The Daily Dispatch: August 7, 1861., [Electronic resource]

---

---

Federal tyranny in Baltimore.
[from the Baltimore South, July 21]

The respectful sympathy with which the whole community regarded the stricken households of those victims of Federal tyranny, who, on Monday afternoon, without against humanity, were removed from Fort McHenry to be transported beyond the State--did not extend to the Federal police, or prevent the perpetration yesterday of the meanest, the most cowardly, and most despicable outrage which has yet been committed. On Monday evening, Mr. Charles Howard, the President of the Board of Police Commissioners of this city, took leave of his wife and children at Fort McHenry, and started with his fellow-prisoners, on board of a chartered vessel and under military guard, for his unknown and, perhaps, distant prison. Yesterday morning, in ruthless disregard of the feelings of his sorrowing family,--while the pain of parting and the anxiety of suspense were fresh and poignant in the breasts of those who were no longer permitted to minister to his comfort, or lighten by their presence the weariness of his imprisonment,--a party of Federal policemen entered his house, and with every circumstance of studied malignity and outrage, ransacked it, room by room, from top to bottom. They came in quest, they said, of arms, of which they pretended to have heard that one thousand stand were secreted in the house. Accepting no assurance that such was not the case — that there were no arms in the house but such as rightfully belonged to members of the family, and that these were not secreted and would be surrendered upon proper application — the leader of the party said he came to make a search and he intended to make it. The ladies of the family declining to facilitate his labors by surrendering their keys, a lock-picker, who was in attendance, was set to work to pick every lock of room, closet, clothes-press, drawer or trunk, which was fastened. Even the floor of one room, it is reported, was partly taken up to discover whether any arms were hidden beneath it. As the result of the search, three muskets were found, which were not concealed and belonged to Mr. Howard's sons, who were members of the Maryland Guard and took them home when that corps was disbanded; these, with the sword of a deceased member of the family, who had been an officer in the Navy, and two miniature Confederate flags, the playthings of children, the police carried off as the reward of their exertions.

And this was done by order of the Federal Marshal of Police, and with the sanction, it is rightly to be presumed, of the Advisory Board of Commissioners. Gen. Dix, we understand, disclaimed any knowledge of the affair; the responsibility is with those who assume to be the police authorities of the city — with Geo. R. Dodge, the pretended Marshal, and James L. McPhail, his deputy — with Columbus O'Donnell, Archibald Surling, Sen., Thomas Kelso, John R. Kelso, John W. Randolph, Peter G. Sanerwein, John B. Seidenstricker, Joseph Roberts, and Michael Warner — the intruding Commissioners. There are the responsible authors of the dastardly outrage — the policemen who perpetrated it were but the despicable agents in its commission, and no more to be held primarily accountable for it than the locksmith who picked the locks. And do they expect to escape that responsibility — this Marshal and these Commissioners? Do they imagine in their folly that the present state of affairs is going to last forever, and that a time will never come when the protection of Federal bayonets will be withdrawn from them — when the shattered altars of the Constitution shall be rebuilt, and the broken images of Justice and the Laws shall be replaced? They have property, some of these Commissioners; were they richer than Crosses, their fortunes would be too small to pay the debt which will that day be charged against them; when an outraged and indignant people shall take account of its liberties which have been despoiled, of sacred rights of person and property which have been invaded, of a Constitution which has been violated, and laws which have been trampled under foot. They have inaugurated Revolution, by setting aside the lawfully constituted and legally appointed authorities of the State, by intruding themselves into offices to which they have not been properly chosen, and by assuming powers which are altogether unknown to the law. Have they no fear of this Revolution devouring its first-born — of perishing, like the inventor of the guillotine, by the instrument of their own creation — of being made amenable to the same revolutionary processes and agencies which they themselves have evoked and employed? If they have no apprehension of future retribution, confident of the final and permanent triumph of their own side, or secure in their reliance upon the popular magnanimity to overlook and forgive any irregularities of which they have been guilty, or in the healing virtues of an Act of Amnesty passed by a Legislature elected under their own auspices to procure a remission of all penalties — is their sense of personal security so complete that they have no thought of present danger — of avenging Jackson dying to vindicate the sanctity of his home — of an outraged citizen overlooking the immediate instrument of his humiliation, to visit the responsibility upon the true authors and instigators of the wrong? Such may be the action of individuals driven to desperation by the indignities they have endured — such will be the action of the people, whenever they come to exact compensation to the uttermost for all the suffering and oppression of to-day.