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Chapter 8: Maryland under Federal military power.
Governor Hicks did not respond to the first call of the
President of the
United States for troops until he had delivered the
State over to the
Federal authorities, securely tied, handcuffed and gagged, and when habeas corpus was defied, freedom of speech made a crime, liberty of the press suppressed, trial by jury abolished,
Butler holding down
Baltimore under the prisons of
Federal Hill and throttling the
State government at
Annapolis.
Governor Hicks, who, at the meet.
ing in Monument Square in the afternoon of April 10th, prayed his God to wither his right arm if ever he raised it against a sister Southern State, against
Virginia and the
South, had not complied with
President Lincoln's first call for troops, but
Butler's guns and the
Federal control of the city recovered him from the panic into which he had been precipitated by the paving stones of Pratt St., and on the 14th of May, the day of
Ross Winans' arrest, he issued a proclamation calling for four-regiments of volunteers to serve for three months, ‘within the limits of
Maryland, or for the defense of the capital of the
United States, and not to serve beyond the limits aforesaid.’
In consequence of the delay, the short term of service and the ridiculous terms proposed for enlistment, the government refused to accept the home guards, guaranteed ‘never to leave the
State except in case of invasion.’
On the 2d of May
President Lincoln had called for forty-two thousand and thirty-four regulars to serve for three years, and a large number of men who had volunteered under the first call enlisted under the second.