only mode, authorized by the constitution, for consultation and advisement among the several States. To the Congress I still look with confidence for such enactments as shall secure our just and equal rights, and shall satisfy all except those who are determined to be satisfied with nothing but revolution, and the hopes that are to arise to them from anarchy and confusion.""

As time wore on and the drift of feeling in Maryland became more apparent, the Governor grew more outspoken. Three days after the election of President Lincoln, in answer to an application of Hon. Edward H. Webster, for arms to equip a military company in Harford County, he replied as follows:

"State of Maryland, Executive Chamber, Annapolis, November 9th, 1860.

"Hon. E. H. Webster:

"MY DEAR SIR:-I have pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of your favor introducing a very clever gentlemen to my acquaintance (though a democrat). I regret to say that we have at this time no arms on hand to distribute, but assure you at the earliest possible moment your company shall have arms; they have complied with all required of them on their part. We have some delay in consequence of contracts with Georgia and Alabama, ahead of us, and we expect at an early day an additional supply, and of the first received your people shall be furnished. Will they be good men to send out to kill Lincoln and his men? If not, suppose the arms would be better sent South. How does late election sit with you? 'Tis too bad. Harford nothing to reproach herself for. "Your obedient servant,

"THOMAS H. HICKS."

Such was at this time the attitude, and such the language of Governor Thomas H. Hicks.

24-v. iil.

Meanwhile events in the South rapidly assumed a decisive character. Meetings were held in every city, town and village, which were addressed in vehement language by members of Congress and other prominent speakers. Resistance to the election of Mr. Lincoln and his friends, and the duty of the Southern States to secede from the Union, were the chief topics of their impassioned appeals to the people. On the 20th of December, the State Convention of South Carolina, after a brief debate, passed the ordinance of secession by a unanimous vote, and on the following day a declaration of the causes which had led to this action. The announcement of the passage of the secession ordinance caused general enthusiasm in all the more Southern slave States, but in the Border States it served to intensify the painful feeling with which they had watched her course. That the action of South Carolina had been hasty and ill-judged, a majority of the people even in the South admitted; and this fact gave additional poignancy to the general sorrow with which this first disunion movement was regarded. By the passage of this secession ordinance an impetus was given to the prevailing excitement in the South, and the measures of the Cotton States were accelerated. Mississippi followed the example of South Carolina on the 9th of January, 1861; Alabama and Florida, January 11th; Georgia, January 20th; Louisianna, January 26th; Texas, February 1st; Virginia, April 17th; Tennessee, May 6th; Arkansas, May 18th; North Carolina, May 21st; and Kentucky, November 20th.

On the day before South Carolina seceded, Hon. A. H. Handy, who had been apppointed by Mississippi a commissioner to visit Maryland, arrived in Baltimore. He had an informal meeting with Governor Hicks, on the morning of the 19th of December, and on the same day the governor addressed to him a strong conservative letter in answer to his official communication of the 18th, declining to receive Mr. Handy, officially, as commissioner for the purpose of joining in any movement of the slave States looking toward disunion. The governor also declined to convene the Legislature, which Mr. Handy had urged him to do. On the same evening, Mr. Handy addressed the citizens of Baltimore, at the Maryland Institute, on the course his State intended to pursue in relation to the crisis which then disturbed the country. In the course of his remarks he said:

"Secession is not intended to break up the present government but to perpetuate it. We do not propose to go out by way of breaking up or destroying the Union as our fathers gave it to us; but we go out for the purpose of getting further guarantees and security for our rights-not by a convention of all the Southern States, nor by Congressional tricks, which have failed in times past and will fail again, but our plan is for the Southern States to withdraw from the Union, for the present, to allow amendments to the Constitution to be made, guaranteeing our just rights; and if the Northern States will not make those amendments, by which these rights shall be secured to us, then we must secure them the best way we can.

"This question of slavery must be settled now or never. The country has been agitated seriously by it for the past twenty or thirty years. It has been a festering sore