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 68
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131
It is needless to say that this information occasioned profound anxiety to the friends of constitutional reform in the city, to a few of whom it was communicated on the fol- lowing day; for it was not deemed advisable to give it too extensive a circulation without additional facts and further inquiry.
On Sunday, the 24th of February, Mr. Knott, to whom this message from Mr. Blair had been delivered, had an interview with the Hon. S. Teackle Wallis. This in- terview was suggested by the knowledge Mr. Knott had acquired of certain contro- versies which had for some time been pend- ing in one of the courts of Baltimore City, and which had been very recently settled. From Mr. Wallis facts were learned of an important character concerning transac- tions which threw a flood of light on the subject and opened a clew to the motives and causes which, it might very well be supposed, could and would, operate with potent influence to bring about the condi- tion of things in the State which was indi- cated and threatened by these rumors should Lieutenant Governor Cox be in- stalled in office. The facts thus obtained
571
HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
were immediately communicated to Gov- ernor Swann with an earnest appeal to him to remain at the helm of State, at least until these rumors could be investigated, and either their truth established or their false- hood exposed. It was urged on the Gov- ernor that whatever doubt there might be as to the truth of the rumors reported to be in circulation in Washington-though the fact of the two interviews with Secretary Stan- ton gave them great color of probability and support-there could be none whatever con- cerning the facts of grave import and sig- nificance communicated by Mr. Wallis.
Other gentlemen, both in Baltimore and at Annapolis, whither Governor Swann had returned on Monday morning, united in pressing these views, and in following up this appeal to Governor Swann. Among the gentlemen of Southern views and sym- pathies who called on Governor Swann in Baltimore on that Sunday to tender to him their sympathy and support, to express to him the sentiments of their appreciation of his services to the State, and their hope that, in the grave exigency which had so unex- pectedly arisen, he would postpone, for the present at least, his retirement from the Gubernatorial chair, were Mr. Samuel Smith, Mr. Neilson Poe, Sr., and Mr. Sam- uel H. Taggart. In a conversation with Governor Swann on the evening of Satur- day, the 23rd of February, the Governor had complained to Mr. Knott of the want of sympathy and support he had met with from the Democrats and Southern sympa- thizers during the election troubles in the preceding November, and since, notwith- standing his exertions and sacrifices to se- cure them their political right. "He had," he said, "burnt his bridges behind him so
far as his connections with the Republican party were concerned, and had estranged some of his oldest and closest friends (naming some of them), gentlemen who," he declared, "had always been his stead- fast supporters in all the positions he had ever held, as President of the Balti- more & Ohio Road, as Mayor of the city, as Governor and as President of the First National Bank; that while he had lost, he presumed, the friendship of these gentle- men on account of his efforts to secure the people their rights, he had failed to concili- ate the cordial sympathy and support of many of his new allies." The complaint was just. The visit, however, of the gen- tlemen above named, and the call made upon the Governor at his official residence in Annapolis by Judge Carmichael and Gov. Philip Francis Thomas on the afternoon of Monday, the 25th of February, contributed to allay this just irritation of Governor Swann. After fully weighing the matter, the Governor, late on the evening of Mon- day, the 25th of February, invited several of his friends, members of the Legislature, to the Executive chamber and informed them that he had concluded to defer his re- tirement from office of Governor for the present, and that the inauguration of his successor would not take place on the day following, the 26th, as designated. This announcement produced a profound sense of relief as it became known. On Fri- day, the Ist day of March, Governor Swann sent to both Houses of the Legisla- ture a formal message, announcing his defi- nite and final resolution not to accept the position as Senator, but to remain in office as Governor of the State. In this message he stated: "It had been my purpose, in re-
572
HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
sponse of the people of the State, to have accepted the high trust; and I had so ex- pressed myself on various occasions, and more recently in an interview with the Lieu- tenant Governor. Within a short time past however, and up to the date of my commu- nication to that officer on the 26th ult., when my resignation was to be officially an- nounced to the Legislature, I have been visited by such appeals from the representa- tive men of the State, urged with an earn- estness and unanimity which could hardly be mistaken, asking my continuance in the Gubernatorial chair, that I did not feel at liberty to consult any individual preference of my own in making up a final judgment upon this subject. I have no right, from any motive of personal ambition in connec- tion with the Senatorial office, if such could be supposed for a moment to influence my action, to disregard my paramount obliga- tion to the people of my State. I deem it proper to avail myself of the earliest oppor- tunity compatible with the public interest, and in deference to what I believe to be my duty to the people of the State of Maryland, to decline the appointment of Senator of the United States for six years from the 4th of March, 1867, and to return to the General Assembly of Maryland my grateful appre- ciation of the distinguished honor they have conferred upon me."
To this message the General Assembly of Maryland, by joint resolutions offered in the House, by the Hon. Isaac D. Jones, return- ed the following answer: "Resolved by the General Assembly of Maryland, That the communication just received from his Ex- cellency, Thomas Swann, announcing his declination of the office of United States Senator, to which he had been chosen by the
present Legislature with great unanimity, has under the peculiar circumstances which surround it, impressed the Legislature with profound sensibility ; and that in view of the momentous interests involved, and the cause of constitutional government in all States, Governor to remain firmly at his post in the Executive chair, at this juncture in the af- fairs of the State, an evidence of the same devotion to its welfare which has in the past earned for him its highest honors and will in the future more strongly commend him to the confidence of the people."
These resolutions adopted by the General Assembly by more than a two-thirds vote in each House fully expressed the opinion of the members of that body on the gravity of the crisis which had arisen, and their sense of relief that the crisis had been averted through the patriotic course pursued by Governor Swann, and also their apprecia- tion of the personal sacrifice on his part which that course involved.
To complete the history of this incident it is proper and necessary to add: That on the 4th day of the ensuing March, from his place as the President of the Senate, Lieu- tenant Governor Cox delivered an address to that body in which he denied the truth of the rumor which attributed to him the intention, in the event of his succeeding Governor Swann and of the refusal of the Senate of the United States to admit that gentleman to a seat in that body; to appoint Hon. J. A. J. Creswell to fill the vacancy thus created and the imputation on his per- sonal and political integrity which that rumor carried with it, and requesting the appointment of a committee to investigate the rumor. A committee was accordingly appointed. This committee on the 21st of
573
HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
March reported that they had called on Governor Swann who "had disclaimed bas- ing his action in resigning the office of Sen- ator on this rumor and that his (Governor Swann's) course had been dictated by high motives of State policy," and that these rumors had in all probability originated in the excitement incident to the sudden and unexpected action of Governor Swann. There was no disposition to press this mat- ter further as the State had been delivered from the peril which threatened it. That that peril was grave, all realized, and the resolutions of the General Assembly above quoted, adopted by more than a two-thirds vote of each House, bear witness. There has never been since any reason or ground furnished to change or modify the opinion and belief at that time so generally and au- thoritatively expressed. On the contrary, subsequent events confirmed that opinion and belief. After the adjournment of the Legislature Lieutenant Governor Cox re- moved to the city of Washington, and in a short time thereafter was appointed health officer of that city. Subsequently he was appointed by President Hayes United States Commissioner to the World's Fair, held in 1879, at Melbourne, Australia. On his re- turn from that mission he was seized with a mental ailment from which he never recov- ered. He died in 1880.
The Republicans of Maryland fully real- ized how vitally important to them was the defeat of the bill for a convention to frame a new Constitution, and they strained every nerve to accomplish that defeat. They were persuaded that if the Constitution of 1864, with its iniquitous 4th Section of Article I, and its sweeping and comprehensive denun- ciations and disabilities, should remain the
fundamental law, they would have an im- mense advantage in that fact in future con- tests for political supremacy in the State. They would in that case also retain posses- sion of the judiciary; and the Democratic Conservatives of Baltimore had in the con- duct of Judge Bond recent and painful ex- perience of how powerful an instrument for party purposes that branch of the govern- ment may be made in the hands of men who sink the judge in the partisan. Nor was Judge Bond alone in this respect. The con- duct of some of the judges in other parts of the State, and the decisions of the Court of Appeals by a majority of four judges to one in the cases of Hardesty vs. Taft and Anderson vs. Baker, in 23 Md. Rpt., illus- trate the truth of which the history of Eng- land, and of our own country as well, fur- nishes examples: That Judges after all are but mortal and fallible men, that when elected or appointed upon party considera- tions and for party or personal services, they are not forgetful nor ungrateful, when great party interests are involved in questions be- fore them; and that in the last resort the de- fense and preservation of a people's rights and liberties cannot with safety be intrusted in other hands than those of the people themselves.
The enfranchisement act had been passed, but only as a temporary measure to meet emergencies which might arise before a new Constitution could be framed, adopted and put in operation. In regard to that act it may be said that there was a plausible, nay a reasonable doubt, as to whether the saving clause in the 4th Section of Article I, which gave to the General Assembly under certain conditions the power "to restore the citizen" who had committed any of the enumerated
.574
HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
acts of disloyalty "to his full rights of citisen- ship" would be construed to sustain so gen- eral and sweeping an enfranchisement of the people of the State en bloc, as was effected, or attempted to be effected, by that act. The municipal bill for giving a new govern- mient to the city of Baltimore had not been passed ; but in anticipation of its passage the radical Mayor and City Council of Balti- more had already made an appropriation of $20,000, and authorized the employment of counsel to contest its validity in the Courts; and Mr. Henry Stockbridge and Mr. Archi- bald Stirling, Jr., had been retained for the purpose. Both these measures would have to run the gauntlet of a hostile judiciary, should the convention bill be not passed, and the Constitution of 1864 remain the law of the land.
In the meantime too the conflict between President Johnson and the Republican Con- gress had reached a point of intensity which rendered the impeachment of that magis- trate inevitable. Should impeachment pro- ceedings end, as it was generally believed they would end, in the conviction of Presi- dent Johnson and his removal from office, that result would remove the most powerful obstacle to the accomplishment of the pur- poses of the Republican party in the State. No wonder then that the Republicans in- trigued and threatened. The change of a single vote in the Senate would defeat the bill for a convention. One of the results of the miserable scramble which had taken place in Baltimore for the mayoralty nomi- nation had been, it was claimed, to transfer two votes in that body to the ranks of the opponents of the bill. The claim was not without foundation. These two votes were however afterwards secured for the conven-
tion bill by the abandonment of the pending municipal election bill.
VIII.
THE CONVENTION BILL, THE MILITARY BILL, AND THE BALTIMORE MU- NICIPAL BILL.
The people of Baltimore City were for many just and substantial reasons, anx- ious for as speedy a deliverance as pos- sible from radical mal-administration of their municipal affairs under which they had suffered so long. But they did not realize the practical difficulty which confronted the representatives of the Democratic Conservative party in Annap- olis in the alternative presented between an abandonment of that measure of local relief, the municipal election bill, which, if even passed, would have a doubtful result, as al- ready pointed out, and the loss of the con- vention bill. Numerous appeals by letter and in person were made to members of the House from Baltimore City urging upon them the passage of the municipal election bill even at the sacrifice of the convention bill. These appeals were sometimes threat- ening in their tone. Meetings were held in several of the wards of Baltimore City, and delegations of citizens visited Annapolis for the same purpose. Even a part of the city press uninformed as to the actual situation and of the nature of the issue indulged in un- favorable criticism of those who were doing everything in their power to avert a threat- ened peril to the State and to extricate the Democratic party from the entanglement and difficulty in which it had become involv- ed through the narrow and selfish policy of a few of its members. Without the aid of the Conservative Republicans the success of the
575
HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
movement in the election of November, 1866, would have been doubtful ; indeed, im- possible. Now that the war was over and the danger past the mortifying spectacle was presented in our city of men who dur- ing the conflict had done nothing or had kept in close hiding, demanding, with Fal- staffian courage, the exclusion of all Con- servative Republicans from official posi- tions in disregard of the manifest fact that without the aid of Conservative Republican votes il. the House the convention bill could not be passed.
Later on, however, when the citizens of Baltimore became better informed upon this subject and realized the danger to which the course they had recommended would have subjected their greater and paramount in- terests they did full justice to the motives and conduct of those who against their pro- tests and remonstrances had the courage and foresight to carry out a policy they deemed necessary to the complete and final emancipation of the people of the State. With some, however, it was a question of the immediate possession of the spoils of office. It was in vain pointed out to these persons that by the course they wished pur- sued, they would get a lawsuit on their hands and not the offices; that the conven- tion could, in the new Constitution which it would frame, order a municipal election and give to Baltimore a new city government which would be free from all objections, and beyond the reach of any controversy in the Courts because these tribunals would at the same time be wholly reconstructed by that instrument.
This suggestion was subsequently carried out by the convention, and Article XI, Title, City of Baltimore, makes its appearance in
the Constitution of 1867. This article pro- vided for an election in October, 1867, of a Mayor and City Council invested with cer- tain powers and duties, but saving to the General Assembly of the State full control over the corporation thus created and di- recting that the article should not be so construed as to make Baltimore independ- ent of the State. This experiment and anom- ally in Constitution-making-an innova- tion without a parallel. in the fundamental law of any State-was made in deference to the wishes of the people of Baltimore, and has its explanation in the circumstances here narrated. In the recasting of the net, however, into the pool of municipal offices, which, in consequence of this course, was rendered necessary, some of these recalci- trant gentlemen lost the prizes which they had so selfishly coveted and which they had regarded as secured, and they never forgot nor forgave those who, in their judgment, had been, however innocently, instrumental in the loss.
In conclusion, it may be affirmed that had the Legislature of 1867 adjourned without passing a convention bill, the radical Re- publicans of Maryland would have at once prepared to make a desperate attempt to re- gain the political control and possession of the State. In this attempt, in addition to "the coign of vantage," the retention of the Constitution of 1864 and of the judiciary of the State would have given them, they would have commanded some powerful out- side influences and resources which would have enabled them at least to prolong the struggle for supremacy for an indefinite per- iod, certainly until to the close of General Grant's administration, even had they been ultimately unable to accomplish their avow-
576
HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
ed purpose, the permanent recovery of the State into "loyal" hands. No one familiar with the events and circumstances immedi- ately preceding the election of November, 1866, and General Grant's connection with those events and circumstances, as previ- ously recounted, and also familiar with the course pursued by General Grant in Louisi- ana in 1872, under circumstances analagous to those which would have existed in Mary- land, in the hypothesis of a failure of the convention bill, can doubt on which side in that struggle for the political control of our State the sword of General Grant would have been cast.
No sooner was this difficulty, growing out of its own domestic dissensions re- moved, when the Democratic Conservative party was called to confront a new danger. At a meeting of the Republican State Cen- tral Committee it was foreshadowed, indeed threatened, that should the convention bill be passed Federal interference would be in- voked. The alleged grounds for this inter- ference were: that the Legislature itself was illegally elected in violation of the registra- tion laws, and of the provisions of the Con- stitution of 1864; that it was chosen by, and was largely composed of, disfranchised reb- els; that the call for a convention was in dis- regard of that Constitution, and that the body convoked under it would be revolu- tionary in its character. It was also boldly asserted that should such convention assem- ble, a government under the Constitution of 1864 would at once be organized, and Frederick City, it was said, was selected as the place for its organization. This gov- ernment would appeal to Congress for rec- ognition and to the war department-then under the exclusive control of Secretary
Stanton-for military support. There were not wanting timid counsellors who ad- vised a postponement of the bill for a con- vention to some more opportune time, to a time more free from the difficulties and em- barrassments growing out of the existing condition of the country, to a future General Assembly, which under the general enfran- chisement act, that had been already passed, it was thought that the Democratic Con- servatives of the State would at any time in the future be able to control. But this course would have endangered everything ; as the enfranchisement act itself in the meantime, as before stated, would have to undergo the criticism of a hostile judiciary. To meet this emergency and to prevent the disastrous results involved in such surren- der of everything that had been contended for during three years of painful struggle, a caucus of the Democratic Conservative members of the Legislature was promptly called, two weeks before the close of the session. In this caucus Mr. Knott offered the following resolution: "Re- solved, That the Democratic Conser- vative members of the Legislature in caucus assembled, hereby pledge them- selves to lay aside for the present every other measure of a political character, in- cluding the bill now pending in the Senate for a special municipal election in Baltimore, and to postpone all private business; and to de- vote the remaining part of the session, if necessary, to the passage of the convention bill and of the military bill for the organiza- tion of the militia of the State; to the prompt passage of which measures we hereby pledge ourselves." This resolution was adopted with great unanimity, after a brief discussion, in which the absolute import-
577
HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
ance of these two measures was explained and insisted upon. These two bills were immediately put upon their passage and car- ried through the Legislature, the two recal- citrants in the Senate having been won over by the sacrifice of the Baltimore municipal election bill. This was the answer of the General Assembly of Maryland and of the Democratic party of the State to the threats of armed Federal intervention. The call for the convention was sustained by an over- whelming popular vote. The convention assembled in pursuance of the call, and gave to the people of the State a Constitution stripped of all obnoxious and proscriptive clauses and disabilities, and restored the people to the full enjoyment of all their rights and liberties as freemen. And in less than a year under the operation of the pro- visions of the military bill, Baltimore wit- nessed the largest and finest display of its citizen soldiery that ever before had been seen on its streets. This, too, was the be- ginning of that splendid military organiza- tion, the Fifth Regiment of which our city and State are so justly proud.
The work of the Democratic State Central Committee, begun in February, 1864, after more than three years of arduous and al- most incessant labor under circumstances of great discouragement, and even of dan- ger, was now triumphantly accomplished. Maryland was again free.
Mr. Knott represented his State in the National Democratic Convention of 1864, and in that of 1872; and was a member of the National Democratic Executive Com- mittee from 1872 to 1876.
In 1884 he took an active part in the cam- paign which resulted in the election of the
Democratic candidate for President, Grover Cleveland, making speeches in Maryland, West Virginia, New Jersey and New York.
In 1885 Mr. Knott was offered and ac- cepted the position of Second Assistant Postmaster General under Mr. Cleveland's first administration, a position which he filled to its close.
On the appointment of Mr. Knott to this office the Baltimore Sun in its issue of Thursday, April 2, 1885, made the following editorial comment: "The appointment of Mr. A. Leo Knott to be Second Assistant Postmaster General is in every respect one of the very best that could have been made. It is as honorable to the President and to Mr. Vilas, the Postmaster General, as it is gratifying not only to Maryland, but to all who are acquainted with Mr. Knott, and who know with what conspicuous ability he filled for twelve years the office of State's Attorney for the city of Baltimore. During the three successive terms for which he was elected, he proved himself to be one of the most energetic and fearless prosecuting officers that Baltimore has ever had, and on his retirement from a position that was both delicate and arduous, the thoroughly noble manner in which his official duties had been performed was made the subject of the warmest approval from the press of the city. Mr. Knott has been heartily in accord with the principles of the Democratic party ever since the time when, in 1858, he first began to take an active part in political affairs. He has not been a blind partisan, but, while holding to his party, has shown on occa- sions a conservatism and a spirit of inde- pendence that won for him the respect even of those with whom he differed on points of policy or methods of action. He has filled
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.