water to
Annapolis. Mass meetings were held and speeches of bitter defiance
hurled against the Federal Government. The Baltimore Council
appropriated five hundred thousand dollars to put the city in a state of
defense, though the State had proclaimed its neutrality.

The shrewd, good-natured, even-tempered President at Washington used all
his powers of personal diplomacy to pour oil on the troubled waters of
Maryland. In the meantime with swift, sure, and merciless tread he moved
on the turbulent State with the power of Federal arms. It was impossible
to hold the Capital of the Nation with a hostile State separating it
from the loyal North.

The steps he took were all clearly unconstitutional, but they were
necessary to save the Capital. They were the acts of a dictator, for
Congress was not in session, but he dared to act. Troops were suddenly
thrown into the city of Baltimore and its streets and heights planted
with cannon. The chief of police was arrested and imprisoned, the police
board was suspended and the city brought under the rule of drumhead
court-martial. The writ of _habeas corpus_ was suspended by Federal
authorities in a free and sovereign State whose Legislature had
proclaimed its neutrality in the sectional conflict. Blank warrants were
issued by military officers and the house of every suspect entered by
force and searched. The mayor and his Council were arrested without
warrant, held without trial, and imprisoned in a military fortress, and
when the Legislature dared to protest, its members were arrested and its
session closed by bayonets.

So thoroughly was this work done that within thirty days from the attack
on the troops of New England, Maryland's Governor by proclamation called
for four regiments of volunteers to assist the Washington Government in
the proposed invasion of the South.

In like manner, with hand of steel within a velvet glove, Mr. Lincoln
prevented the secession of Kentucky and Missouri. It was done with less
violence, but it was done, and these rich and powerful States saved to
the Union.

The swift and bloodless conquest of Maryland inspired the North with the
most grotesque conception of the war and its outcome.

The British and French Governments had immediately recognized the
Confederate States as belligerents under the terms of international law
and closed their ports to the armed vessels of both contestants. Mr.
Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, hastened to assur