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 66

Author: Shepherd, Henry Elliott, 1844-1929, ed. 4n
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: [Uniontown? Pa.] S.B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1344

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 66

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policy of the President, the great majority of the leaders and of the rank and file of that party were opposed to it, and the suc- cess of that policy in Maryland without the Democratic vote was therefore impossible. They also contended that the Democrats should have one well-known orator, who should have the right to speak out as the spirit moved him at the meeting. President Johnson, who all along had been kept fully informed of the political situation in Mary- land, was finally appealed to on this point of difference between the par- ties, and by telegram and letter sent through Col. Wright Rives, his Secre- tary, to Mr. Knott he sustained the views of the Democratic committee. The meet- ing took place under these conditions. It was large and enthusiastic. Lieutenant- Governor Cox presided. The Hon. I. Nevett Steele, the eminent lawyer, of Balti- more, was selected to represent the 'Demo- crats among the speakers, and Hon. Edgar H. Cowan, U. S. Senator from Pennsylva- nia, and Hon. James R. Doolittle, U. S. Senator from Wisconsin, made eloquent addresses. The effect of the meeting was encouraging. It demonstrated that the overwhelming sentiment of the State was with Mr. Johnson and also in favor of the home policy of the Democratic party. It laid a solid and impregnable foundation for the union of the Democrats and conserva- tives of the State and gave the alliance, which was subsequently cemented between them, a consistent and an intelligent plat- form of principles. While the conservatives did not, as already intimated, bring to that alliance anylarge body of adherents, they did bring certain elements of strength, certain factors, growing out of previous political .

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status, which, in the existing conditions of the country and the state of public senti- ment, was indispensable to success. In the judgment of all fair and candid minds throughout the country a movement could not be successfully arraigned at the bar of public opinion for disloyalty in its purposes and aims, which numbered among its lead- ers men who had been at the forefront of battle on the Union side on many a vic- torious and many a stricken field, or who had served that cause in cabinet and coun- cil.

In 1866 a large body of Republicans in this State, headed by Governor Swann, Hon. Montgomery Blair, Hon. William H. Purnell, Col. William H. Leonard, Gen. (now Judge) Charles E. Phelps, Hon. J. V. L. Findlay, Gen. John S. Berry, Hon. John M. Carter, Secretary of State under Gov- ernor Swann, Col. Edwin H. Webster, col- lector of the port, and many other gentle- men, who deemed a continuance of the dis- abilities and proscriptions contained in the Constitution of 1864, now that the war was ended, and the Union restored, equally un- just and impolitic, and who moreover sus- tained and supported the policy of President Johnson, in dealing with the Southern States, and were opposed to the reconstruc- tion measures of the Republican Senate, definitely separated themselves from the Republican party.

With this body of gentlemen and their fol- lowers the Democratic party which had all along entertained these views, and whose principles were on a line with the policy of President Johnson, formed, under the lead of the Democratic State Central Committee, a very natural union or alliance. The ob- jects of the Democratic Conservative party,

which sprang out of this alliance, were: The support of the policy and administration of President Johnson ; a change in the Consti- tution of the State, an essential modification of the registration and election laws, and a fair and just administration of these laws by honest officers until their repeal or modifi- cation could be secured by legislative enact- ment. Bad as these laws were in themselves, they had been made infinitely more oppress- ive and intolerable by the arbitrary and ca- pricious manner and vindictive spirit in which they had been executed. These methods were purposely designed to ex- clude altogether from the polls Democratic voters who were stigmatized as rebels. In pursuance of the policy inaugurated in the formation of this alliance, Governor Swann during the Summer of 1866 appointed as registrars men, who, while adhering strictly to the law, so fairly and justly interpreted its provisions as to register a very large number of Democratic voters throughout the State and had secured them, as it was thought, in their rights to the elective fran- chise. This action threatened the continued ascendancy of the Republican party in the State, and a determined effort was made to prevent a result which would prove noth- ing short of a catastrophe to that party.

V. THE ELECTIONS IN BALTIMORE CITY IN OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER, 1866. THE TRIUMPH OF THE DEMOCRATIC CONSERVATIVE PARTY AND OVERTHROW OF THE CON- STITUTION OF 1864.

In the municipal election which took place in Baltimore on the IIth of October, 1866, the Board of Police Commissioners, composed of Mayor John Lee Chapman,

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ex-officio, Moses Hindes and Nicholas Wood, refused to appoint a single Demo- cratic judge or clerk of election, but selected their appointees for these offices from the ranks of the most bitter and uncompromis- ing partisans, many of whom were men of notoriously ill repute. These officers, in vio- lation of the registration law went behind the lists of registration, and examined the vot- ers on oath as to their qualifications ; and not content with asking questions prescribed by the law as to the acts of the applicant made inquisition into his thoughts and opinions, and put any hypothetical case that their cap- rice or malevolence suggested, and required him to answer it under the penalty of ex- clusion from registration. The consequence of this conduct was the disfranchisement of a great majority of the Democratic voters of the city. For this offense of appointing men well-known to be unfit, as well as for other offenses committed by them, Gover- nor Swann, in pursuance of the law sum- moned the Police Commissioners before him on charges of malfeasance and mis- conduct in office. They answered with a protest against his jurisdiction and refused to appear. They were tried, however, and on full proof of the charges were convicted and removed from office by the Governor. Mr. William T. Valiant and James Young, citizens of high standing and character, and of thorough and unimpeach- able loyalty, were appointed in the places of the Commissioners thus removed. These gentlemen entered upon the discharge of their duties, made demand upon the re- moved Commissioners for the possession of the station houses and other property of the Board, and that the control of the police force should be surrendered to them. This

demand was peremptorily and defiantly re- fused.

These gentlemen nevertheless proceeded in the execution of their office and prepared to appoint and organize a police force which should be under their control. Mr. William Thompson, the sheriff of Baltimore City, in compliance with a requisition to that effect, recognized their authority, put himself under their direction, and began the work of summoning the posse comitatus. This was on Friday, the 2d of November.

Early on the morning of Saturday, the 3d of November, Mr. George Maund, the State's Attorney for Baltimore City, ap- peared before Judge Bond of the Criminal Court and applied for a bench warrant charging these Commissioners and the sheriff with a breach of the peace, and the Commissioners with the additional offense of an unlawful interference with the Police Commissioners in the execution of their duty, meaning the Commissioners who had been removed by Governor Swann. On these charges the bench warrant was issued by the judge, and the newly-appointed Commissioners and the sheriff were arrest- ed and brought before the Court. They were accompanied by their counsel, Hon. Wm. Schley and Hon. J. H. B. Latrobe and Mr. Orville Horwitz. The charge was wholly unfounded and frivolous and the warrant illegal on its face. This was made clear on the brief argument which took place between the counsel of the Commis- sioners and the Sheriff and the State's At- torney, who was assisted by Mr. Henry Stockbridge, Mr. Archibald Stirling and Mr. Stockett Matthews representing the deposed Commissioners and the Re- publican party. Judge Bond was inex-

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orable, however. He required the Com- missioners and the Sheriff to give bail in the sum of $20,000 to keep the peace, and the new Commissioners were further re- quired to refrain from any attempt to ex- ercise the duties of their office. Under the instruction of counsel these officers declined to give bail. They were forthwith com- mitted to the jail of Baltimore City by Judge Bond, until they should give the re- quired bail of $20,000, to keep the peace and also to refrain from exercising the du- ties of Police Commissioners. This commit- ment was a legal document of a novel char- acter and was commented upon by Judge Bartol in the habeas corpus proceedings which subsequently took place. It was in the nature of an injunction or restraining order, wholly outside of the authority and jurisdiction of the Criminal Court, and fur- nishes, perhaps, the earliest example or precedent of an attempt at government by injunction, a judicial theory and practice with which of late we have become too familiar.

At the instance of the friends of the im- prisoned Commissioners and Sheriff, a writ of habeas corpus was on the same day is- sued by Judge Bartol of the Court of Ap- peals directed to the warden of the city jail returnable before him on Monday, the 5th of November, the day preceding the elec- tion. On that day memorable in our city annals, the petitioners and respondent ap- peared by counsel. Mr. James, the warden of the jail, there was reason to believe, would respond at once to the writ and pro- duce his prisoners. This expectation was doomed to disappointment. The warden, influenced by the threats or persuasions of the Republican leaders, availed himself of

a law recently passed giving to the respond- ents in habeas corpus proceedings four days after the service of the writ within which to make answer and return. One of the ear- liest acts of the succeeding Legislature was an act repealing this law designed to ob- struct and subvert the great writ of personal freedom.

There was nothing to be done. Judge Bartol was compelled to postpone the hear- ing to Thursday, November 8th, two days after the election. On that day the Com- missioners and Sheriff were brought before Judge Bartol amid a vast concourse of citi- zens assembled around the Court House. The argument, involving the consideration of the questions of the legality of the action of Governor Swann, in removing the old Commissioners, in appointing their succes- sors, of the authority of the new Commis- sioners under such appointment, and of the legality of the conduct of the Sheriff in sup- porting that authority, was entered upon and consumed three days.

On Tuesday, November 13th, Judge Bar- tol delivered his opinion fully and unquali- fiedly sustaining the action of the Governor in removing the old Commissioners and fill- ing their places by the appointment of new Commissioners, and also sustaining the acts and conduct of the new Commissioners and of the Sheriff-which were made the grounds of the charges on which they had been arrested and committed-as a rightful exercise of authority on their part. He ani- madverted in just and severe terms on the lawless and rebellious course pursued by the removed Commissioners, and on the wholly unwarranted and illegal action of the Judge of the Criminal Court and of the State's Attorney in ordering and effecting

HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

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the arrest and imprisonment of these offi- cers of the law. The Commissioners and Sheriff were discharged amid the applause of a crowded Court room and of a vast audi- ence outside, after an illegal and unjust in- carceration of ten days. In the meantime the election had taken place (Tuesday, the 6th of November), and the tyrannic oligarchy which had for six years ruled the State had been overthrown.

It was this lawless and rebellious action of the Mayor and the deposed Police Com- missioners of the city of Baltimore, sus- tained and aided by the Judge of the Crim- inal Court and the State's Attorney, over- throwing the authority of the State as it did in this city, and inciting to insurrection, that led Governor Swann to call on President Johnson for the aid of the Federal Govern- ment in maintaining the authority of the State. In answer to this call President Johnson sent General Grant to investigate and report on the condition of things in the city to enable him to determine whether a case existed for his interference. The de- posed Police Commissioners had continued to hold their offices-their successors hav- ing been, as above stated, incarcerated in the Baltimore City jail by order of the Judge of the Criminal Court-and were now proceeding with their preparations for the State election to be held on Tuesday, the 6th of November. Their failure to ap- point a single Democratic Conservative Judge or clerk at the municipal election in October constituted one of the charges of malfeasance in office, on which they had been tried, convicted and removed from office. This offense they were preparing to repeat.

General Grant arrived in the city on Sat-

urday evening and had taken quarters at the Eutaw House. Early on Monday morning he, together with General Canby, who had come over from Washington on the same errand as General Grant, had an interview of some length with the leaders of the Republican party, the Mayor of the city and the deposed Commissioners being among the number. After this interview these officers called on Governor Swann and the Democratic Conservative commit- tee at the Governor's residence on Franklin street. They expressed to the Governor and to the Committee their hope for a peaceful solution of the difficulties, and their belief that under the arrangements which had been made by the old Commis- sioners, a fair and honest election would be held. General Canby further assured the Committee that he had obtained from these Commissioners the promise that they would appointed a Democratic Judge and clerk at each of the polling places and urged the Committee to furnish such list at once. This was all that the Committee had asked and with this assurance they were well con- tent. There was no delay. A list of Judges and clerks which had already been prepared was immediately taken by Mr. John T. Ford and Gen. John W. Horn to the office of the Commissioners in the Old Assembly Rooms, then standing on the northeast cor- ner of Holliday and Fayette streets. But these gentlemen, after being kept waiting for some time in an ante-room, were finally refused admission to the presence of the Board, and were informed by one of its counsel through a half-opened door that the Judges and clerks of election had been appointed and that no changes would be made. The door was then closed in their

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faces. In the meantime General Canby had returned to Washington, whither General Grant had already preceded him on an earlier train. There was no redress. These distinguished officers of the army came and saw, but did not conquer the obdurate par- tisanship of the old Commissioners and of Judge Bond. The result of their visit was distinctly unfavorable to the success of the cause of constitutional reform. Gover- nor Swann's application for Federal aid in maintaining his authority was not pressed. General Grant in his interview had made it quite plain : the Governor, and to the Democratic Conservative committee, that in his opinion Federal interference was un- necessary.

This act of turpitude on the part of the old Commissioners of Police, involving as it did a serious breach of faith, certainly with General Canby, and presumably also with General Grant, as well as a gross vio- lation of public duty, and the imprisonment of the new Police Commissioners and of the Sheriff of Baltimore City, from which, as already narrated, Judge Bartol was unable to relieve them, indicated to the Democratic Conservatives what they had to expect on the day of election. But while disappointed they were not disheartened. These high- handed and arbitrary acts, occurring as they did almost simultaneously, aroused the pro- foundest indignation and resentment; and as the intelligence of them spread through- out the city and all hope of an honest elec- tion seemed dissipated, an outbreak was for a while imminent. But through the active exertions of the Democratic Conservative leaders wiser and peaceful counsels prevailed with the excited multitude. The citizens of Baltimore were inspired with the determina-

tion to make the fight at all hazards, con- scious of the rectitude of their motives and conduct, and of the importance and magni- tude of the rights and interests at stake. Meetings were held that night in every ward throughout the city; tickets were dis- tributed and speeches were made urging the Democratic voters to exercise their rights and perform their duty to themselves and to their fellow-citizens at the polls on the ensuing day.

The Democratic Conservative voters ac- cordingly went to the polls the next day, without a single judge or clerk of election throughout the city to represent them; where they had to confront not only a solid phalanx of hostile judges and clerks with stacks of blank warrants instead of ballots on the window sills of the polls for the arrest of Democratic voters, as it was an- nounced, and a hostile police force; but a specially appointed constabulary of several hundred men, drawn from the slums of the city and armed with bludgeons, slung-shots and revolvers. But all these nefarious ef- forts to prevent an expression of the popu- lar will were in vain. The reformers de- manded their rights in such unexpected numbers, and in a mood that so plainly in- dicated they would brook no trifling, that this contemplated crime against the elective franchise and the rights of the citizens, de- liberately planned by the Republican party, and sustained and aided by Judge Bond of the Criminal Court, the State's Attorney and the police force of the city, was ren- dered incapable of being carried out, by their surprised and now thoroughly alarmed co-conspirators, the judges and clerks of election charged with its execution; and though hundreds of voters were disfran-

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chised, the Democratic Conservatives car- ried the three Legislative districts of the city by safe majorities; thus securing the requisite two-thirds votes in the two Houses of the General Assembly of the State to make a new convention a certain and an assured success. In the Senate they had obtained by this vote in Baltimore City just the number requisite for that purpose under the existing Constitution. That body would stand sixteen Democratic Conservatives to eight Republicans. Had the friends of Constitutional reform failed to carry any one of these Legislative districts into which the city was divided, and thus lost one Senator, the labors of the Democratic party would have probably been in vain. Cer- tainly their future efforts would have been seriously embarrassed and obstructed.

On the night of that election Mr. Knott was himself made the victim of an act of violence at the hands of this special police force. A great throng of rejoicing and en- thusiastic Democratic Conservatives had filled North street between Baltimore and Fayette streets, awaiting the announcement of the returns of the election from the office of the Baltimore Evening Transcript, the able and courageous organ and advocate of the movement from its beginning to its close, edited and conducted by Mr. James R. Brewer and Gen. William H. Neil- son, the latter gentleman being one of the Legislative candidates elected. Mr. Knott, among others, was called upon to address the immense audience, which he did in a few words of congratulation on the victory which had been achieved. A few moments later while passing the corner of North and Fayette streets, on his return to the Demo- cratic headquarters at Barnum's Hotel, he

was seized by two of these special officers, one brandishing a policeman's club and the other a slung-shot, and threatened with in- stant violence if he did not submit to arrest. Upon their showing their badges of office, Mr. Knott submitted, and was hurried to the Middle District police station, where he was hailed with curses, loud and deep, by a crowd of policemen, both regular and irregular, gathered there after the closing of the polls. He was taken before Justice Hebden, who that morning had been ap- pointed in place of Justice Spicer, the regu- lar Police Justice of that district, who had resigned. On demanding the charge against him, the "Specials" were for a moment dumb-founded. They evidently did not an- ticipate that any charge was necessary for the arrest of a Democrat on that day, and they had nothing to say, until some one in the room cried out "inciting a riot." The suggestion was accepted at once by the "Specials" and that charge was made. Or- ders had been issued on the evening pre- vious by the Police Commissioners to the Police Justices to commit without bail all who should be arrested on the day of elec- tion. But the result of the election was now known and its meaning understood and felt. The political chains which had bound the people of Baltimore for six years had been dissolved in the heat of that day's conflict. Mr. Knott told the Justice the facts, and denounced the arrest as an out- rage. After a few whispered words by Captain Mitchell, the Justice dismissed the charge and Mr. Knott was released. He left the station house amid a chorus of epithets, among which "traitor" and "rebel" were the least offensive. It was the expir- ing growl of as malignant a faction as ever

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misgoverned a city and trampled upon the rights of its citizens. Largely recruited from the ranks of the defunct Know- Nothing organization which had gone to pieces after its expulsion from power in 1860, and mainly controlled by its old lead- ers, by reviving and renewing the odious methods and practices which had stamped that organization with a peculiar infamy, it seriously discredited and compromised the Union cause-of which it assumed the ex- clusive guardianship-in our city and State. Subsequently in the prosecution of his office as State's Attorney it fell to Mr. Knott's duty to meet several of these special police officers of that day on their way through the Criminal Court of Baltimore City to the jail and penitentiary.

This chapter in the history of the redemp- tion of a State should not close without an appropriate tribute to the services of Hon. Montgomery Blair in the work of that re- demption. Leaving the Republican party when it was at the height of its power and prosperity, when, flown with insolence and pride at its triumphant termination of the war between the States, it was preparing to violate all the principles of the Constitution and the rules of modern civilized warfare in dealing with the conquered, in order fur- ther to subdue and humiliate the spirit of the South, he allied himself with the Demo- cratic party at its hour of deepest depres- sion and sorest need; but when it alone stood for the liberties of the people, the rights of the States, and for the good faith and honor, which, in the language of Mr. Burke, "holds the moral elements of the world together." In the cause of the Dem- ocratic party he labored with indefatigable zeal, unfaltering courage and a singular dis-

regard of personal interests, to the close of a useful and honorable life. It is painful to add that the treatment he subsequently received at the hands of some members of the Democratic party of the State was not encouraging to the repetition of such self- sacrificing conduct on the part of our pub- lic men. There were not wanting men in the ranks of that party, who, ignorant or careless of his services in which themselves had taken no share or part, could only remember that Mr. Blair was once a mem- ber of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet.

VI.

THE LEGISLATURE OF 1867, THE PASSAGE OF THE REFORM MEASURES, THE EN- FRANCHISEMENT ACT, THE CONVEN- TION BILL AND THE MILITARY BILL, THE ELECTION OF GOVERNOR SWANN AS SENATOR, HIS RES- IGNATION AND ITS CAUSES.

In the election of November 6, 1866, Mr. Knott was chosen a delegate from the Sec- ond Legislative district of Baltimore to the General Assembly of Maryland. This body embraced among its members some of the most eminent men of the State. In the Senate sat Hon. James T. Earle, George Vickers, Oden Bowie, William B. Stephen- son, Levin L. Waters, Wm. Kimmel, Jacob Tome, Barnes Compton, Richard Mackall.

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Author: Shepherd, Henry Elliott, 1844-1929, ed. 4n Publication date: 1898 Publisher: [Uniontown? Pa.] S.B. Nelson Number of Pages: 1344

Author: Shepherd, Henry Elliott, 1844-1929, ed. 4n
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: [Uniontown? Pa.] S.B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1344