The President S proclamation.
On April 16 the news that
Lincoln had called for 75,000 volunteers ‘to redress wrongs already long enough endured’ was published to the country, and the effect of that momentus news it is hard now to understand.
In the
North it was received with wild enthusiasm; in the
South with sullen anger or with derision; and it was said that when the troops came they would ‘be welcomed with bloody hands to hospitable graves.’
In
Baltimore the people were wild with excitement and indignation.
It is difficult for men of this generation, who have grown up under different political conditions, to understand how the men of that generation viewed the prospect of coercing the
Southern States to remain in the
Union.
The idea of permitting Northern troops to march through
Maryland to make war on the
South was regarded pretty much as we would now regard a proposal that troops from
Canada should come through here for the same purpose, or that troops from
Germany or
England should be permitted to land at
Locust Point.
George William Brown,
Mayor of
Baltimore, who risked his life to protect the
Massachusetts troops, telegraphed to the
Governor of
Massachusetts on April 20: ‘Our people viewed the passage of armed troops of another State through the streets as an invasion of our soil and could not be restrained.’
Governor Hicks, of
Maryland, an ardent Union man, said in a public speech in
Baltimore on the evening of April 19, after the riot and after the
President's proclamation calling for troops had been made: ‘I am a Marylander.
I love my State and I love the
Union; but I will
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suffer my right arm to be torn from my body before I will raise it to strike a sister State.’
He had already assured the people that no troops should be sent from
Maryland unless it might be for the defense of the national capital.
These expressions will give some idea of public sentiment in those days, when a sovereign State counted for much more and the
Federal Government for much less than they do to-day.
Everything, therefore, was ripe for the events of the 19th of April.
The mayor and the police commissioners knew the danger of sending troops through the city.
It was believed they would come that day, and the city authorities made every effort to learn the hour of their arrival, so that they might be protected.
But all information was denied them by the military authorities and by the railroad officials.
