nt, and the mob became for the time being the controlling force
of that city. So largely in the ascendant was it and so confident were
the disunionists in consequence that they, without warrant of law,
assumed the responsibility of issuing a call for the Legislature of
Maryland to convene in Baltimore. Governor Hicks, fearing that the
Legislature would respond to the call, and that if it did it would
yield to the predominant spirit, give voice to the purpose of the mob,
and adopt an act of secession, resolved to forestall such action by
convening that body to meet at Frederick City, away from the violent
and menacing demonstrations of Baltimore.

The Legislature thus assembled contained a number of leading members
who were ready at once for unconditional secession. There were also
others who, with them, would constitute a majority and would vote for
the measure could they be sustained by public sentiment, but who were
not prepared to give that support without that assurance. The field of
conflict was, therefore, transferred from the halls of legislation to
the State at large, and to the homes of their constituents, and there
the battle raged during the summer of 1861. In that conflict of ideas
Miss Carroll bore an earnest and prominent part, and the most
distinguished men have given repeated evidence that her labors were
largely instrumental in thwarting the secessionists and saving
Maryland to the Union. The objective point of the labors of the
disunion leaders was a formal act of secession, by which Maryland
would become an integral portion of the Confederacy, not only
affording moral and material aid to the Southern cause, but relieving
the rebel armies in crossing the Potomac from the charge, which at
that stage of the conflict the leaders were anxious to avoid, of
ignoring their vaunted doctrine of State rights by invading the
territory of sovereign States. With the usual arguments that were
urged to fire the Southern heart and to reconcile the people to the
extreme remedy of revolution, special prominence was given to what was
stigmatized as the arbitrary and unconstitutional acts of President
Lincoln. To place the people in possession of the true theory of their
institutions and to define and defend the war powers of the Government
were the special purposes of Miss Carroll's labors during these
eventful months."

It would not be possible in the compass of this paper to set forth
circumstantially all the importa