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| Thomas H. Hicks. |
January 2, 1861. |
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back as 1833. Maryland, and every other State in the Union, with a united voice, then declared the cause insufficient to justify the course of South Carolina.
Can it be that this people, who then unanimously supported the course of General Jackson, will now yield their opinions at the bidding of modern secessionists? . . . The people of Maryland, if left to themselves, would decide, with scarcely an exception, that there is nothing in the present causes of complaint to justify immediate secession; and yet, against our judgments and solemn convictions of duty, we are to be precipitated into this revolution, because South Carolina thinks differently.
Are we not equals?
Or shall her opinions control our actions?
After we have solemnly declared for ourselves, as every man must do, are we to be forced to yield our opinions to those of another State, and thus, in effect, obey her mandates?
She refuses to wait for our counsels.
Are we bound to obey her commands?
The men who have embarked in this scheme to convene the Legislature will spare no pains to carry their point.
The whole plan of operations, in the event of the assembling of the Legislature, is, as I have been informed, already marked out; the list of embassadors who are to visit the other States is agreed on; and the resolutions which they hope will be passed by the Legislature, fully committing the State to secession, are said to be
already prepared.
In the course of nature, I cannot have long to live, and I fervently trust to be allowed to end my days a citizen of this glorious Union.
But should I be compelled to witness the downfall of that Government inherited from our fathers, established as it were by the special favor of God, I will at least have the consolation, at my dying hour, that I, neither by word nor deed, assisted in hastening its disruption.”
1 Already Henry Winter Davis, a Representative of a Baltimore district in the National Congress, had published a powerful appeal
against the calling of the Legislature, or the assembling of a Border State Convention, as some had proposed.
Nothing, he said, but a convention of all the States could be useful.
The address of Governor Hicks was read with delight and profound gratitude by the loyal people of Maryland, while the secessionists at home and abroad denounced him as a “traitor to the Southern cause.”
He steadily maintained the position of an antagonist to their treasonable designs.
They tried hard, but in vain, to counteract his influence.
At the middle of February, they held an irregular convention in Baltimore, and issued an address and resolutions.
Their operations were abortive.
The best men of the State, of all parties, frowned upon their work.
A Union party was organized, composed of vital elements, and grew in strength and stature every day. Maryland, and especially Baltimore, became a great battle-field of opinions between the champions of Right and Wrong.
The former triumphed gloriously; and
1 Governor Hicks died suddenly at Washington City, on the morning of the 13th of February, 1865, where he was engaged in his duties as a member of the National Senate.
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