of one of her leading
representatives that Maryland did not ask for it. Nevertheless, the
subject could no more be ignored there than in other States; and after
the President's emancipation proclamation an emancipation party
developed itself in Maryland.

There was no longer any evading the practical issue, when, by the
President's direction, the Secretary of War issued a military order,
early in October, 1863, regulating the raising of colored troops in
certain border States, which decreed that slaves might be enlisted
without consent of their owners, but provided compensation in such
cases. At the November election of that year the emancipation party of
Maryland elected its ticket by an overwhelming majority, and a
legislature that enacted laws under which a State convention was chosen
to amend the constitution. Of the delegates elected on April 6, 1864,
sixty-one were emancipationists, and only thirty-five opposed.

After two months' debate this convention by nearly two thirds adopted an
article:

"That hereafter in this State there shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude except in punishment of crime whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted; and all persons held to service or labor
as slaves are hereby declared free."

The decisive test of a popular vote accepting the amended constitution
as a whole, remained, however, yet to be undergone. President Lincoln
willingly complied with a request to throw his official voice and
influence in favor of the measure, and wrote, on October 10, 1864:

"A convention of Maryland has framed a new constitution for the State; a
public meeting is called for this evening at Baltimore to aid in
securing its ratification by the people; and you ask a word from me for
the occasion. I presume the only feature of the instrument about which
there is serious controversy is that which provides for the extinction
of slavery. It needs not to be a secret, and I presume it is no secret,
that I wish success to this provision. I desire it on every
consideration. I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity
of the already free, which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would
bring. I wish to see in process of disappearing that only thing which
ever could bring this nation to civil war. I attempt no argument.
Argument upon the question is already exhausted by the abler, better
informed, and more immediately interested sons of Maryland herself. I
only add that I s