USA > Maryland > Baltimore County > Baltimore City > History of Baltimore, Maryland, from its founding as a town to the current year, 1729-1898, including its early settlement and development; a description of its historic and interesting localities; political, military, civil, and religious statistcs; biographies of representative citizens, etc., etc > Part 24
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"It is a fact that Democratic legislation was never liberal in its operations. In the days of slavery its enactments were framed in the interests of an aristocracy who held in bondage the spirit and bodies of a peo- ple to enrich themselves. When, since the origin of that party, has it ever devised a measure to promote the interests of the peo- ple? What prominent improvement in this Nation exists to testify to the advance- ment and wisdom of Democratic legisla- tion? Under their administration of the Government sectional issues were fostered and encouraged; immigration and progress hindered in their onward march to the west- ern territories, within whose boundaries Democratic legislation inhaled the foul breath of slavery. The adventurous pioneer who succeeds by toil, kept from them, if in- formed that the peculiar institution 'was established within their jurisdiction.' He could not succeed where slave labor ex- isted; he would not hazard the chances of success by such experiment. We hear to- day a clamor throughout the land emanat-
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ing from Democratic sources, charging the Republican party with having legislated in the interests of the black man, and having overlooked more readily our white citizens. This charge is easier made than sustained. The Democratic party in power busied themselves in securing the interests of the slave holder. To do so, they sacrificed school systems and internal improvements; they abandoned all thought about the in- terests of the great masses. Republican legislation has endeavored to correct the evils Democratic misrule instituted. It is not amazing that what Republicanism has done in the interests of the masses is dis- tasteful to the so-called aristocracy. So long did that class influence the Government in the exercise of illegal power to build up for themselves success in their schemes to the ruin of other interests, that now they cannot appreciate the change in internal condi- tions.
"The Republican party has not deprived any one of his prerogatives under the funda- mental organism of the land; it has de- prived a class of the power of controlling the liberties of another class, who are en- titled to the protecting shield of the Gov- ernment.
"The spirit of Democracy, infused into National legislation, has permeated in a more disastrous form the management of our State concerns. In Maryland, the only true Republicanism we have is derived more from the Constitution of the United States and the legislation of Congress than from our present State Constitution and the laws passed in pursuance thereof. Every advanced liberal sentiment found in the State Constitution of 1867 is drafted from the Constitution of 1864, the work of the
Unionists; or placed there by compulsion in consequence of the passage of the Thir- teenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amend- ments to the National Constitution. The Democratic party has never accomplished a single act in the line of advancing human rights. How are they conducting affairs ? Your internal school system is a farce; only for three months in a year, in Baltimore and Harford counties, parts of this Congres- sional District, are the school house doors open for the reception and tuition of schol- ars. You have game laws discriminating in favor of land owners and against the poorer class of toilers who heretofore have main- tained themselves and their families by gun- ning at the mouth of the Susquehanna. So onerous is this last law that the gunners of Havre de Grace find their occupations so interfered with that they contemplate with dread the approaching winter in their unprepared state to resist its rigors. They dare not enter a boat and proceed to the middle of the Susquehanna and shoot game that belongs in common to all citizens. The Democratic Legislature of Maryland, at its last session, has given the exclusive privi- lege to do so to the land owners on the line of that waterway, and to the sportsmen who come from outside localities to indulge themselves in the pleasures of gunning.
"A committee was sent the other day to request Governor Bowie to divide the oyster fleet and send one part of it to look after the depredators of the oyster beds and the other half to be stationed so as to protect inviolate the sanctity of the game law. If our gallant navy could be rendered as zeal- ous in enforcing the laws of the State for which it was purposely created, as it has been serviceable in the transportation of the
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race horses of the Governor from Annapolis to Baltimore, that they might competitively appear on the track at Pimlico, it would be worthy of the objects of its creation.
"Fellow-citizens, we have had enough of the reign of the Democratic party in Na- tion and State. Does not the high rate of taxation in our Commonwealth indicate that there should be a change in the admin- istration of our affairs? Many persons are unconscious of the transformations that have been taking place in the past ten years. The Nation has been redeemed from old forms and ceremonies. We may as well ac- cept the results wrought bythe revolution in political events recently as accomplished and irrevocable facts, and regard the political regeneration of the Republic as a purifica- tion of the States. Heresies which have been swept from existence by national fiat must be permitted to sleep the sleep of death. The South no longer is in a position to dictate what shall be governmental policy. Its right to do so was forfeited by nurturing and developing-rebellion. Nor can cap- tious resistance to the law, as it is consti- tuted, do more than cause agitation and prevent tranquility. The adherence to er- roneous political theories, allowing their spirit without substance to be engrafted into legislation for compromise and temporary make-shifts has passed beyond the suffer- ance of this generation. When such facts are recognized, political sentiment now ex- isting in Maryland, and bequeathed to this age as a remnant of slavery, will cease, and we shall have a new birth of freedom. The Democrats evince some alarm at the prac- tical workings of their creed and are giving forth to the public explanations of what
they do mean which may satisfy themslves but not the great body of the people.
"At a mass meeting of our opponents in this section of the city the other night, ref- erence was made by Governor Swann to the decline in the shipbuilding industry. If that branch of trade alone had suffered, bad as its results are felt, we might forgive the offense. It is not one craft or profession that is affected; all alike are impaired. And why? Not as Mr. Swann says, by reason of the odious tariff breaking up the indus- try. The war of the rebellion has had more to do with its prostration than all other causes. The prejudices of our politicians and people have prevented its revival by their course of folly and stupidity. When the Union party held power in Maryland our prosperity was greater in every depart- ment of trade than at any time in the same number of years previous. The moment the Democrats attained to office-in the first year of their reign-a change commenced for the worse, and to-night the material and commercial interests of Baltimore are more thoroughly impaired than they were twelve months ago. The reason is apparent. A State and its chief metropolis which are yearly accumulating their public debt and burthening their people by increased taxa- tion, until the amount paid into their treas- uries by their citizens is unprecedented either in our country or Europe, cannot ex- pect prosperity. You may go North and West, yea into the South, where the blight of war seared rock and dell, but you cannot find a State that taxes its people propor- tionately at the same ratio as is done in Maryland. It is a subterfuge to say the tariff has caused the measure, when it is ap- parent sectionalism has produced the re-
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sult. We had a tariff before the war ; under it shipbuilding reached its highest prosper- ity. Both Mr. Swann and Mr. Archer were strong protectionists at one time. Of course they are looking out to protect themselves politically now, and the doctrine of tariff is not preached in Democratic pulpits; hence the necessity for a change of their opinions upon that subject.
"Fellow-citizens, in the conscious sat- isfaction that our cause is right, let us move on in the good work in which we have been engaged and add one more brilliant chap- ter to the history of Maryland. Let it be that we shall commence to rid the Common- wealth of its governing incompetents by changing the political complexion of things on the incoming 8th of November. Mary- land then can claim a place with the States of the Union who are thoroughly in accord with national sentiment; then will free ideas expand within our borders; our unrivaled water power, where no hum of machinery is now heard, will be occupied with factories; the wilderness places of the State shall be transformed into habitations desirable for the homes of men; our mineral resources will be developed, our agricultural interests protected; railroads built to run through sections of our State at present difficult of access to and from our great metropolis; and they shall pour the fruits of agricul- tural toil into the markets of Baltimore. With a reduction in the present rate of taxa- tion, prosperity can be looked for again; but until there is a change in existing city and State administrations and measures our Maryland will continue to be more pitiable than she was in the dark days of slavery. Left to develop her resources, they will with- out outside aid forever remain an unfruitful
treasure. There has not been a spirit of ac- tivity and enterprise manifested by the na- tive born citizens of Maryland sufficient to cause our State to appear advantageously in the ranks of her sister States. We have wealth in the bowels of the earth untouched, and it will not be of any service until the reign of the Democratic witches is dispelled. That can only be done by the people refus- ing longer continuance in power of a party that reached place by prejudice and retains its hold upon it by sectionalism and abuse of their opponents, misrepresenting their sentiments, and resorting to devices un- worthy of those claiming the suffrages of the people of a free Republic. I trust the day is not far distant when an end of these things will greet us."
The Republican supporters of Mr. Wash- ington Booth held a large meeting in Ex- change Place, Monday evening, October 17th. It was preceded by a procession which paraded the streets and arrived at Exchange Place shortly after the meeting was opened. There were numerous devices and transparencies. Among the blazoned banners were the following: "We cast our ballots as we cast our bullets," "God hath made all men of one blood," "John Brown's soul is still marching on," "We remember Fort Pollow," "For Congress, Washington Booth," "Henry Winter Davis, his princi- ples still live," "The safeguards of liberty- the ballot box, the jury box, and the wit- ness box."
At the main stand Charles C. Fulton pre- sided; he said of Governor Swann: He "has been to Maryland what Andrew Johnson was to the Nation; his defeat will therefore be hailed all over the land as a national tri- umph.
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"Mr. Swann has accomplished nothing, and has no more influence than if his seat was occupied by one of Mrs. Jarley's wax figures. He votes with Morrissey, Wood and Brooks, and occasionally helps to re- tard legislation. He speaks his pieces to empty benches, prints them and draws his pay."
Mr. Washington Booth, among other things, said: "One principal question at is- sue in this election is, whether this Third District shall continue to be represented by a delegate who, while he declares that he did not go to Washington for the purpose of opposing Gen. Grant, yet seeks a re-elec- tion because of such implied opposition and in fact, though claiming the votes of the Democrats, does not represent the Demo- cratic party. For it is not the nomination by a party, or by a part of a party calling itself the whole, that confers the representa- tive character upon the nominee. And no true Democrat will admit that the gentle- man who has been declared the nominee of that party in this district is by any political antecedent or opinions or course of life, or the different doctrines he has at different times maintained and enforced, entitled to be considered a Democrat or the represen- tative of that party. The doctrines and practices of the Democratic party are com- pletely at variance with the doctrines which my opponent upheld and especially from the practices which secured him political prominence. He opposed the Confederates, whom the Democrats sustained. He up- held the war for the Union and was against the South, which war the Democrats op- posed. He declared that the reconstruc- tion of the Southern States should be made exclusively on the basis of continued loyalty
during the Rebellion and wished to exclude those whom he then called rebels from suf- frage because they had been in the Confed- erate service-the very men by whose votes he now hopes to be elected. But there is another gulf between the Democratic party and any representation of it by my oppo- nent, too deep and too broad, and of too long standing to be bridged over or con- cealed by any management in securing their nomination. The Democratic party has al- ways sustained the right of the immigrant and naturalized citizen to vote and hold of- fice. That party has always emphatically proclaimed itself the friend and upholder of the extension of suffrage to the foreign born citizen. Now what is the record of my opponent on these points? Surely I neednot remind my German born fellow-citizens, or those whom Mr. Swann called 'infuriated Irish of the Eighth Ward,' of what was said and done by him in that respect. He was first elected to office because he opposed, and by reason of the fact that he prevented. them from voting. How then does he rep- resent the Democratic party? But another and far more important question than the choice of persons involved in this election for us is whether we in Maryland shall con- tinue to occupy the political position now held by the State, or whether we shall place ourselves among those whose ideas and policy direct the measures and shape the good fortune of the Republic. Are we to continue among the inactive, the opposers, the breakers down, or to enroll ourselves among those who accept progress and what has been achieved and who endeavor to go on to still better things. Shall this district be represented in the next Congress by one who in a helpless minority is powerless for
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our good, without the advantage that must accrue to the district from influence or a voice among the powers that be, or will you send there a representative of and among the majority upholding the administration, not opposing it, and who would from that fact necessarily secure those practical ad- vantages and real results to our commerce and harbor, which are the things all men desire here. Which of these two consid- erations will be the best for our city?"
John A. J. Creswell said: "We have seen our best friends, whose only sin was that they had been true to their country, driven from every office of honor and trust and a universal Democratic saturnalia established from Allegany to Worcester. We have been mercilessly excluded from all partici- pation in State or local government. The power of our enemies being supreme, we have been as perpetually quarantined from public favor as though we had been cursed with an ineradicable plague spot. To make our ostracism endurable by comparison with our other sufferings, they have sys- tematically proceeded to plunder us of our property. Under Democratic management, corruption has rioted and fattened in the city and State, and with insatiate greed has continually demanded that the burthens of an already insupportable taxation should be still further increased. Powerless as we have been to redress our wrongs, we have yet in all our adversity preserved our or- ganization intact, waiting hopefully for the good day when, recruited and reanimated, we should again be able to respond with confidence and exultation to every call that our much abused and long suffering people might make upon us. At last we know that the time of our deliverance is fast ap-
proaching. The aurora that heralds the coming of that auspicious day now glad- dens our eyes as it warns us that the present is the time for action. Adopting the most liberal sentiments and forgetting past differences, we should open our ranks to receive cordially every good soldier of every race or creed who will join heartily in the great war before us. We should extend our line until it shall stretch in compact and unbroken array from the mountains to the sea.
"If thus inspired and organized, when the appointed day of battle shall be announced we may confidently unfurl our old beloved flag with its lately obscured stars glittering with reillumined lustre and here upon the soil of our Maryland we may crown it anew with the glorious insignia of victory, bravely and magnanimously won."
R. Stockett Mathews uttered these senti- ments: "Every man should have adequate opportunities to grow up to the full stature of manhood-to the cultivation of . every moral faculty and the employment of every intellectual attribute for his own good and the welfare of his race. When God created manhood He exhibited the perfection of His creative power, and every act of moral re- striction which has desecrated that work has to that extent opposed the intention of the Creator. The creation was designed to reflect the benevolence and love of the Su- preme Omnipotence, from the cradle to the grave.
"That we are a black man's party is upon the face of it a self-evident falsehood; ours is a national party, founded upon the prin- ciples that thrilled the hearts and nerved the arms of our forefathers, when they be- gan their glorious work and established
1
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American liberty as the utmost altitude which mankind had then reached in their efforts to crystalize human aspirations, hu- man happiness and freedom into institutions of law and order.
"The Democracy has forced us to do right in the sight of God and man, in spite of ourselves. They compelled us to adopt the Thirteenth Amendment, by virtue of which slavery was abolished throughout the country. Then came the Fourteenth Amendment and the capstone was laid up- on our national temple when the Fifteenth Amendment became the irreversible edict of the American people that ours should be a Nation of freemen without a slave.
"Wake up, people of Maryland! Wake up, I say! and feel that there is something worth living for, even in Maryland! Let us cast aside superstition, ignorance, preju- dice, pride and aristocracy. Down with aristocracy and let the common man, the poor man, the masses of the people, enjoy the richest blessings that the Government can bestow."
Gen. Adam E. King, among other se- rious and humorous things, spoke the fol- lowing: "Every officer in the State, from the Governor down to the most pitiable loafer, that wears the livery of Thomas Swann, is a Democrat." He said "the navy of Maryland drifts listlessly away and allows the bold oystermen of Virginia to gobble up our citizens, put them in prison, carry off their vessels as prizes to their own ports, where stranded on the sandy beach their sails idly flap in the autumn wind and the October suns open up ghastly seams in their hulls.
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"When the Virginia fleet bore down on the oyster craft of Maryland the captain
and his officers retired below decks to their cabins, exclaiming, 'All is lost! All is lost- but our salaries!' "
"If oysters could run races Governor Bowie would take interest in them, but oys- ters have no legs and horses have."
A combination mass meeting of the Dem- ocrats favorable to the election of the Hon. Stevenson Archer in the Second and Thomas Swann in the Third Congressional Districts was held in Monument Square on the evening of Monday, October 31st. There was a great outpouring of people and the procession was a lengthy one. It pre- sented an impressive scene; a flame of fire far as the eye could reach lit up the ranks of men in marching columns. There were bands of music, floats, designs and displays of lighted boxes ad libitum. Some among the numerous mottoes on a sea of trans- parencies were as follows: "The sons of old Ireland ever true to the Democratic party," "We want no Marines in Baltimore," "No Grant wanted here, we have no presents to give," "Sailors wanted no Marines; Up in a balloon-Billy Marine," "The Hon. Ste- venson Archer will once more save Mary- land," "An old sailor before a Marine any time," "The arrows from our Archer's bow will carry terror to the common foe," "The best Government the country ever had- tell that to the Marines, old sailors won't believe it," "The arrows of the Archer will stick among the corruptionists of the radical Congress," "Our Swann, the Limerick boys say he must go back to Congress," "The Limerick boys will make Wash. Booth's coffin," "Ballots against bayonets," "Cres- well says his allies will carry the Fourth and Fifth Districts; he may tell that to the young Marines, but not to old soldiers,"
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"Swann for President in 1872," "Wanted- honest officials-apply at the Custom House." This last motto was strangely enough on several of the transparencies and referred to the irregularities of two promi- nent officials. "The white Swann of Mary- land," "Tom Swann gave us our liberty and it is for white men to preserve it," "We want no amalgamation in Maryland," "The doom of Washington Booth has been written by a quill plucked from our Swann," "The only hope for Washington Booth, Mount Hope," "Booth cannot go to Washington for a seat is engaged for Tom Swann," "When will General Grant's Cabinet be completed? Echo answers, 'when.'"
The Governor of the State, Oden Bowie, was presiding officer of the meeting. The resolutions passed denounced unsparingly the administration of President Grant; they declared his policy "a crime so heinous in morals and law as to merit the most indig- nant condemnation and the severest rebuke that a free and enlightened people can in- flict."
Stevenson Archer said: "It is for us to think of the living present, and so to act as to secure the liberties of the people, now so deeply endangered. The first and grav- est issue that confronts us is the Fifteenth Amendment. It is now law-a part of the Constitution; not a part which our fathers gave us, but still a part, and we Democrats who have always adhered to the Constitu- tion and laws will not now reject it or seek to evade it.
"How does the Fifteenth Amendment apply in the State of Maryland? Maryland has registered 38,000 of the negro race; the Democratic majority last fall was 31,000; our majority for Governor was 40,000, and
it is for you now to say whether the Demo- cratic party will poll 40,000 majority to over- come this 38,000.
"The Republican party did not give the negro the right to vote for any affection it had for him. No, they made him a voter to crush the Democratic party; but when the negro finds out his strength he will crush the radical party.
"What friendship had the radicals for the negro in 1864? Why did they not give him the right to vote then? They had no such intention in 1864 or 1866. They all declared to me if they believed their party had any such intention they would vote the Demo- cratic ticket.
"The negro will turn on the radical party yet, in this and every other Southern State, because he will have the penetration to dis- cern by bitter experience, if no other way, his friends from his foes. The negro can- not long believe the radical party his friends.
"The Chinese Empire numbers upwards of four hundred and fifty millions of beings, and from these hordes the radicals wish to swamp us with a system of slavery as bad, if not worse, than the worst forms of negro slavery known to us. They surround the negro with protection against intimida- tion and every sort of coercion; do they protect the white laborer and mechanics in Massachusetts from their avaricious mas- ters, who seek to intimidate them into allow- ing Chinese to eat up and deprive them of the legitimate fruits of their honest indus- try?"
Hon. Thomas Swann said: "The demon- stration of the evening might well be de- scribed as an outpouring of the white men of Baltimore. I have resided in this city for more than a half of a century, and I have
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been a good deal mixed up with the affairs of the city and State, but I have never be- fore witnessed such a scene as this one to- night. My views on national affairs have been very well ventilated. In other sections of the city and throughout this State I have spoken of the outrages and abuses heaped upon the people by the Administration. I have been the subject of attack by Post- master General Creswell. For weeks that distinguished radical, who has hung like a barnacle to the administration of Gen. Grant, has hounded me through the city and State. He had come to Baltimore for the purpose of making war upon her people and upon the best interests of the city. He had come here to marshal his negro crowd of voters and with attempts to overawe the Democracy with threats of what the Presi- dent would do with his soldiers. I have the best feelings for the negroes; he will do well enough and behave himself if let alone by the radical disorganizers, who only care for his vote."
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