Jhu Ma Thesis

A HELPING HAND
FEDERAL PATRONAGE AND THE CREATION OF THE MARYLAND

EMANCIPATION MOVEMENT
By
Peter Atwood Sicher
A thesis submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity

with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Baltimore Maryland
July, 2011
ABSTRACT
As late as 1860 there was no Republican Party organization in Maryland worthy
of the name. By 1864, Maryland Republicans, calling themselves the Union Party were
able to abolish slavery with a new state constitution. A careful examination of the papers
of influential players in both state and national politics, of newspapers, and of
government documents, along with the relevant secondary literature, shows how the
federal government stimulated this transformation in Maryland politics.
Although he lacked formal power over Maryland politics, President Lincoln used
the patronage system to build a pro-emancipation political coalition in the state during the
Civil War.
It was federal officeholders who formed the core of the Unionist political
organization. When emancipation became the policy of the administration, it also became
the policy of the administrations patronage network and therefore the policy of the
Union Party. Lincoln ensured this by making support for emancipation the litmus test for
party loyalty. Furthermore, not only did Lincolns patronage power help create a pro-
emancipation political organization, it also ensured the victory of pro-emancipation
candidates in key elections. His officeholders used numerous tactics, many of them quite
shady, to ensure the end of slavery in Maryland.
ADVISOR: Dr. Michael P. Johnson
ii
Acknowledgments
Many people gave my considerable help over the last year as I researched and
wrote this paper. I would like to thank the staff of the H. Furlong Baldwin Library at the
Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, Maryland, the staff of Hagley Museum and
Library in Wilmington, Delaware, the staff of the Library of Congress, and Chella
Vaidyanathan, the history reference librarian at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at
Johns Hopkins University. Many of my friends had to put up with my ramblings about
patronage politics and this thesis for the last year. I thank them. My father, Michael
Sicher, read through the paper and gave highly useful feedback. Finally, my advisor,
Professor Michael Johnson gave valuable advice that helped guide my research and read
through multiple drafts of the paper, giving invaluable advice on how it could be
improved. I could not have completed this paper without him.
iii
Table of Contents
Abstract
II
Acknowledgments
III
Introduction
1-2
Maryland Politics Before the Civil War

2-5
The Henry Winter Davis-Montgomery Blair Rivalry

5-11
The Spoils System: How it Worked

11-16
Maryland Politics and Patronage in the First Phase of the War

16-21
An Overview of Custom House, Post Office, and Other Patronage in Maryland

21-26
The Beginning of the Emancipation Movement in Maryland

26-37
Patronage, Provost Marshals, and the 1863 Elections

37-50
The Case of James Lott Ridgeley

50-55
The Maryland State Constitutional Convention and the 1864 Presidential Nominating
Convention
56-62
Politics and Patronage in the Years after Emancipation

63-69
Conclusion
69-71
iv
Bibliography
72-76
About the Author

77
List of Tables
Turnover amongst Baltimore City Custom House employees

22
Turnover amongst Baltimore City Postal Clerks

23
Turnover amongst Maryland Postmasters

24
Maryland Congressional Districts in 1861

28
Maryland Congressional Districts in 1863

42
v
Peter Atwood Sicher
Johns Hopkins University
July 21, 2011
Masters Thesis
A Helping Hand
Federal Patronage and the Creation of the Maryland
Emancipation Movement1
On February 28, 1861, Jeremiah Morton stood up to address the Virginia
Secession Convention. Morton, who had served as a Whig in the United States House of
Representatives from 1849 to 1851, explained to his fellow delegates how President-Elect
Abraham Lincoln and his Republican Party would not have to invade the Upper South to
undermine slavery. The Republicans, Morton said, will administer the Government for
the strengthening of the party; they will make capital out of every appointment. The
recipient of a fat office, be it a Judgeship, be it a Collectorship, be it a Postmaster of this
cityhas much power, and each one will form a nucleus of sympathizing friends with
the Republicans. If the Southern states remained in the Union, you will find Black
Republicans upon every stump, and organizing in every county; and that is the peace that
we shall have from this glorious Union.2
1
The phrase A Helping Hand comes from a letter sent to Abraham Lincoln on April 11, 1864 by
Maryland Republican R.H. Jackson in which Jackson requested that In our great struggle for life and
liberty Lincoln give Maryland emancipationists a helping hand by removing federal officeholders in the
state who opposed emancipation. R.H. Jackson to Abraham Lincoln, April 11, 1864. Transcribed and
annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. Available at Abraham Lincoln
Papers at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division (Washington, D.C.: American Memory Project,
[2000-02]), http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/alhome.html, Accessed March 30, 2011.
2
George H. Reese, ed., Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention of 1861, (Richmond: Virginia State
Library, 1965). 1:256-257. Information on Morton comes from Morton, Jeremiah, (1799-1878), in
Matthew Wasniewski, Farar Elliott, and Robin Reeder, Biographical Directory of the United States
Congress, 1774 to Present, Accessed March 30, 2011,
http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp. There is an excellent discussion of Southern fears of
Lincolns patronage power, and how those fears contributed to secession, in William W. Freehling, The
1
Morton was not alone in believing that Lincolns patronage power could prove to
be a potent weapon against slavery. On November 1, 1860, a few days before the
presidential election, the New Orleans Delta warned that in a short time after Lincolns
election, Southerners corrupted by Republican patronage would wield all the influence
of the Federal Government within the Southern States.3
These warnings proved to be quite prescient. The patronage system was one of the
primary tools used by President Lincoln and his Republican Party to create a pro-
emancipation political coalition in Maryland during the Civil War. As late as 1860 there
was no Republican Party organization in Maryland, other than the friends and allies of
the influential Blair family. After Lincoln became president, federal patronage brought
the coalition of ex-Whigs, Know-Nothings, and Constitutional Unionists led by Henry
Winter Davis into the Republican fold and radicalized it. While federal military coercion
certainly played a large role in keeping Maryland in the Union, this paper shows that
federal patronage was the primary factor in the creation of a powerful pro-emancipation
party and in the abolition of slavery in Maryland.
Maryland Politics Before the Civil War
By the eve of the American Civil War, the institution of slavery in Maryland was
in decline. While slaves had constituted a third of the states population in1790, by 1860,
that proportion had declined to less than one-sixth.4 In northern Maryland, slaves made
Road to Disunion: Volume II; Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861, (New York: Oxford University Press,
2007).
3
Freehling. Page 456.
4
Barbara Jeanne Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground, Maryland during the Nineteenth
Century, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). Page 1.
2
up only 3.2 percent of the population.5 At the same time, white immigrants were pouring
into the state. In fact, by 1860, Maryland contained more immigrants than slaves.6
Aware of these changes, proslavery politicians further south were deeply
concerned about Marylands long term loyalty to the peculiar institution. In 1856, the
Richmond Enquirer pointed out Marylands geographical position, her longest line of
boundary being co-terminous with non-slaveholding territory, and her narrow territorial
limits make the escape of fugitives easy, [and] forbid her being a slaveholding State with
safety or profit, save in a few of her southern counties. The Enquirer worried that
William Sewards boast was true; that Freesoilism is stronger on the shores of the
Chesapeake bay, surrounded by slavery, than on the shores of San Francisco, surrounded
by Freesoillism itself.7
In reality, the Republican Party in Maryland was extremely weak. In the
presidential election of 1856, when over ninety thousand votes were cast in the state, less
than three hundred Marylanders voted for the Republican nominee, John C. Frmont.8
Almost all of his votes came from the City of Baltimore.9 A month before the election, in
a very long address to the people of Maryland, the American Party (popularly known as
the Know-Nothings) devoted only a paragraph to Frmonts candidacy, beginning, Of
John C. Fremont, the nominee of the Republican party of the North, we need say but
little.10
5
Charles Lewis Wagandt, The Mighty Revolution: Negro Emancipation in Maryland, 1862-1864,
(Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2004). Page 3. Northern Maryland constituted Allegany,
Washington, Frederick, Carroll, Baltimore, Harford, and Cecil Counties.
6
Freehling. Page 88.
7
Richmond Enquirer, quoted in the Charleston Mercury, September 13, 1856.
8
Baltimore Sun. November 14, 1856.
9
Ibid. October 10, 1856.
10
Easton Gazette. October 4, 1856.
3
In 1860, the Republicans fared only slightly better in Maryland. Lincoln won
slightly more than two thousand votes out of over ninety thousand votes cast.11 Once
again, a disproportionate number of the votes for the Republican electoral ticket came
from Baltimore City, perhaps as many as two thirds.12
That is not to say that the Democrats went largely unopposed in Maryland in the
decade before the Civil War. Before it dissolved during the crisis ignited by the Kansas-
Nebraska Act, the Whig Party had, with the exception of Tennessee and Kentucky, no
more reliable supporter among the slave states than Maryland.13
When the Whig Party collapsed, it was replaced in much of the North by the
Republican Party, but in Maryland, it was reincarnated as the anti-immigrant American
Party. The American Party was in large part the creation of conservative former Whigs
who did not want to join the long-despised Democrats but refused to join the antislavery
Republican Party. The Northern and Southern wings of the American Party, however,
could not get along. The Northern members drifted into the Republican Party when the
Southern members refused to denounce slavery. While it failed as a national party, the
American Party remained competitive in Border South states such as Maryland.14
In the 1856 presidential election, American Party presidential nominee, ex-
President Millard Fillmore, defeated Democratic candidate James Buchanan in Maryland
11
Election of 1860, in Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project, Accessed March 31, 2011,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1860.
12
New York Tribune. November 12, 1860.
13
Election of 1836 through Election of 1852 in Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project,
Accessed March 31, 2011, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/elections.php. Maryland, Tennessee, and
Kentucky, all supported Whig candidates in the elections of 1836, 1840, 1844, and 1848, but Maryland,
unlike Kentucky and Tennessee, went Democratic in 1852.
14
For a discussion of the American Party, see Freehling, Chapter 7: The Scattering of the Ex-Whigs.
4
by more than eight thousand votes.15 In 1857, Know-Nothing Thomas Hicks was elected
governor, and in 1858 the American Party gained control of both chambers of the state
legislature. In fact, according to historian Jean H. Baker, in the years immediately before
the outbreak of Civil War, the American Party became the states leading party,
although the party downplayed xenophobia in favor of rhetoric about the preservation of
the Union.16
The Henry Winter Davis Montgomery Blair Rivalry
The first battle over Maryland patronage under Lincolns Republican Party
concerned the president-elects Cabinet. When Lincoln was constructing his Cabinet,
some choices, such as the appointment of William Henry Seward as secretary of state,
were easy. Others, however, such as the choice between Marylanders Henry Winter
Davis and Montgomery Blair, were more complex.17
Montgomery Blair came from one of the most important political families of the
nineteenth century. His father, Francis Preston Blair, (who was himself the son of a
Kentucky attorney general) was a member of Andrew Jacksons Kitchen Cabinet and
edited the Jackson administrations official organ, the Washington Globe.18 Francis
Preston Blair and his sons Montgomery and Frank Blair defected to the new Republican
15
Election of 1858 in in Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project, Accessed April 20, 2011,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/elections.php.
16
Jean H. Baker, The Politics of Continuity: Maryland Political Parties from 1858 to 1870, ( Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973). Page 5.
17
For a discussion of how Lincoln created his cabinet, see Harold Holzer, Lincoln: President-Elect:
Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008).
18
Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2005). Pages 289 and 359.
5
Party in the mid-1850s over the issue of slaverys extension into the western territories
and out of resentment of Southerners control of their party.19
Montgomery Blair was born in Kentucky in 1813. He graduated from the United
States Military Academy in 1836 and in 1839 moved to Missouri where he became close
to Senator Thomas Hart Benton. In 1840 he was appointed as the U.S. District Attorney
for the State of Missouri, though he was later removed when the Whigs came to power.
Nonetheless, he remained active in politics, involving himself with the antislavery
Democrats who formed the splinter Free Soil Party in 1848. In 1853 he moved to
Maryland and in 1855 he was appointed as the solicitor general for the U.S. Court of
Common Claims by Democratic President Franklin Pierce. He was later removed from
office by President James Buchanan when he broke with the Democratic Party over the
issue of the expansion of slavery. In 1856 he represented Dred Scott in his case before the
Supreme Court.20 While Frank Blair became one of the primary leaders of the
Republicans in Missouri, Montgomery led the party in Maryland.21
Henry Winter Davis was born in Annapolis, Maryland in 1817. Davis spent his
entire life in opposition to the Democratic Party. In 1865 he still fondly remembered
advice given to him by his father in his youth: My son, beware of the follies of
Jacksonism!22 During the Civil War, Davis despised Blair in large part due to his
Democratic Party roots, referring to him as a former loco (locofoco was a derogatory
19
Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil
War, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Pages 150-153.
20
Jean H. Baker, Blair, Montgomery in American National Biography Online, Accessed April 1, 2011,
http://www.anb.org.proxy1.library.jhu.edu/articles/04/04-
00112.html?a=1&f=%22montgomery%20blair%22&d=10&ss=0&q=1.
21
Baker, The Politics of Continuity. Pages 92-93.
22
Bernard C. Steiner, Life of Henry Winter Davis, (Baltimore: John Murphy Company, 1916). Pages 7-9.
6
term for a Democrat).23 Davis was the cousin of Lincolns close friend and political
advisor, Judge David Davis of Illinois.24
When the Whig Party collapsed, Davis joined the Know-Nothings. He claimed
that his party was opposed by fanatics of freedom (abolitionists) and fanatics of slavery,
disorganizers and disunionists both.25 Davis and his allies opposed the repeal of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, because to open the question, renews the terrible collision of
opposing passions. Davis was elected to Congress in 1855 and served in the House of
Representatives until 1861.26 In early 1860, Davis agreed to support the Republican
candidate for Speaker of the House, William Pennington, in exchange for the
appointment of his friend and ally Henry W. Hoffman as the House of Representatives
sergeant at arms.27
Blair controlled the Maryland delegation to the 1860 Republican National
Convention in Chicago, where he switched his states votes to Lincoln at a key moment.28
At the same convention, Davis was considered for the vice presidential nomination,
although he did not get any of the Blair controlled Maryland delegations votes.29
During the election, Davis apparently wanted Lincoln to win, although he
publicly supported the Constitutional Union ticket of John Bell and Edward Everett. He
wrote to his cousin that until Lincolns policy is developed and our people begin to feel
confidence in him personally, it will be impossible to carry the State for him under the
23
Baker. Page 101.
24
Steiner. Page 18.
25
Ibid. Pages 80-81.
26
Ibid. Page 82.
27
Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin, Lincoln and the Patronage, (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1943). Page 67.
28
Freehling. Page 329.
29
Proceedings of the Republican National Convention, held at Chicago, May 16, 17, and 18, 1860,
(Albany: Weed, Parsons, and Company, 1860). Pages 128-129.
7
name Republican yet it can be done under our existing organization: and then the term
supporter of the administration will serve as a rallying point. Winter Davis wanted his
cousin to do what he could to keep the Republicans from running their own ticket in
Maryland because it will embitter our people & make them look on republicans as their
opponent instead of regarding them as they now do as only a part of the unhappily
divided opposition to the democrats with whom it is the wish of our people to
cooperate.30 Winter Davis praised the actions of Montgomery Blair, who was trying to
keep the Republicans from running their own ticket. Davis wrote that Blair means
rightly and thinks with us, yet he will probably be overruled by his Republican
colleagues who wanted to run their own ticket.31
Blair clearly failed, because the Republicans ran a ticket in Maryland in the 1860
election that performed very poorly. While Davis supported Bell, he went out of his way
to defend the Republicans, declaring that they were not traitors to the Constitution,
hostile to your interests, bent on servile insurrection, endeavoring to invade your state
institutions and make your families insecure and your lives a torment.32
After Lincoln won the election the rivalry between Maryland Republicans and
Maryland Constitutional Unionists became far more acrimonious, as both groups angled
to have their leader placed in Lincolns cabinet. One Maryland Republican wrote to
Lincoln that Davis was the worst enemy of Republicanism in Maryland and that he did
not use an opportunity late in the campaign to bring Bells supporters over to Lincoln.
Furthermore, appointing Davis would be repugnant to the Republican party here and
30
Henry Winter Davis to David Davis, June 28, 1860. Lincoln Papers.
31
Ibid.
32
Steiner. Page 163. (At this point, Winter Davis was hardly a radical opponent of slavery. In fact, in
September he urged David Davis to work to keep radicals out of Lincolns cabinet should Lincoln be
victorious. Henry Winter Davis to David Davis, September 1860. Lincoln Papers.)
8
would not be the least satisfaction to the community generally and will be of no
conciliation to the slaveholders, who feared the antislavery agenda of the Republicans.
Davis was so unpopular, the writer claimed, he would not even be reelected to Congress.
Instead, Lincoln should appoint a man who would make his administration more popular,
such as Montgomery Blair or Judge William L. Marshall, who was the nephew of the
famous Chief Justice John Marshall.33
Lincoln choice of Blair for the spot of postmaster general did not end the conflict
between Maryland Republicans and Constitutional Unionists. The two groups continued
to clash over Maryland patronage. On April 13, 1861, the pro-Davis Baltimore Clipper
claimed that Republicanismin Maryland, is a simple farce. In the last presidential
campaign, there were certain persons who believed that the Chicago nominee would be
elected. They did not care whether they contributed to his success or not. They conceived
the idea that if they proclaimed themselves Republicans, they would be entitled to the
Federal offices in the State.34 These office-hunters, the Clipper claimed, did not care that
their actions would give the states electoral votes to Breckenridge by splitting the
opposition to the Democrats. Now, these people were swarming in Washington like
flies about a molasses barrelThe appointment of any one of these would invoke more
indignation against the [Lincoln] administration, and go further to drive Maryland into
the vortex of secession, then anything that could possibly be doneIt is in the power of
the administration to confirm Maryland in her loyalty to the Government, or to drive her
Union men to desperation and place them in a miserable and impotent minority.35
33
John T. Graham to Abraham Lincoln, November 10, 1860. Lincoln Papers.
34
Carman and Luthin. Pages 205-206. And, Worthington G. Snethen to Abraham Lincoln. November 26,
1860. Lincoln Papers.
35
Carman and Luthin. Pages 205-206.
9
Winter Davis himself requested that Lincoln give him control over Maryland
patronage, claiming that while the majority of the people of Maryland are opposed
utterly to the Democratic party they would not support the Lincoln administration if they
saw it only as representative of a Northern anti-slavery policy. For that reason, Lincoln
should favor Daviss faction rather than the Republicans when it came to patronage. Not
that Davis wanted the Republicans completely shut out. He coyly wrote that he wanted to
give Maryland Republicans their fair share of the patronage -- that is as 2000 is to
40.000. If Lincoln followed his advice, Davis claimed, the conservative appointees he
recommended will stand as symbols of your policy to the whole mass of the people &
thus assured of your policy thousands who have no hopes or care for office shall & will
yield your administration a hearty support. Davis sought to increase his own influence in
Maryland, telling Lincoln that Should the policy indicated be approved I will take the
responsibility of indicating names of prominent citizens whose representations
are entitled to perfect reliance.36
Maryland Republicans made similar claims about the political stakes involved in
Maryland patronage. Worthington Snethen told Lincoln that if Bells supporters were
favored over Republicans, then it will prove fatal, to the golden opportunity, now
afforded, of our securing Republican ascendency in Maryland.37 Francis S. Corkran told
Lincoln that if Davis was favored then Republicanism in Maryland is dead.38
Lincoln ultimately chose to split the Maryland patronage between the factions. He
made Daviss ally Henry W. Hoffman head of the Baltimore Custom House, while he put
Blairs ally William L. Marshall in the position of surveyor of ports. Daviss ally William
36
Henry Winter Davis to Abraham Lincoln, February 1861. Lincoln Papers.
37
Worthington G. Snethen to Abraham Lincoln, March 25, 1861. Lincoln Papers.
38
Francis S. Corkran to Abraham Lincoln, February 26, 1861. Lincoln Papers.
10
H. Purnell was made postmaster in Baltimore while Blairs ally Washington Bonifant
was made U.S. Marshall for Maryland. The naval officer in the Custom House and the
naval agent, respectively Francis S. Corkran and William Pinckney Ewing, were both
Blair allies. Finally, the appraisers, Frederick Schley, Charles P. Montague, and Joseph F.
Meredith, were all allies of Davis.39
The Spoils System: How it Worked40
The use of political patronage to create a political organization, popularly known
as the Spoils System, was in large part a creation of Jacksonian Democrats such as
Martin Van Buren in the 1820s and 1830s. In the early 1820s, Van Buren and his
Bucktail followers created a powerful patronage network in New York state politics
known as the Albany Regency.41 When Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828,
party bosses who had supported him expanded the system. On inauguration day, Duff
Green announced in his pro-Jackson newspaper, the United States Telegraph that the new
president would REWARD HIS FRIENDS AND PUNISH HIS ENEMIES.42 Jackson
was hardly the first political leader to reward his friends with political office, but before
39
Abraham Lincoln, April 1861, (Memorandum on Maryland Patronage). Lincoln Papers. Also, see
Carman and Luthin. Page 208.
40
Interesting discussions of the formation of the Spoils System can be found in both Wilentz, The Rise of
American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, and in Daniel Walker How, What Hath God Wrought, (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2007). For an excellent study of political corruption in the 1850s, centering
in large point on the Spoils System see Mark W. Summers, The Plundering Generation: Corruption and
the Crisis of the Union, 1849-1861, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). A decent overview of
patronage politics during the Civil War can be found in Carman and Luthin, Lincoln and the Patronage.
The same topic is discussed at length in Mark E. Neely, The Union Divided: Party Conflict in the Civil War
North, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002). For a decent study of the Post Office from its
founding until the development of the telegraph, touching on many occasions on patronage issues see
Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse, (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1995). Excellent descriptions of pre-Jackson patronage can be found in Robert
Pierce Forbes, The Missouri Compromise and its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America, (Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007).
41
Howe, What Hath God Wrought. Page 239.
42
Ibid. Page 331.
11
him no president removed his opponents from office the way Jackson did.43 His
successors would further expand the system.
Patronage politics was not only about rewarding friends and punishing political
enemies, however. In fact, it was integral to the operations of political parties. Historian
Daniel Walker Howe points out that political parties endeavored to maximize their
appeal, not by moderating their stands so as to win over people in the middle, but by
energizing and mobilizing their own core supporters.44 To mobilize voters, parties used
officeholders and those who hoped to hold office. The broad reach of the patronage,
with a postmastership in every little community up for grabs, tended to diffuse this kind
of strong motivation throughout the public.45 Historian Ari Hoogenboom echoes this
point, stating that The best assets in building a machine were local, state, and federal
employees, whose jobs depended upon politicians. With the application of pressure these
civil servants would contribute both time and money to their patrons political wars.46
Officeholders or those who wanted office worked for their party in numerous
ways. For example, after his election to the House of Representatives in the fall of 1863,
Maryland radical John Angel James Creswell received a letter from a constituent
requesting a position in Washington. The constituent claimed a right to a position based
on his work on Creswells behalf in the recent election, when he not only voted for him
but erased [Creswells opponent John W.] Crisfields name on 22 tickets and placed
43
Ibid. Page 333. Also see John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to
Morse. Pages 219-226.
44
Howe. Page 576.
45
Ibid. Page 576.
46
Ari Hoogenboom, Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement, 1865-1883,
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961). Page 4.
12
yours there for others to vote.47 Other types of shady activities were engaged in on
Election Days by party workers as well. In cities, they might buy votes in bulk from gang
leaders. Sometimes individual voters were bribed with cash or just plied with alcohol.
Temporary jobs might be provided in exchange for votes.48
It was not just on Election Days that parties needed a legion of workers in order to
operate. Describing the New York City Custom House during the Civil War, historian
Mark E. Neely writes that Work could not be performed efficiently because ultimately
the institution was not aimed at work; it was aimed at abetting party organization. The
business hours explain much: 9 to 3At election season, moreover, many employees
worked on politics, not on tariffs.49 The same could be said for post offices and custom
houses throughout the nation during the Civil War, including in Maryland. Low level
public servants spent much of their time organizing rallies or parades.50 They were also
expected to pay a portion of their salary to the partys war chest. If they refused, they
would be fired.51 At the New York City Custom House, workers had to give two percent
of their salary to the party.52 Even elected positions were not immune from the spoils
system as prolific party fundraisers were sometimes rewarded with nominations, even for
positions as important as governorships. Once nominated, candidates had to continue to
contribute to their partys war chest. Furthermore, the nominees themselves were often
47
J.P. Fieroe? To John A.J. Creswell, January 3, 1864. Creswell Papers, Volume IV, Library of Congress.
(Tampering with ballots was hardly an isolated practice. See Mark W. Summers, The Plundering
Generation: Corruption and the Crisis of the Union, 1849-1861, (New York: Oxford University Press,
1988). Page 55.)
48
Summers, The Plundering Generation. Pages 51-67.
49
Neely, The Union Divided: Party Conflict in the Civil War North. Pages 28-29.
50
Ibid. Pages 29-30.
51
Summers. Page 30.
52
13
chosen by officeholders.53 In 1863, the Frederick Examiner claimed that The holding of
Primary Meetings under party auspices was readily acquiesced in by political wire-
workers, and made part of the machinery of party, because they gave prestige & were
easily managed.54
Because getting out the vote was so vital to winning elections it was important for
political parties to curry favor with those who had influence over public opinion in their
communities. Local officeholders could make national leaders aware of those who should
be courted. At some point during Montgomery Blairs tenure as postmaster general, every
postmaster in Maryland sent him a list of those who were politically influential in their
community. There were thousands of names, organized in various ways. For example, the
Barton Post Office in Allegany County split the names into Union, Democratic, and
Copperhead Politicians. Among the Unionists alone, there were fifty-six people. Some
had notes next to their names mentioning that they were active and influential while
each had his profession listed.55 The Broad Creek Post Office in Queen Annes County
had a special category for the Men who control Political opinion here. There were
seven such men who were Union Emancipationists, three were conservative Unionists,
and thirteen were Peace Democrats. As in Barton, their professions were listed along with
additional information. Emancipationist Charles E. Skinner was a farmer who was
influential but not active. One of the conservative Unionists on the other hand, was
described as active at times. Even though he was notable enough to be listed among
those who controlled political opinion, emancipationist James Stevens was apparently not
53
Summers. Pages 24, 31, and 62.
54
Frederick Examiner. August 5, 1863.
55
Blair Family Papers, Reel 43. Library of Congress.
14
as influential as other members of his group, because he was described as Not influential
nor active.56
The existence of these lists is significant for several reasons. First it shows that
local officeholders could be useful not just as party workers but in keeping their leaders
informed about public opinion in an age before polling. Second, they show that party
leaders were aware of the need to court local notables. They could be courted not just
with jobs, of course, but with contracts or with cash so that they would convince their
communities to vote a certain way. The fact that voting was public might have further
heightened the power of these local notables. A poor voter might hesitate to anger
community leaders by voting for the wrong candidate.57 These lists also show how
complex political identity was in Maryland during the Civil War.
The names of many of the postmasters themselves provide further evidence of the
tendency of those dispensing patronage to favor community leaders. For example, in
1863, the postmaster in Bakersville in Washington County was Elias Baker, the
postmaster in Cockeysville in Baltimore County was James F. Cockey, and the
postmaster in Zouchsville, also in Baltimore County, was G.C. Zouch.58 These people
56
Ibid.
57
While she was describing Brazilian politics in the mid-nineteenth century rather than American politics
in the same era, historian Judy Biebers remark that The humble yet respectable votante was placed in an
especially vulnerable position because he voted openly. Failure to comply with the wishes of a patro
(patron) would quickly become common knowledge, making it highly unlikely that the typical votante
exercised any true freedom of opinion in casting his vote, is nonetheless instructive. Judy Bieber, Power,
Patronage, and Political Violence: State Building on a Brazilian Frontier, 1822-1889, (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 1999). Page 84.
58
Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the
Thirtieth September, 1863; Showing the State or Territory from Which Each Person was Appointed to
Office, the State or Country in which he was Born, and the Compensation, Pay, and Emoluments Allowed
to Each; the Names, Force, and Condition of All Shops and Vessels Belonging to the United States, and
when and where Built; Together with the Names and Compensation of all Printers in Any way employed by
Congress, or any Department or Officer of the Government, (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1864). Pages 423-429.
15
were probably the founders of their towns, or related to the founders, and therefore
carried weight in their community.
Probably even more important than local community leaders in influencing public
opinion and therefore especially important in patronage politics were newspapers.
Newspapers were in reality mouthpieces of a political party or a political faction.
Sometimes those who ran an influential newspaper doubled as a party boss, such as the
Albany Evening Journals editor, a New York State Republican leader, and William H.
Sewards campaign manager, Thurlow Weed. Officials could patronize their newspaper
supporters in several ways. Giving jobs to influential editors was one. Lincoln was
known to be especially generous in giving out jobs to newspapermen.59 Another was to
buy multiple subscriptions as Democratic members of the Wisconsin legislature did.
Even more lucrative were printing contracts for items such as election returns,
government documents, and legislative proceedings.60 In return for this largesse,
newspapers played a vital role in supporting their partisan patrons by rallying support,
arguing for their patrons policies, and keeping party loyalists informed of the official
party line.61
Maryland Politics and Patronage in the First Phase of the War
During the secession crisis and through the first few months of the war, Lincoln
and his allies worried that Maryland would join the slaveholders rebellion. While
Governor Hicks was a staunch Unionist, the state legislature, which had been elected in
59
Hoogenboom. Page 63.
60
Summers. Pages 40-41.
61
Summers. Page 39.
16
the wake of John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry, was controlled throughout most of the
wars first year by pro-southern Democrats. Hicks tried to forestall attempts to take
Maryland out of the Union by simply not convening the legislature.62
On April 19, when the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment tried to pass through
Baltimore on its way to Washington D.C. the troops were set upon by a secessionist mob.
In self-defense, they opened fire. By the time the Massachusetts men made it out of the
city, twelve civilians and four soldiers were dead.63 For a short time Maryland seemed as
if it might secede. Hicks was frightened enough to convene the legislature, which denied
it had the power to take Maryland out of the Union but did claim that Maryland should
remain neutral between the North and the South. Within a short period, however, calm
returned to the state. Only nine days after the riot, Henry Winter Davis wrote to Seward
that A great reaction has set in.64 The federal government took no chances, however.
On May 13, Brigadier General Benjamin Butler and troops under his command occupied
Baltimore with no resistance. Federal troops would remain in the city throughout the war.
Furthermore, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland, even allowing
several secessionist members of the State Legislature as well as Baltimore Mayor George
W. Brown to be arrested.65
While Maryland and other Border States teetered on the brink of open rebellion,
Lincoln tried to avoid the issue of emancipation. When former Republican presidential
nominee John C. Frmont, who commanded Union forces in Missouri, issued an order
62
James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, (New York: Oxford University Press,
1988). Page 285. Also, see Wagandt. Page 12.
63
Wagandt. Page 11.
64
Ibid. Pages 12-13.
65
Ibid. Pages 13-14 and 31.
17
emancipating the slaves of all rebels in his theater of operations Lincoln revoked the
order and shortly thereafter removed Frmont from command.66
Because of these events, Lincolns overriding concern in the selection of
Maryland officeholders was their loyalty to the Union, not their stance on emancipation.
Even before he was inaugurated, Lincoln admitted as much in a letter to North Carolinian
politician John A. Gilmer, writing that As to the use of patronage in the slave States,
where there are few or no Republicans, I do not expect to inquire for the politics of the
appointee, or whether he does or not own slaves.67 In fact, according to historians Harry
J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin, the presidents paramount purpose was to build a
strong Unionist party in the border-slave regions, and to this end he selected the federal
officers, both civil and military.68
Lincolns willingness to split the Maryland patronage between Republicans and
Constitutional Unionists who had opposed him in the election probably reflected his
desire to create a broad Unionist coalition. Bringing Davis and his supporters into the
administration fold significantly widened his base of support in the state. In November
1860, Republican Worthington Snethen complained to Lincoln that the Constitutional
Unionists were willing to work with the secessionists unless Lincoln would buy Gov.
Hicks and his party, with the patronage of this State.69 While Snethen apparently hoped
to convince Lincoln not to give in to Hicks and the Constitutional Unionists by giving
them a share of the Maryland patronage, Lincoln did the opposite.
66
McPherson. Pages 352-354.
67
68
Ibid. Page 188.
69
Worthington G. Snethen to Abraham Lincoln, November 26, 1860. Lincoln Papers.
18
Sometimes Lincoln involved himself personally in seemingly insignificant
patronage disputes in Maryland. French S. Evans, who had campaigned for Lincoln in
Maryland, sought, with Lincolns support, an appointment as deputy naval officer at the
Baltimore Custom House.70 Francis S. Corkran, the naval officer, refused to appoint
Evans. Lincoln wrote to him that I am quite sure you are not aware how much I am
disobliged by the refusal to give Mr. F.S. Evans a place in the Custom-House. I had no
thought that the men to whom I had given the higher officers [offices] would be so ready
to disoblige me.71 Lincoln wrote to Corkrans superior, Secretary of the Treasury
Salmon P. Chase, that he had been greatlyI may say grievouslydisappointed and
disobliged by Mr. Corkrans refusal to make Mr. Evans deputy naval officer, as I
requested him to do.72 Under this pressure, Corkran relented and Evans received his
appointment.73
Many federal officeholders or future officeholders were involved in creating the
Union Party in 1861. Frederick Schley of Frederick County, for example, who served as
an appraiser, supported the Unionist coalition with his newspaper, the Frederick
Examiner, which also received printing contracts from the State Department.74 Schley
also participated in numerous political conventions, such as when he was a delegate to
70
Carman and Luthin. Page 67. And Abraham Lincoln, April 11, 1861, (Memorandum on Maryland
Appointments). Lincoln Papers.
71
Abraham Lincoln to Francis S. Corkran, May 6, 1861, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of
Abraham Lincoln, Volume Four, (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, 1953). Page 357.
72
Abraham Lincoln to Salmon P. Chase, May 6, 1861. Ibid. Pages 356-357.
73
74
1862). Page 199.
19
the County Convention of the Union Party in August.75Around the same time, the
Baltimore County Union Convention, which was tasked with choosing delegates to the
State Gubernatorial Convention, was chaired by William H. Hoffman, who served as the
postmaster at Paper Mills.76 John C. Holland, who would later by appointed as the
provost marshal for the Fifth Congressional District, was the secretary of the same
convention.77 At the Second Congressional District Union Convention in May, John
Frazier Jr. served as a delegate.78 Several months later he got an appointment from the
governor as assistant grain inspector with the help of conservative Unionist James B.
Ricaud, who in the spring of 1861 presided over the Maryland State Union Convention.79
Frazier would become a very powerful and controversial provost marshal on the Eastern
Shore. A final example is S.W. Falls, who was a delegate at the Union Nominating
Convention of the Third Congressional District. He was later appointed as the postmaster
of Upper Falls in Baltimore County.80 Cases like these abounded throughout Maryland
politics during the era.
At first, Blair and Winter Davis tried to get along when it came to the patronage.
In March, Davis wrote to his close friend Samuel F. DuPont that Blair promised to act
fairly with appointments and professes every disposition to promote my personal
views.81 The amity did not last long. Soon, Blair was claiming that Davis did not keep
75
Frederick Examiner. August 1861.
76
Baltimore Sun. August 8, 1861. And, Federal Register, 1861. Page 138.
77
Baltimore Sun. August 8, 1861. And, Wagandt. Page 158.
78
Baltimore Sun. May 24, 1861.
79
Ibid. And, Wagandt. Pages 34-35.
80
Baltimore Sun, May 21, 1861. And, Federal Register, 1863. Page 429. (Interestingly, at least some of the
officeholders involved in creating the Unionist coalition were appointed not by Lincoln, but by a previous
administration. William H. Hoffman, for example, was already serving as postmaster at Paper Mills in
1859. Perhaps to keep their positions, some officeholders switched their political allegiances. Federal
Register, 1861.Vol. 2, Page 150.)
81
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont, March 20, 1861. Samuel F. DuPont Papers, Series B, Box 42.
20
faith with me and that he was impracticable, selfish and not likely to be of much
service.82 Despite the tension, however, the nascent Union Party remained largely united
for the moment.
An Overview of Custom House, Post Office, and other patronage

in Maryland
One of the key centers of patronage politics in Maryland was the Baltimore
Custom House, which was directed throughout the Civil War years by Henry W.
Hoffman, who served in the House of Representatives from 1855 to 1857 as a Know-
Nothing.83 At the time, Hoffman was no friend to antislavery activists. While he voted
with Northerners who wanted to censure South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks
for his brutal caning of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, he also said that he who,
in speaking of slavery, talks of stains, without showing how they can be effaced; of
crimes, without showing how they can be suppressed; of wrongs, without showing how
they can be avoided; however signal his own virtues and illustrious his talents, teaches
but an extravagant and false morality, and exhibits proofs of the inconsistency and fatuity
of the highest intellect under the hallucinations of fanaticism.84
As collector of customs in Baltimore, Hoffman cleaned house. In 1859 the
Custom House in Baltimore employed one hundred and fifteen individuals.85 By
82
Wagandt. Page 27.
83
Hoffman, Henry William, (1825-1895) in Matthew Wasniewski, Farar Elliott, and Robin Reeder,
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present, Accessed March 30, 2011,
http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp
84
Henry W. Hoffman, Reasons of Hon. Henry W. Hoffman, of Maryland: House of Representatives, July
14, 1856.
85
21
September 1861, the Custom House had one hundred and eighteen employees. Of those
one hundred and eighteen, only seven had been employed at the Custom House in 1859.86
That is a turnover rate of ninety-four percent. Some turnover is to be expected, but
turnover at that level probably arose from the desire to create a pro-administration
political machine.87
Custom House Workers 1859 1861 1863

Total Workers 115 118 122
Holdovers from 1859 7 4
Turnover rate since 1859 94% 97%
Holdovers from 1861 91
Turnover rate since 1861 25%
The Baltimore Post Office was led by William H. Purnell. He was elected as
Maryland state comptroller in 1856 as a Know-Nothing candidate, and served in that
position until he resigned in 1861 to serve as postmaster of Baltimore. In late 1861 he
took command of a cavalry unit he recruited for the Union Army, known as Purnells
Legion, but then resigned in early 1862 to return to his duties as postmaster.88
The turnover rate amongst the clerks in the Baltimore Post Office under Purnell
was significantly lower than in the Baltimore Custom House under Hoffman. In
September 1859 there were thirty-five clerks employed in the Baltimore Post Office.89 In
1861, there were forty-two clerks there. Thirty-one of them had worked there in 1859.
1860). Pages 63-65.
86
Federal Register, 1861. Pages 64-66.
87
There was some turnover between 1861 and 1863. In 1863 the Baltimore Custom House employed 122
individuals. 91 of them had been there in 1861, meaning that between 1861 and 1863 the Custom House in
Baltimore lost 27 employees. At least one, George M. Russum, left because he received a more important
patronage spot. Federal Register, 1863. Pages 86-88. All percentages are rounded.
88
William Henry Purnell, (1826-1902), in Marylands Comptrollers, Accessed April 4, 2011,
http://www.marylandtaxes.com/comptroller/biographies/purnell.asp?bioname=William+Henry+Purnell&da
te=1856-1861. And, Purnells Legion, in Archives of Maryland Online, Accessed April 4, 2011,
http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000367/html/am367--460.html
89
Federal Register, 1859. Vol. 2, Pages 432-433.
22
That is a turnover rate of only twenty-six percent.90 Such a low turnover rate can be
explained in part by the fact that clerks at the Post Office seem to have had different
terms of employment. Most seem to have been hired for a one year period, from July 1,
1860, to June 30, 1861. In other words, they were hired by the previous Democratic
administration.91 This interpretation seems reasonable, since the turnover rate between
1859 and 1863, when the Lincoln administration had time to put in its own people, was
seventy-four percent.92 Nonetheless, that is a lower rate than that of the Custom House.
Baltimore City Postal Clerks 1859 1861 1863

Total Workers 35 42 38
Turnover rates were also lower for local postmasters than they were for the
Baltimore Custom House. In 1859 there were 424 post offices in Maryland and 466
postmasters (in some post offices the duties were shared by two or occasionally three
people). In 1861, there were 435 post offices and 469 postmasters. Of those 469
postmasters, 288 had been employed as postmasters in 1859. That is a turnover rate of
only thirty-nine percent. In 1863, there were 427 post offices and 465 post masters. Of
those 465 postmasters, 146 had been employed as postmasters in 1859 while 241 had
been employed as postmasters in 1861. That is a turnover rate of sixty-nine percent and
forty-eight percent respectively.93
90
Federal Register, 1861. Vol. 2, Pages 457-458.
91
Ibid. Vol. 2, Pages 457-458.
92
Federal Register, 1859. Vol. 2, Pages 432-433. And, Federal Register, 1863. Page 705. Of the thirty five
employees in 1859, only ten remained in 1863.
93
Federal Register, 1859, Vol. 2, Pages 146-152. And, Federal Register, 1861, Vol. 2, Pages 133-140.
And, Federal Register, 1863. Pages 423-429. (A selection of twenty one post office in Maine (Winnegance,
Winslow, Wilsons Mills, Wilton, Windham, Windsor, West Pownal, West Ripley, West Sedgewick ,West
Sydney, Wests Mill, West Sumner, West Trenton, West Washington, West Waterville, Winter Harbor,
Wiscasset, Woodstock, Woodville, Yarmouth, and York) suggest the low turnover rate in Maryland was
23
Maryland Postmasters 1859 1861 1863
Total workers 466 469 465
Total post offices 424 435 427
Both Purnell and Hoffman began as allies of Henry Winter Davis when he
represented the conservative wing of the Unionist coalition, as opposed to Blairs more
radical Republican wing. During the war, however, Winter Daviss faction became
increasingly more radical, making Blairs faction the conservative wing of the Union
Party by comparison. Hoffman remained loyal to Davis. Purnell, however, remained a
conservative and switched his allegiance to Blair.94 Perhaps the lower turnover rate
among clerks in the Baltimore Post Office and among postmasters throughout Maryland
reflects the conservatism of the Blair faction. The Blair-controlled Post Office
Department was content to appoint people loyal to the Union while the Davis faction
demanded more.
Interestingly, despite his Know-Nothing antecedents, Hoffman employed eight
immigrants in 1861 compared to his predecessors seven in 1859. Also interesting, while
in 1859, the Custom House employed only one German immigrant but three Irish
immigrants, in 1861, the Custom House employed three German immigrants but only one
Irish immigrant.95 This pattern probably reflects the importance of Irish immigrants in the
Democratic constituency and the fact that German immigrants were more likely to vote
not an anomaly. The turnover rate from 1859 to 1861 in the selected Maine post offices was less than ten
percent. Even between 1859 and 1863, it was only around sixty two percent. Federal Register, 1859. Vol.
2, Pages 145-146. And, Federal Register, 1861. Vol. 2, Pages 13-14. And, Federal Register, 1863. Page
423.)
94
For example, see William H. Purnell to Montgomery Blair, March 9, 1865. Lincoln Papers.
95
Federal Register, 1859. Pages 63-65. And, Federal Register, 1861. Pages 64-66.
24
for the Republicans.96 While Hoffman only had four immigrants in his employ by 1863,
two of them were Germans.97
Not surprisingly, many people who received federal offices had connections to
newspapers. Frederick Schley, editor of the Frederick Examiner, was an ally of Davis, an
appraiser for the federal government, and a frequent participant in political conventions.
Another newspaperman, John F. McJilton, editor of the Baltimore Patriot, had a job in
the Baltimore Custom House as a surveyor with a salary of $4,500 per year, one of the
highest of any Custom House employee.98 McJilton also received printing contracts from
both the Post Office Department and the State Department.99 In 1864 Montgomery Blair
recommended McJiltons removal to Lincoln, writing:
McJilton was appointed because he had the Baltimore Patriot. He has not
done us any political service & the office was conferred in consideration
of the support which was expected from the Baltimore Patriot. But Mr.
McJilton did not keep faith. He severed his connection immediately with
the Patriot & never rendered the least assistance to that paper or any other
to sustain the Administration. He is a man of no personal influence
whatever & no claims of any kind of position.100
Blair might have had an ulterior motive in attempting to get McJilton removed, who,
along with Hoffman and Schley, had been involved with Salmon P. Chases attempt to
wrest the Republican presidential nomination from Abraham Lincoln for the 1864
election.101 Blair and Chase did not get along. Nonetheless, Blairs attempt to get
McJilton removed by claiming that without his newspaper he could no longer be of much
96
McPherson. Pages 217-218 and 223.
97
Federal Register, 1863. Pages 86-87.
98
Federal Register, 1861. Page 64-65. Henry W. Hoffman, by comparison, had a salary of $6,000 per year
as collector of customs. And, Carman and Luthin. Page 128.
99
Federal Register, 1861. Pages 199 and 205.
100
Ibid. Page 129.
101
Wagandt. Page 141.
25
use to the administration clearly demonstrates that patronage positions were more than a
reward for past loyalty; they were also a way of strengthening the party for future battles.
Another editor to receive an important patronage position was Levin E. Straughn,
editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer.102 In the fall of 1863, Straughn was appointed to
the newly created three-man Board of Claims in Baltimore, set up to compensate
Unionists whose slaves were recruited by the Union Army.103 Like McJilton, Straughn
also received printing contracts.104 Straughn was a friend and ally of Henry Winter Davis
and was heavily involved with Daviss radical faction.105
The Beginning of the Emancipation Movement in Maryland
For most of 1861, Lincoln tried to avoid the issue of emancipation because he
feared it might drive the Border South into the Confederacy. Lincoln believed that
keeping the Border States in the Union was crucial, joking that I hope to have God on
my side, but I must have Kentucky.106 He told his Illinois friend Orville Browning that
I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone,
we cannot hold Missouri, nor I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our
hands is too large for us.107 When Frmont issued his controversial emancipation order,
102
Levin E. Straughn to John A.J. Creswell, November 28, 1863. Creswell Papers, Vol. III, Library of
Congress.
103
Wagandt. Pages 129-131.
104
Federal Register, 1861. Page 205.
105
Wagandt. Pages 112 and 237.
106
Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc., 2010). Page 169.
107
Ibid. Page 179.
26
Lincoln told him it was a bad idea because it might ruin our rather fair prospect for
Kentucky.108
In the summer and fall of 1861, however, the situation in the Border States began
to improve. Unionists won key elections in Kentucky and when rebel forces under
Leonidas Polk invaded the state in September the legislature declared for the Union.109
On June 13, Maryland voters went to the polls to select who would represent them in the
upcoming special session of Congress. In the Eastern Shore First Congressional District
Unionist John Crisfield received 7,181 votes to his pro-southern opponents 5,331. In the
Second District in Northern Maryland Unionist Edwin H. Webster received 7,251 votes
out of 7,377 cast. In the Third Congressional District, which was also in Northern
Maryland, Unionist Cornelius L.L. Leary narrowly defeated State Rights candidate
William P. Preston. In the Fourth District in Baltimore Henry Winter Davis was the only
Unionist candidate to go down in defeat. The victor was Henry May, who received 8,420
votes, compared to the 6,212 cast for Davis. May was briefly imprisoned in September
1861 due to his sympathies for the South, though during the election he did not run as an
outright secessionist. In Western Marylands Fifth District former Governor Francis
Thomas received 10,582 votes out of 10,902 cast. Finally, in the Sixth Congressional
District in Southern Maryland Unionist Charles B. Calvert achieved an extremely narrow
victory over pro-southern candidate Benjamin G. Harris.110 Davis was pleasantly
surprised by Calverts victory in more heavily enslaved Southern Maryland, writing to
Samuel F. DuPont that The election of Mr. Calvert is the most remarkable result111
108
Ibid. Page 177.
109
110
111
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. June 1861. Samuel F. DuPont Papers, Series B, Box 42.
27
In these elections, a total of 67,097 Marylanders voted, of whom 42,395 cast votes for
Union Party candidates.112
First District Second District Third District

Caroline County Carroll County Baltimore City (partial)
Dorchester County Cecil County Baltimore County (partial)
Queen Annes County Hartford County
Somerset County Kent County
Talbot County Baltimore County
(partial)
Worcester County
Fourth District Fifth District Sixth District
Baltimore City (partial) Allegany County Anne Arundel County
Frederick County Calvert County
Washington County Charles County
Howard County
Montgomery County
Prince Georges County
St. Marys County
In November the Union Party completed its triumph by electing one of their own,
Augustus W. Bradford, as governor of the state. Turnout was lower than in previous
elections, perhaps due to the presence of federal troops at polling places or to voters
leaving home to join the contending armies.113 In Baltimore, for example, only 21,069
people voted, compared to 29,063 in the recent presidential election.114
With the threat of Border State secession diminished, Lincoln began to make
tentative steps toward emancipation. In the North, emancipation was becoming a
politically divisive issue in the wake of Frmonts proclamation. One of the presidents
aides, William O. Stoddard, wrote that the order transformed political debate, dividing
the public as by a saber cut, permanently, into the new shape of conservatives and
112
Wagandt. Page 18. (Information in the table comes from Archives of Maryland, Historical List, United
States Representatives, in Maryland State Archives, Accessed April 21, 2011,
http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/speccol/sc2600/sc2685/html/fedrepmems.html.)
113
Wagandt. Page 33.
114
Baltimore American. November 7, 1861.
28
radicals.115 In November, Lincoln met with two prominent Delaware Unionists,
Representative George P. Fisher and Benjamin Burton, who owned twenty-eight slaves,
more than anyone else in the state. He encouraged them to pressure the state legislature to
enact gradual emancipation in return for federal compensation. A bill was prepared, but it
never gained enough support to even be introduced to the legislature.116
Lincoln, however, was already developing a more ambitious plan. When Charles
Sumner pressed Lincoln to act openly against slavery, Lincoln responded that the
only difference between you and me on this subject is a difference of a month or six
weeks in time.117
In his annual message to Congress in December 1861, Lincoln tentatively
suggested that if any states chose to free the slaves within its borders, the federal
government should provide compensation to their owners as well as funds to colonize the
freed-people.118 His suggestion was cautious enough that the Baltimore American praised
the address for being practical in its suggestions and eminently conservative in its
treatment of the exciting subjects which depend upon the political questions connected
with the rebellion. The American was happy that Lincoln urges no scheme of general
emancipation or of arming the slaves.119
On March 6, 1862 Lincoln took a momentous step and recommended to Congress
a resolution that stated: Resolved that the United States ought to co-operate with any
state which may adopt gradually abolishment of slavery, giving to such state pecuniary
115
Foner, The Fiery Trial. Page 180.
116
Ibid. Pages 182-185.
117
Ronald White, A. Lincoln: A Biography, (New York: Random House, 2009). Page 459.
118
Foner, The Fiery Trial. Pages 186-187.
119
Baltimore American. December 4, 1861.
29
aid, to be used by such state in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences public
and private, produced by such a change of system.120
Before Lincolns proposal, most members of Marylands Union Party were
opposed to emancipation. Henry Winter Davis wrote in December that Frmont, I think,
is chief instigator of the abolition onslaught in Congress, which assails the President for
leniency in the war and looks to a subjugation of the rebellious states, a freeing of all the
negroes and holding the country merely by military power governed by the Northern
States under Territorial forms!!121
On March 5, the day before Lincolns announcement, Frederick Schleys
Frederick Examiner attacked a proposal by Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson that
was quite similar to Lincolns plan. Wilsons proposed resolution stated that if in the next
two years Maryland and Delaware mandated that all persons held to service or labor
within said States by reason of African descent shall be discharged and freed of and from
all claim to such service or labor, and that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except for crimeshall therefore exist in said States then it would be lawful for the
President of the United States to cause to be issued and delivered to the proper authorities
of said States the bonds of the United States122 Frederick Schley was an important
member of the Union Party. He held a federal office as an appraiser, received printing
contracts from the government, and participated in numerous political conventions. His
paper attacked Wilson for his officious interference in our domestic concerns and
called his proposal unacceptable and unavailing. The Examiner suggested that Wilson
120
Message to Congress, [March 6, 1862], in, Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham
Lincoln, Volume Five, (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, 1953). Pages 144-145.
121
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. December 18, 1861. Samuel F. DuPont Papers, Series B, Box
42.
122
Frederick Examiner. March 5, 1862.
30
and other radicals should stop meddling in what does not concern them. He admitted
that Slavery may be an evil, and hereafter become a burden upon the State, but
maintained that Marylanders themselves wish to judge of this evil, and provide for this
burden in our own way.123
Many Maryland Unionists did not react positively to Lincolns proposal.
Maryland Representative John Crisfield told Lincoln in a meeting shortly after the
announcement that he did not think the people of Maryland looked upon slavery as a
permanent institution; and that he did not know that they would be very reluctant to give
it up if provision was made to meet the loss, and they could be rid of the race; but they
did not like to be coerced into emancipation, either by direct actions of the Government,
or by indirection Lincoln told Crisfield that if Maryland did not want to take part, then
the State had nothing to fear, either for her institutions or her interests. Despite
Crisfields request, however, Lincoln refused to make that promise public, perhaps
because in his attempt to soothe Border State congressmen like Crisfield, he was not
being entirely honest about his intentions.124
On March 11, the proposed resolution passed the House of Representatives,
although it was opposed by the entire Maryland delegation. When it passed the Senate on
April 2, it was opposed by Maryland Senator Joseph P. Kennedy.125 In Maryland, the
General Assembly put off calling a state constitutional convention for two years.
According to historian Charles Lewis Wagandt, the legislature, despite being controlled
123
Ibid. March 5, 1862.
124
This account came from Crisfield and appeared in Edward B. McPherson, The Political History of the
United States, during the Great Rebellion, (Washington: Philip & Solomons, 1865). Pages 210-211.
125
Wagandt. Page 59. Marylands other senator, who was ill and soon died, apparently did not vote on the
bill.
31
by Unionists, feared tampering with the organic law of the state during agitation for
emancipation126
The Baltimore American took a very ambivalent tone about Lincolns March 6
proposal. When it came to slavery, the paper editorialized that only fools or madmen
urged the need of its complete immunity on the one hand, its absolute destruction on the
other. The paper worried about the interests of thirty millions of whites being
subordinated to the supposed welfare of a mere modicum of blacks. While the American
did not outright oppose Lincolns proposal, neither did it embrace the plan, claiming that
while Wilsons proposal was impracticable and mischievous at the present time, that
when the subject is brought forward through as important a vehicle as a Presidents
Message it had to be taken seriously.127
In July Lincoln met with Border State congressmen to renew his emancipation
appeal to them. The majority of them (including Webster, Leary, Calvert, and Thomas)
signed a formal reply penned by Crisfield, which stated that while they remained
committed to the Union they urged Lincoln to Confine yourself to your constitutional
authority; confine your subordinates within the same limits; conduct this war solely for
the purpose of restoring the Constitution to its legitimate authority; concede to each State
and its loyal citizens their just rights128
Some in Marylands Union Party came to support compensated emancipation now
that it was the administrations official policy, due in large part to the patronage system.
Only a few days after attacking Henry Wilsons proposal, Frederick Schleys Frederick
Examiner praised Lincolns almost identical plan because it would not only put an end
126
Ibid. Pages 60 and 33-34.
127
Baltimore American. March 8, 1862.
128
New York Times. July 19, 1862.
32
to the sectional agitation of the Slavery question but materially strengthen the Union case,
by cutting off the lingering hope of sympathy and affiliation on the part of the Border
Slave States with the States in the rebellion. The Examiner claimed it was not being
inconsistent because Wilson tried to force emancipation on the states while Lincolns
proposal was optional.129 In reality, there was no substantial different between the plans.
For his change of heart, Schley, who already held a federal office, was made soon made a
collector of internal revenue, a possession created by the Internal Revenue Act, which
was enacted on July 1, 1862.130
Although initially cold to the proposal, the Baltimore American, a pro-Lincoln
paper with ties to the Blair family, soon changed its tune as well.131 On April 12, it
published a letter from a gentleman in Washington, high in the confidence of the
Government. That man was actually Montgomery Blair, who wrote that All practical
men are now sensible that slavery so effects the people, whether it ought to or not, as to
make it a terrible institution to our raceWith this result before us, the only inquiry
should be how to get rid of an institution which produces such miseries. Blair praised
the presidents plan and predicted that the people of this state will sustain Lincoln.132
Under the circumstances, it seems quite likely that patronage considerations were behind
the Americans new position.
Blair worked hard to push his allies to support compensated emancipation in
Maryland while also trying to maintain a moderate stance.133 One of Blairs allies who
did work to build support for emancipation was Francis S. Corkran, who worked as the
129
Frederick Examiner. March 12, 1862.
130
Wagandt. Page 63. And, McPherson. Page 447.
131
Charles C. Fulton to Montgomery Blair, March 26, 1864. Lincoln Papers.
132
Baltimore American. April 12, 1862.
133
Wagandt. Pages 84 and 93.
33
naval agent in the Custom House. On May 20, he wrote to Blair that he had recently
conferred with an important member of the upcoming Union City Convention, Peter G.
Sauerwein, a successful grain merchant, who told him that that convention would take a
bold stand, for Emancipation. Corkrans response was the quicker, the better and
expressed hope that eventually all who tread upon Maryland Soil shall be freemen (and I
would prefer, that they be white men)134
On the other hand Lincolns emancipation program had made a mess of patronage
politics. Millions of money are expended in this City purchasing supplies for the army,
Corkran wrote, and I have done my best, to throw this patronage in the hands of Union
men, and succeeded admirablyuntil the president signed the District Emancipation
Bill, followed by a recommendation, to assist the Border Slave States [in ending
slavery]. Now that the primary issue was emancipation, however, Corkran wrote to
Blair that I venture to assert that there is not a single exception, but that every official I
have reference to, pronounces the man an Abolitionist who dare second, the proposition
of the President135 Considering that Corkran was a key member of Blairs faction, he
seemed to be suggesting that Blairs patronage network was primarily opposed to
emancipation.
According to Wagandt, the do-nothing position of the party hierarchy tossed the
political initiative to Baltimore Unconditional Union men136 These Unconditional
Unionists, as the supporters of emancipation called themselves, were the people behind
the Baltimore Union City Convention. On May 28 the Convention unanimously adopted
a pro-emancipation resolution written by Sauerwein stating that they approved the wise
134
Francis S. Corkran to Montgomery Blair, May 20, 1862. Lincoln Papers. And, Wagandt. Page 84.
135
Francis S. Corkran to Montgomery Blair, May 20, 1862. Lincoln Papers.
136
Wagandt. Page 85.
34
and conservative policy proposed by the president in his message of the 6th March,
1862tendering pecuniary aid to states willing to adopt a system of gradual
emancipation. Sauerwein declared in his resolution that it is not only the duty of the
loyal people of Maryland to support Lincolns plan for emancipation, but that it was in
the best interest of Marylanders to remove from our midst an institution which has
ceased to be profitable, and is now injurious to our political and material interests, and
dangerous to our peace and safety, by inaugurating such a plan of emancipation and
colonization as will be equitable to those interested and as will tend to secure the industry
of the State to the white labor of the State.137 Like Frederick Schley, Peter G. Sauerwein
would later be appointed as a collector of internal revenue.138 Schleys Frederick
Examiner in fact praised Sauerweins resolutions, calling them patriotic and timely.139
While some of Blairs allies (such as Corkran) were involved in the Maryland
emancipation movement, Henry Winter Davis and his allies took the initiative. When the
Baltimore Unconditional Unionists met in September to choose candidates for the
upcoming municipal elections, at least five of the ninety delegates were or soon would be
employees of the Custom House, which was run by Winter Daviss ally Henry W.
Hoffman. These people were J.T. Caulk, Charles Brecht, William H. Counselmon,
137
Baltimore American. May 30, 1862.
138
A cutting from an October 1862 issue of the Baltimore American, in Joshua Cohen, Scrapbooks, 1861-
1865. Maryland Historical Society. The people appointed under the Internal Revenue Act of 1862 in
Maryland were, Hooper C. Hicks as collector and George C. Russum as Assessor for the First
Congressional District, James L. Ridgely as collector and John W. Master as assessor for the Second
Congressional District, Sauerwein as collector and William Beale as assessor for the Third Congressional
District, Schley as collector and Isaac Davis as assessor for the Fourth Congressional District, and George
W. Davidson as collector and William Welling as assessor for the Fifth Congressional District.
139
Frederick Examiner, June 4, 1862.
35
William Thompson, and Richard Henneberry, who would be working at the Custom
House by 1863.140
The Custom House employees were not the only delegates involved in the
patronage system. Candidates for elected office were also part of that system.141 Seven of
the ninety delegates were also Unconditional Unionist nominees for the City Council
(two of those seven were incumbents as well). The seven were Stephen Whalen, Edward
S. Lamdin (an incumbent), William McClymont, Noah Gill, John T. Bishop, Oliver M.
Disney, and Philip Kirkwood (an incumbent).142 The conservative Unionists ran their
own ticket in Baltimore that fall but were soundly defeated, in part due to an extremely
low turnout of barley more than 10,000 voters (less than half the normal turnout) which
allowed the election to be dominated by officeholders.143
With the Union Party split over the issue of emancipation, Winter Daviss faction
chose to embrace Unconditional Unionism. The pro-Davis Custom House played a key
role in the emancipationist triumph in the fall 1862 elections in Baltimore. Winter Davis
despised the Democratic Party, and with the Lincoln administration in control of the
national government and giving out patronage, it was clear that the Republican Party was
now the primary opposition to the Democrats. Perhaps Davis saw emancipation as an
issue he could use to gain favor with the Republicans, get ahead of the Blair faction, and
lead an anti-Democratic coalition. Corkran expressed such a worry to Blair, claiming that
140
Baltimore American, September 15, 1862. And, Federal Register, 1861. Pages 64-66. And, Federal
Register, 1863. Pages 64-65. It is likely that even more delegates to that convention worked in the Custom
House. Several delegates had only last names listed, several of which were shared by Custom House
employees.
141
Summers. Pages 24, 31, and 62.
142
John Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County, from the Earliest Period to the Present
Day: Including Biographical Sketches of their Representative Men, (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881).
Page 190. And, Wagandt. Page 89.
143
Wagandt Page 89.
36
our newly baptized Republican brothers of the Church of Davis would care nothing for
emancipation if they did not suppose that could make it a stepping stone for their own
political advancement, and while I greet there I greet them and everyone else who may
put their shoulders to the wheel as brothers & coworkers in the cause I would like it
much better if Self had less consideration with them.144
David abandoned his conservatism and became the leader of the Unconditional
Unionists. Montgomery Blair, meanwhile, was in the difficult position of supporting
emancipation but leading a faction with many members who were hardly enthusiastic
about ending slavery in Maryland.145
Patronage, Provost Marshals, and the 1863 Elections
By 1863 emancipation had become a policy priority of the Lincoln administration.
On September 22, 1862 the president issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation,
which declared That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated
part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States
shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.146 On January 1, 1863 Lincoln kept his
promise. Although the vast majority of slaves with whom the Proclamation dealt
remained enslaved until reached by the Union Army, some regions already occupied by
Union troops were included in the Proclamation. According to historian Eric Foner, tens
144
Francis S. Corkran to Montgomery Blair, June 6, 1862. Lincoln Papers.
145
Waqgandt. Page 94.
146
Michael P. Johnson, ed., Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: Select Speeches and Writings,
Second Edition, (New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011). Page 132.
37
of thousands of slavesgained their freedom with the stroke of Lincolns pen.147 While
Maryland, as a Border State, was exempt from the Proclamation, Lincolns decree
nonetheless signaled that the days of slavery in Maryland were numbered.148 In his
December Message to Congress, Lincoln reaffirmed his commitment to federally-
compensated gradual emancipation in the Border States with a proposed constitutional
amendment that would grant United States bonds to states that agreed to end slavery by
1900.149
Reactions to Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation were mixed among Maryland
Unionists. Some, like Representative Crisfield of the Eastern Shore, were outraged. He
claimed that the Proclamation filled Every patriotic heartwith astonishment, terror and
indignation, and questioned Lincolns sanity.150 Less conservative Unionist voices, such
as the pro-Blair Baltimore American, expressed the view that the Proclamation would not
be particularly helpful in putting down the rebellion. On the other hand, the American did
refrain from attacking Lincoln as Crisfield did and suggested that the decree should show
Marylanders the importance of accepting Lincolns plan for compensated
emancipation.151 The radical Cecil Whig, on the other hand, attacked people who
criticized the Proclamation, calling them traitors.152
The Union war effort meanwhile was bogged down. Although major rebel
offensives into Kentucky and north of the Potomac were pushed back, the Army of the
Potomac suffered a humiliating defeat at Fredericksburg in December.153 According to
147
148
Wagandt. Page 83.
149
Ibid. Page 79.
150
Ibid. Page 76-77.
151
Wagandt. Page 78. And, Baltimore American. September 24, 1862.
152
Wagandt. Page 78.
153
38
historian James McPherson, by early 1863, The men likely to enlist for patriotic reasons
or adventure or peer-group pressure were already in the army. War weariness and the
grim realities of army life discouraged further volunteering. Yet to continue the war,
Lincoln needed troops. To address this crisis, Congress created a national conscription
system, to be overseen by the Provost Marshals Bureau in the War Department.154 A
provost marshal was sent to every congressional district. Each of these provost marshals
appointed a deputy for each county in their congressional district. The deputies
themselves were empowered to appoint several enrollers.155 It was a readymade
patronage network, made all the more formidable due to its power over whom would be
sent into the army.
At the head of the War Department sat Edwin M. Stanton, who had replaced
corrupt Pennsylvania politico Simon Cameron in early 1862. At the time of his
appointment, Stanton was a War Democrat.156 Shortly after his appointment, Winter
Davis complained that Stanton was a locofoco.157 By 1863, however, Stanton had
become an ally of the radicals. In November 1863, Winter Davis delightedly informed his
friend Samuel F. DuPont that Stanton had told Major General Robert Schenck, who
commanded Union forces in Maryland, to take Blair, skin him, turn his hide inside out,
pickle it, and stretch it in a barn door today!!158 Stanton was referring to the upcoming
elections in Maryland between the conservative Unionists friendly with Blair and the pro-
154
Ibid. Page 600.
155
Wagandt. Page 115.
156
White. Page 467.
157
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. February 8, 1862. Samuel F. DuPont Papers, Series B, Box
42.
158
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. November 4, 1863. F. DuPont Papers, Series B, Box 43.
And, Wagandt. Page 96.
39
emancipation Unconditional Unionists. As secretary of war, Stanton was able to use the
provost marshals to further the radicals agenda.159
One of those provost marshals was John C. Holland of Baltimore County. Even
before he was appointed as the provost marshal for the Fifth Congressional District,
Holland was involved in the Union Party. In 1861, for example, he served as the secretary
of the Baltimore County Union Convention.160 In his early years Holland was a supporter
of the Democratic Party, but in the 1850s he became a leader of the American Party in
Baltimore County.161
Holland was recommended for the post of provost marshal for his district by
Montgomery Blair in May 1863, and he received his appointment in the same month.162
At the time, it seems he tried to ingratiate himself with both the conservative Unionists
and the Unconditional Unionists. On May 22, he served as the secretary of the Union
Convention of Baltimore County, which resolved that there is but one issue before us,
country or no country and that until the Union was saved, the government should not
worry about side issueswhich have had to this time considerable influence in
prolonging the rebellion, giving aid and comfort to the Rebels, and producing
dissatisfaction in the loyal States.163
In June, Holland served as a delegate from Baltimore County to both the Union
League State Convention, scheduled for June 16, and to the more conservative Union
State Convention, scheduled for June 23. At the time, Union Party in Baltimore County
159
Carmin and Luthin. Page 210.
160
Baltimore Sun. August 8, 1861
161
Biographical Sketch can be found in Scharf. Pages 368-370.
162
Montgomery Blair to Abraham Lincoln. May 1, 1863. Lincoln Papers. And, Baltimore Sun. May 20,
1862.
163
Baltimore American. May 22, 1863.
40
was unified enough to send a single delegation to both conventions. In other counties, the
Unionists split into rival factions, with conservatives sending a delegation to the Union
State Convention and radicals sending their own delegation to the Union League State
Convention. The Union League State Convention had assembled to nominate candidates
for the statewide offices of state comptroller and commissioner of the Land Office.164
Rather than selecting candidates, however, the convention chose to adjourn, send
delegates to the upcoming Union State Convention and ask them to adjourn as well so a
new unified convention could be organized. Holland was one of the five delegates
selected to communicate with the other convention. At least two others of the five were
federal officeholders as well: Collector of Custom Henry W. Hoffman and Assessor of
Internal Revenue George W. Russum.165 The Union State Convention refused to accept
the proposal of the Unconditional Unionists and each convention nominated their own
candidates.166
On September 8, 1863, Holland was chosen as the congressional nominee of the
Union Convention of the Fifth Congressional District.167 The Convention that selected
him, however, was marred by serious patronage-related irregularities. The Fifth District
encompassed parts of St. Marys County, Anne Arundel County, Prince Georges
County, Montgomery County, Howard County, and Baltimore County.168
164
The Union Leagues began as patriotic organization that evolved in a political one, at least in Maryland.
It became the radical counterpart to the regular Union Party. Wagandt. Pages 97-101.
165
Baltimore Sun. June 17, 1863.
166
Wagandt. Page 106.
167
Baltimore American. September 11, 1863.
168
Ibid. September 11, 1863. (The data in the table reflects the redistricting that occurred after the Census
of 1860. Maryland lost one of its six congressional districts. Archives of Maryland, Historical List,
United States Representatives, in Maryland State Archives, Accessed June 21, 2011.)
41
First District Second District Third District
Caroline County Baltimore City (partial) Baltimore City (partial)
Cecil County Baltimore County (partial)
Dorchester County Harford County
Kent County
Queen Annes County Fourth District Fifth District
Somerset County Allegany County Anne Arundel County
Talbot County Carroll County Calvert County
Worcester County Frederick County Charles County
Washington County Howard County
Montgomery County
Prince Georges County
St. Marys County
Baltimore City (partial)
There were eight delegates from Anne Arundel, Baltimore, and St. Marys Counties at
the convention. Six of them had received jobs from Holland. One of these six was the
sole delegate from Anne Arundel County and was therefore empowered to cast the
countys four votes. None of these delegates were chosen at public meetings.169 The
delegates from Prince Georges County were so outraged that they walked out of the
convention, which of course had the effect of making Hollands nomination even
easier.170 Holland apparently saw which way the political winds were blowing because he
now endorsed emancipation in Maryland and according to Wagandt, donned the mantle
of Unconditional Unionism.171 Henry Winter Davis bragged that Now that we have
forced Holland against Calvert [the conservative incumbent]Blair hastens to support
Holland172 Blair on the other hand, was convinced that Winter Davis opposed
Holland, or at least that was how he rationalized his support for the candidate.173
An even more important provost marshal was John Frazier Jr. of the Eastern
Shores First Congressional District, which was represented by John Crisfield, the
169
Wagandt. Page 113.
170
Baltimore American. September 11, 1863.
171
Ibid. October 6, 1863. And, Wagandt. Page 113.
172
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. September 19, 1863. Samuel F. DuPont Papers, Series B,
Box 43.
173
Wagandt. Page 114.
42
influential anti-emancipation Unionist.174 Frazier began the war as a conservative
Unionist, but by the fall elections of 1863 he would be one of the most powerful and
controversial radicals in the State.175 Like Holland, Frazier was recommended for his post
by Montgomery Blair.176 Also, like Holland, he was involved with various political
conventions and organizations. At the Union League State Convention he served as
secretary.177 Frazier was also a member of the Unconditional Union State Central
Committee as well as a candidate in the fall 1863 elections for clerk of the Circuit Court
in Kent County.178 Frazier clearly saw his role as provost marshal as not only to enforce
the draft but also to help his political faction win elections. In early 1864 he criticized one
of his deputies, David Blocksom, because he had no influence whatsoever and cannot
control one vote in his county.179
In the fall elections, Frazier and his deputies supported Representative Crisfields
Unconditional Unionist Challenger, John Angel James Creswell. They were assisted by
an order from General Schenck that was suggested by Henry Winter Davis. 180 Schencks
order, officially called General Order No. 53, began with the claim that there are many
evil disposed personsinMaryland, who have been engaged in rebellion against the
lawful Government, or have given aid and comfort or encouragement to others so
engaged, or who do not recognize their allegiance to the United States. These people
might avail themselves of the indulgence of the authority which tolerates their presence
to embarrass the approaching election, or through it, to foist enemies of the United States
174
Ibid. Page 158.
175
176
Montgomery Blair to Abraham Lincoln. May 1, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
177
Baltimore American. June 24, 1863.
178
Frederick Examiner. August 1863. And, Wagandt. Page 158.
179
John Frazier Jr. to John A.J. Creswell. February 19, 1864. Creswell Papers, Volume VI, Library of
Congress.
180
Wagandt. Page 157.
43
into power. Schenck therefore ordered that all provost marshals and other military
officers do arrest all such persons found at, or hanging about, or approaching any poll or
place of election, that provost marshals or other officers ensure that election judges
enforce the oath of allegiance, and that if any election judges did not enforce the oath,
that the provost marshal or other office report them to headquarters.181
When Governor Bradford found out about this order he was outraged and
complained to Lincoln, decrying military interference and the imposition of oaths.182
Lincoln pointed out that Schencks order was hardly draconian and that some restrictions
were necessary. After all, he wrote, Gen Tremble, captured fighting us at Gettysburg,
is, without recanting his treason, a legal voter by the laws of Maryland. Even Gen.
Schenks order, admits him to vote, if he recants upon oath. I think that is cheap enough.
He did, however, agree to modify the order so that disloyal people in the vicinity of
polling places could only be arrested if they caused violence.183 Still furious, Bradford
issued a proclamation that reminded election judges that they alone had the power to
determine who could vote, not federal troops. Schenck worked hard to suppress
Bradfords proclamation, keeping it off the telegraph lines, but conservatives were able to
get out some copies. 184
Frazier and his deputies worked diligently on Creswells behalf. Sometimes they
used their power over the draft for political purposes. Some people were promised relief
from the draft in exchange for their support, the plan being to replace them with African
181
Edward McPherson. Page 309.
182
Augustus W. Bradford to Abraham Lincoln, October 31, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
183
Abraham Lincoln to Augustus W. Bradford, November 2, 1863, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected
Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume Six, (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, 1953). Page 557. (The
Confederate general Lincoln mentioned was actually named Isaac Trimble).
184
44
American recruits. Thomas Timmons, who served on the Board of Claims, told Creswell
that it gives us character as the poor mans friend and crushes our opponents.185
In Somerset County, Fraziers chief deputy was Levin Collier. Collier was not
only involved in helping Unconditional Union candidates in the general election, but also
in nominating the candidates themselves. Although Collier promised to secure their
victory, some of these candidates were convinced to withdraw when Crisfield brought his
own influence to bear.186 Clearly, despite their tone of wounded innocence after the
election, conservative Unionists were no less willing to use questionable tactics.
Despite Bradfords objects, the provost marshals also tried to intimidate
conservative voters. On Election Day, after a Union officer arrested several election
judges for refusing to administer the loyalty oath to voters, Collier held them in prison.
Collier claimed that allowing these men to follow Bradfords proclamation would have
been prejudicial to the good of the Government.187 Collier allegedly bragged that he
would accept no damned Democrat vote and threatened to arrest Democratic
candidates. Some of Crisfields supporters claimed that he personally intimidated voters
on Election Day.188
In Kent County, Frazier conspired to have leading conservatives arrested. One
hundred cavalrymen under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Carroll Tevis were sent to assist
him with the arrests. Frazier also convinced Tevis to publish an order that he himself had
actually written, declaring that itbecomes every truly loyal citizen to[give] a full
and ardent support to the whole Government ticket upon the platform adopted by the
185
Thomas Timmons to John A.J. Creswell. November 8, 1863. Creswell Papers, Volume II, Library of
Congress. And, Wagandt. Page 176.
186
Levin D. Collier to John Frazier Jr. October 28, 1863. Creswell Papers, Volume II, Library of Congress.
187
188
Ibid. Page 167.
45
Union League Convention. Such intimidation tactics were meant to keep the turnout
low, which would benefit the radicals. Frazier allegedly claimed that he would win his
own election if he got but ten votes.189
Things did not go exactly as planned for Frazier and Tevis, however. The
conservative leaders were sent to Baltimore on Election Day, where they met Schencks
chief of staff, Colonel Donn Piatt. Piatt was an important ally of the radicals. He
sometime took the stump for them, and when Schenck was elected to Congress from New
York, Piatt was Winter Daviss choice to replace him.190 Nonetheless, Piatt was furious
when he was told about the actions of Tevis and Frazier. He released the conservative
Unionists and ordered the arrest of Tevis and Frazier. Perhaps due to Fraziers overreach,
the radicals did quite poorly in Kent County.191
Overall, the elections of 1863 were a triumph for the Unconditional Unionists. In
Baltimore, Henry Winter Davis was returned to Congress after his defeat in 1861.
Although Holland was defeated, Creswell defeated Crisfield, thereby unseating a
powerful conservative leader. In fact, Holland was the only Unconditional Unionist
candidate defeated in the congressional elections. Furthermore, Henry Goldsborough, the
Unconditional Union candidate for comptroller, defeated conservative Unionist
incumbent Samuel Maffit in the only contested state wide race of 1863.192
Historians disagree about the significance of the coercive activities of the provost
marshals acting in concert with the military in Maryland in the 1863 elections. According
189
190
Wagandt. Page 175. And, Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. December 5, 1863. Samuel F.
DuPont Papers, , Series B, Box 43.
191
Wagandt. Page 176.
192
Wagandt. Pages 30 and 181. (William Seabrook, commissioner of the Land Office, was also running for
reelection, but he was supported by both the conservatives and the Unconditional Unionists. Wagandt. Page
106).
46
to Wagandt, An untrammeled election would have doubtlesslycarried the Eastern
Shore for Crisfield193 Jean Baker dismisses the idea that the election was stolen by a
tyrannical President or a political conspiracy against the Conservative Union Party.194
She is clearly correct on that point. Piatts reaction to Fraziers questionable actions
suggests that Schencks order was not designed to ensure the defeat of conservative
Unionists. While Wagandt dismisses Schencks worries about potential Election Day
violence, claiming that these worried were caused by rumors spread by Frazier, he also
admits that at Brinkleys election district, a conservative mob drove away soldiers trying
to enforce General Order No. 53.195 One member of the mob told the officer leading the
troops that if they left quietly they would not be hurt; obviously implying that if they
followed their orders, violence would ensue.196
Wagandt accepts the claim by conservatives that the low turnout throughout
Maryland in the 1863 elections was due to intimidation by federal authorities working
with the Unconditional Unionists.197 More convincingly, Baker argues that reduced
turnout is better explained by the departure of many Marylanders into the army. At the
time, there were about 15,000 Marylanders in the Union Army and about the same
number in the rebel army. Obviously soldiers in the rebel army were not voting and in
1863 there was still no way for Maryland voters in the Union Army to vote via absentee
ballot. Furthermore, uncounted thousands of Marylanders had left the state to avoid the
193
Ibid. Page 161.
194
Baker. Page 91.
195
Wagandt. Page 168.
196
Report of the Committee on Elections, on Contested Elections in Somerset County, Together with the
testimony taken before the Committee. (Annapolis: Bull & Tuttle, 1864). Page 43.
197
Wagandt. Page 181.
47
draft, to live in the Confederacy, to find better jobs in the North, and to leave a state
where the war was more than a matter of reading weekly dispatches from the front.198
While accepting that there was some military interference with the wartime
election of 1863, Baker claims that in large part, the accusations by conservative
Unionists reflected the anguish of incumbents, who had expected easy victory and not
defeat at the hands of a detested faction.
Despite Wagandts implication that military interference decided elections that
conservative candidates could have won, other factors were present in the radicals
victories. After more than two and a half years of a war that had been transformed into a
struggle against slavery, public opinion of slavery and emancipation had shifted. Views
that had once been held only by a small and despised group of abolitionists were
becoming increasingly commonplace. Furthermore, many of the most conservative voters
had left the state, often to join the rebel army. Finally, provost marshals were not the only
federal officeholders to play a role in the fall 1863 election in the First District. More
traditional forms of patronage politics played a role as well. For example, George M.
Russum, the assessor of internal revenue for the First District, wrote to Creswell in 1864
about bribing voters in the past election, noting that We used last fall [$]2400 hundred
or nearly that sum, as nearly as I can come at it, and it, with the interference, gave us our
heavy majority. There are four hundred men in this county that can be reached and it is
by controlling them that we have kept up our majority.199 In other words, interference
alone would not have been enough to secure Creswells victory.
198
Baker. Pages 90-91.
199
George M. Russum to John A.J. Creswell. March 15, 1864. Creswell Papers, Volume VII, Library of
Congress.
48
On the other hand, even if Wagandt overstates the importance of the coercive
tactics employed by the provost marshals, Baker might underestimate their role. There is
no question that provost marshals played an important role in radical victories, especially
Frazier and his deputies on the Eastern Shore. Otherwise, both Creswell and Henry
Winter Davis would not have worked so hard to protect Frazier from punishment.
Initially, Lincoln was inclined to relieve Frazier of command. Creswell and
Winter Davis convinced him, however, to suspend his order to dismiss the provost
marshal.200 Several weeks after the election, Frazier wrote gratefully to Creswell that had
it not been for his the efforts, as well as those of Winter Davis, he would have been
removed from office.201 Once he had been released from prison and returned to work,
Frazier told Creswell that he would be ever ready to serve you.202 In protecting Frazier,
Creswell was probably hoping to ensure just that. He had just seen how useful it was to
have someone like Frazier on his side during an election, and he presumably wanted his
ally in place to help him when it came time to run for reelection.
In early 1864, however, Creswell withdrew his support from Frazier, when he
realized that any debt he owed him for his help in the past election and his usefulness
going forward was outweighed by the political cost of being associated with him.203 On
February 15, 1864, Lincoln removed Frazier from office.204
200
Samuel T. Hopkins to John A.J. Creswell, December 10, 1863. Creswell Papers, Volume III, Library of
Congress.
201
John Frazier Jr. to John A.J. Creswell, November 20, 1863. Creswell Papers, Volume III, Library of
Congress.
202
John Frazier Jr. to John A.J. Creswell, November 28, 1863. Creswell Papers, Volume III, Library of
Congress.
203
(J.H. Emerson, an assistant assessor of internal revenue and a newspaperman wrote in January of 1864
to update Creswell on the state of public sentiment in the Frist District. According to Emerson, Some of
our very best friends are loud in their curses against you and Davis for being the friends of Frazier. He
urged Creswell not to advocate his claims for a continuance in officefor if you become identified with
him in any way your future prospects will be blasted here. If it is true, as it asserted here by some, that you
49
Elements of coercion were ever-present in nineteenth century patronage politics.
It was a system in which not only were political supporters rewarded, but political
opponents were punished. During peacetime, the coercion of party leaders was primarily
economic: they could take away jobs or contracts from their enemies or even from allies
who were not sufficiently useful. As the events of the 1863 elections in Maryland,
especially on the Eastern Shore, demonstrate, the war itself allowed for new forms of
coercion. These new forms of coercion existed alongside the more regular types of
coercion within the patronage system, and while they were not used to crush all political
opposition, despite what opponents of the administration claimed, they nonetheless were
a potent addition to the arsenal of tactics available to political leaders.
The Case of James Lott Ridgely
The case of James Lott Ridgely provides an excellent demonstration of how the
Lincoln administrations decision to make emancipation in Maryland a high priority
policy affected the patronage system in the state.
Born in Baltimore in City 1807, by the eve of the Civil War Ridgely was a
member of the American Party and served as the Register of Wills for Baltimore
County.205 In the summer of 1861 his home was searched by Union soldiers, an act
have had interviews with the President in Fraziers behalf, have no more, but rather see the President and
say to him that you take back all you have said in his (Fraziers) favor. J.H. Emerson to John A.J.
Creswell, January 11, 1864. Creswell Papers, Volume IV, Library of Congress.)
204
John Frazier Jr. to John A.J. Creswell, February 19, 1864. Creswell Papers, Volume VI, Library of
Congress.
205
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, Public Service Held in the Grace
Methodist Episcopal Church, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, May 16, 1882, in the Presence of the R.W. Grand
Lodge of Pennsylvania, I.O.O.F., in Honor of the Memory of James L. Ridgely, (Philadelphia: W.R.
Charter, 1882). And, Baltimore Sun. September 1, 1859 and January 18, 1861.
50
protested by four Maryland congressmen who defended his loyalty to the Union.206 In
1862 Ridgely served on a committee appointed by Governor Bradford to oversee the
recruitment of soldiers in Baltimore County. During that summer he was appointed by the
Lincoln administration as the collector of internal revenue for the Second Congressional
District.207 In September 1863, however, Ridgely was dismissed from his post, setting off
a political firestorm.
On September 4, 1863, Francis S. Corkran met with President Lincoln to press
for Ridgelys removal. An ally of Blair, Corkran apparently had decided to defect to the
Unconditional Unionists. Summarizing the meeting later in a letter to Lincoln, Corkran
wrote that I charged that Ridgely was not a fit representative of the Administration
because he ignored its most important measures; in other words he opposed
emancipation.208 Corkran probably based these charges on Ridgelys remarks during a
meeting of federal officeholders held at the Baltimore Custom House during the summer
of 1863 to discuss political strategy.209
The meeting was called by Henry W. Hoffman, the collector of customs in
Baltimore.210 Hoffmans had a powerful job when it came to patronage; over one hundred
people worked under him. He was also heavily involved in Maryland politics as an ally of
Henry Winter Davis. He frequently played a prominent role at political rallies and in
conventions and committees. At the Unconditional Union State Convention in September
1863 he served as temporary chairman and then as permanent treasurer. In March 1864,
206
Baltimore Sun. August 8, 1861. And, Easton Gazette. August 10, 1861.
207
Baltimore Sun. July 29, 1862 and August 30, 1862.
208
Francis S. Corkan to Abraham Lincoln. December 19, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
209
Wagandt. Page 139.
210
Ibid. Page 138.
51
he was chosen to serve as president of the Unconditional Union State Central Committee,
the organization that oversaw the party throughout Maryland.211
After his dismissal, Ridgely wrote to those who attended Hoffmans meeting at
the Custom House, asking for their testimony about his participation so he could back up
his claim that he had been unfairly dismissed.212 Peter Sauerwein, collector of internal
revenue for the Third Congressional District, wrote that Mr. Hoffman and myself were
extremely anxious that the issue of emancipationshould be the leading issue in the
approaching canvass, and brought forward some resolutions sustaining the whole policy
of the President According to Sauerwein, both he and Hoffman argued that the state
was ripe for action in this direction and whether it was or not, it was the right course to
pursue, both on account of its intrinsic merits and the position of the President that it was
his policy.213
Ridgely responded with disagreement. U.S. District Attorney William Price wrote
that at the Custom House meeting, Ridgely said he doubted the policy of making it
[emancipation] a political question at that time.214 The assessor of internal revenue for
the Third District, William Beale, echoed Prices account, writing that Ridgely thought
an open fight on that question might lead to defeat outside of Baltimore.215 Sauerwein
wrote that Ridgely believed that campaigning on emancipation would be disastrous to
the general Union cause, and that in Baltimore County especially, it was extremely fatal.
Ridgely said that there was no a man of[his] acquaintance who favored the agitation
211
Baltimore American. July 29, 1862, June 17, 1863, September 10, 1863, and March 18, 1864. And,
Baltimore Sun. October 29, 1863.
212
James L. Ridgely to William Nicholls, December 19, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
213
Peter G. Sauerwein to James L. Ridgely. December 19, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
214
Wagandt. Page 139. And, William Price to James L. Ridgely. December 18, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
215
William E. Beale to James L. Ridgely. December 19, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
52
of the emancipation policy. Corkran challenged Ridgelys claims about Baltimore
County and the two argued over the issue.216
On the other hand, Beale wrote that Ridgely said he would vote for no man
unless he was pledged to emancipation in Maryland. If the administration did not agree
that emancipation should be avoided in the coming campaign, Ridgely was for fighting
the pro-slaveryists at once and openly, whatever the consequences.217 James F. Wagner,
who was an appraiser at the Custom House and agreed with Sauerweins and Hoffmans
position on emancipation, admitted that Ridgely said he was an emancipationist and had
been from early life opposed to slavery despite his feeling that it was impolitic to
campaign on emancipation in the upcoming election.218
Corkran convinced Lincoln and Chase that Ridgely opposed emancipation. In
Ridgelys place, Lincoln appointed Joseph J. Stewart, a friend of Corkran and a staunch
emancipationist.219 Stewart had tried to receive the Unionist congressional nomination for
the Third District earlier that year, but he lost to incumbent Edwin H. Webster, the man
who had recommended Ridgely for his position as a revenue collector in the first place.220
According to Charles C. Fulton, the editor of the Baltimore American, when Lincoln
announced his plan for compensated emancipation, he allowed those on both sides of the
debate to use his paper to make their arguments. Stewart, Fulton told Lincoln, was the
first man in the State to take up the controversy on the side of emancipation, and the
sustaining of your Proclamation. He handled the subject with great ability and
216
Peter G. Sauerwein to James L. Ridgely. December 19, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
217
William E. Beale to James L. Ridgely. December 19, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
218
James F. Wagner to James L. Ridgely. December 30, 1863. Lincoln Papers. Other attendees at the
meeting included Custom House employees John F. McJilton, William J. Nicholls, and John F. Meredith.
219
220
Edwin H. Webster to Abraham Lincoln. September 12, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
53
boldness221 Worthington Snethen also endorsed Stewart, writing Lincoln that Mr.
Stewarts appointment was hailed by the Emancipationists as evidence that the
government was with them, heart and soul222
When Webster found out that Ridgely had been removed from office, he told
Lincoln that that he (Lincoln) had been deceived by persons for selfish purposes in the
matter. Webster claimed that the radicals in Maryland attacked all who do not yield to
their domination and warned that if it is understood that they alone are to be considered
as the friends of your Administration, it will certainly raise among a great majority of the
Union men, a spirit of hostility to it, which I greatly deprecate.223
Chase initially dismissed Websters demand that Ridgely be reinstated.224 On
September 16, however, Chase met with Ridgely, who expressed the most decided
support of the Administration, saying that the ground of complaint against him was that
he had supported Mr. Webster for nomination to Congress, and that Mr. Webster was as
decided a friend to the Administration as himself. Chase told Lincoln that I feared
some injustice had been done in removing Mr. Ridgely225 The controversy put
Lincoln in a difficult position. Both Ridgely and Stewart were loyal members of the
Union Party and both supported emancipation, albeit with differing levels of enthusiasm.
Lincoln hoped Stewart would resign and accept a different position so he could reappoint
Ridgely, but Stewart refused. Lincoln told Blair, who wished Ridgely returned to office,
that I do not wish to remove Mr. Stewart for he has been a faithful officer but I am
221
Charles C. Fulton to Abraham Lincoln. December 22, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
222
Worthington G. Snethen to Abraham Lincoln. December 23, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
223
Edwin H. Webster to Abraham Lincoln. September 12, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
224
Salmon P. Chase to Abraham Lincoln. September 12, 1863. Lincoln Papers.
225
John Niven, James P. McClure, Leigh Johnsen, William M. Ferraro, and Steve Leikin, Eds., The Salmon
P. Chase Papers; Volume 1: Journals, 1829-1872, (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1993). Page
446.
54
satisfied I have done injustice to Mr. Ridgely. Ultimately Stewart kept his job but
Ridgely was offered a different position, which he declined.226
A year later Lincoln told Chase that the removal of Ridgely was The best act of
my life because it paved the way for emancipation in Maryland.227 Lincoln may have
exaggerated, but the Ridgely case demonstrates the importance Lincoln placed on
patronage in Maryland, involving himself in a squabble over the political views of a mere
collector of internal revenue. The case also demonstrates how emancipation transformed
patronage politics in the state. At the beginning of the war, a person seeking a federal
post simply had to demonstrate loyalty to the Union. By the second half of 1863, a loyal
Unionist could be dismissed if he were not also a loyal emancipationist.228 In other
words, support for emancipation became a litmus test for political loyalty. The Custom
House meeting in the summer of 1863 shows how officeholders were major players in
developing political strategy for Lincolns party. The dismissal of Ridgely likely served
as a warning to those officeholders who were reluctant to back emancipation and as a
sign of encouragement to those officeholders who were working towards
emancipation.229
226
227
Wagandt. Page 140-141.
228
These changes can also be seen in how support for emancipation became a frequently mentioned point
in recommendations for patronage positions. See for example, George M. Russum to John A.J. Creswell.
January 13, 1864. Creswell Papers, Volume IV, Library of Congress.
229
Wagandt. Page 141.
55
The Maryland State Constitutional Convention and the 1864
Presidential Nominating Convention
By the end of 1863, thanks in large part to the efforts of federal officeholders
(especially provost marshals) to ensure the victory of pro-emancipation candidates in the
recent elections, the cause of emancipation in Maryland was on the verge of victory and
the conservative Unionists knew it. Henry Winter Davis wrote that we so completely
prostrated them [conservative Unionists] on the emancipation question that Hicks,
[Thomas] Swann, and everybody have yielded, [and] cry aloud for it, at once230 In
December, the Union State Central Committee met and accepted the radical position on
slavery by expressing support for immediate emancipation and calling for a state
constitutional convention to achieve that goal.231 On February 9 the Maryland General
Assembly passed a bill that called for such a convention. Delegates would be elected on
the first Wednesday of April.232
Meanwhile, preparations for the 1864 presidential election were beginning. While
Lincoln intended to seek reelection, many in the radical wing of the Republican Party
hoped that Lincoln would not be renominated. Salmon P. Chase, who desperately wanted
to be president, intended to challenge him. Lincoln colorfully said that Chase had the
Presidential maggot in his head and it will wriggle there as long as it is warm.233
230
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. January 9, 1864. Samuel F. DuPont Papers. Samuel F.
DuPont Papers, Series B, Box 43. Hicks was appointed by Bradford in late 1862 to fill a vacant senate seat
and in early 1864 he was reelected by the state legislature. Swann was the head of the conservative Union
State Central Committee. Wagandt. Pages 89, 142, and 193.
231
Baltimore Sun. December 17, 1863.
232
Wagnadt. Page 195.
233
Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth
Amendment, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Page 177.
56
In Maryland, the presidential campaign and the attempt to abolish slavery with a
new state constitution were deeply intertwined with each other and with patronage
politics.
On January 21 the Unconditional Union State Central Committee met in
Baltimore and called on the the unconditional Unionists of Maryland to elect delegates
to a state convention scheduled for February 22, 1864. The Convention would select
delegates to the Republican National Convention, which would nominate candidates for
the Presidency and Vice-Presidency and would also make plans for the coming
campaign to pass a new antislavery state constitution.234 In 1863 the more conservative
Union State Central Committee had rejected an attempt at reconciliation on the part of the
radicals. On January 27, however, four days after the radicals sent out their call for a state
convention, the conservatives chose to do what they had been unwilling to do in 1863.
Rather than calling for their own rival convention, they accepted the convention of the
Unconditional Unionists as legitimate. They did, however, request that both the
conservative and radical State Central Committees be dissolved and that a new unified
State Central Committee be created to direct the Union Party in Maryland. 235 Some
conservatives did not see this as surrender, however. Baltimore Postmaster William
Purnell claimed that this move badly frightened the radicals, who, significantly, he
referred to as the Custom House Party. Some radicals feared that the conservatives
would attempt to make our nominations for us.236
On February 1, Hoffman invited the head of the Union State Central Committee,
Thomas Swann, to meet with him at the Custom House. Despite calling for a unification
234
Baltimore Sun. January 23, 1864.
235
Wagandt. Page 232.
236
Ibid. Page 232-233.
57
of the two committees, Swann was bitter and declined Hoffmans invitation.237 Hoffman
and his friends were furious with the conservatives. They tried to ensure that the
Baltimore convention which would select delegates to the February 22 convention would
also select Baltimores delegation to the upcoming Constitutional Convention. This was a
radical ploy to hurt Lincolns chance of receiving his partys presidential nomination. By
adding the emancipation issue to the primary meetings agenda, the radicals hoped to
ensure the election of more radical delegates to the presidential convention.238 Hoffman,
along with John F. McJilton and Frederick Schley, was in fact, a member of a committee
advancing Chases presidential ambitions in Maryland. It was almost certainly not a
coincidence that all three men worked for the Treasury Department in some capacity.239
The radical plan did not work, however. The Baltimore convention selected radical
delegates, but it also expressed support for Lincolns reelection.240
Interestingly, in Baltimore County, Ridgely avenged his removal by soundly
defeating Joseph J. Stewart to be nominated as a candidate to the February 22 convention.
Rightly seeing this as a defeat for the radicals, Montgomery Blair was quite pleased. 241
At the February 22 convention, David Blocksom, who had worked under Provost
Marshal John Frazier Jr. until being fired along with Frazier himself because of the
abuses that occurred in the First District during the fall election of 1863, called for the
convention to instruct Marylands delegates to the presidential nominating convention to
237
Baltimore American. March 18, 1864.
238
Wagandt. Page 233.
239
Ibid. Page 141.
240
Ibid. Page 233-234.
241
Montgomery Blair to Abraham Lincoln. February 22, 1864. Lincoln Papers.
58
support Lincoln. Although he was opposed by Collier, an Eastern Shore provost marshal
who had worked hard to help the radicals, Blocksoms resolution passed.242
Marylands delegation to the national convention was dominated by federal
officeholders. Hoffman, along with A.C. Green, a member of the state legislature, were
chosen as Marylands at-large delegates from the Western side of the Chesapeake,
defeating Purnell, who Hoffman described as the Manager of the pro-Blair faction, and
Francis P. Blair Sr., Montgomery Blairs father. The at-large delegates from the Eastern
Shore were Creswell and Henry H. Goldsborough, the state comptroller who had been
elected with radical votes the past fall. Each of the states five congressional districts also
chose two delegates. At least six of the ten worked for (or had at some time worked for)
the Lincoln administration. These six were Holland, Schley, Joseph J. Stewart, William J.
Leonard (Fraziers successor), Levin E. Straughn, who served on the Board of Claims
which dealt with issues arising from the recruitment of slaves, and Hugh Lenox Bond,
who had served on that Board for a brief period in late 1863. All six were radicals with
ties to Henry Winter Davis.243
The radicals were also preparing for the election of delegates to the Constitutional
Convention. In March, Russum wrote to Creswell that to ensure a radical victory in their
area, they would need arrests, military interference and three thousand dollars.244
The administration, on the other hand, wanted to avoid the embarrassment of the previous
elections irregularities. Stanton told Major General Lew Wallace, the new commander of
the Middle Department, that The last Maryland legislature passed an act for an election
242
Baltimore Sun. February 23, 1864. And, Easton Gazette. February 20, 1864. And, Wagandt. Page 234.
243
Baltimore American. March 18, 1864. And, Baltimore Sun. February 23, 1864. And, Easton Gazette.
February 27, 1864. And, Wagandt. Page 131.
244
George M. Russum to John A.J. Creswell. March 15, 1864. Creswell Papers, Volume VII, Library of
Congress.
59
looking to the abolition of slavery in the state by constitutional amendment. The
President has set his heart on the abolition in that way; and mark, he dont want it to be
said by anybody that the bayonet had anything to do with the election. He is a candidate
for a second nomination.245
Of ninety-six delegates to the Constitutional Convention, at least six were former,
current, or future officeholders under the Lincoln administration. Several more, based on
their last names and locations, might have been related to officeholders. John W.
Mulliken, for example, was from Talbot County. In the same area, Charles Mulliken was
a deputy of Provost Marshal William J. Leonard. James Valiant, also of Talbot County,
might have been related to either William or Samuel Valiant, who both worked in the
Baltimore Custom House.246 While the proportion of officeholders serving at the
Constitutional Convention was not particularly high, many of the delegates, whether they
were officeholders or not, were influenced by patronage. The nominating conventions
that put them up for election were often dominated by low level officeholders. Their
campaigns were funded in large part from assessments on the salaries of officeholders.
And many of them could hope for future rewards for themselves or their friends if they
took a position on emancipation in Maryland that was pleasing to the Lincoln
administration.
245
Lew Wallace, Lew Wallace: An Autobiography, Volume 2, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers,
1906). Page 672. And, Wagandt. Page 207.
246
Easton Gazette, February 27, 1864. And, The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of State of
Maryland, Assembled at Annapolis, Wednesday, April 27, 1864: Being a Full and Complete Report of the
Debates and Proceedings of the Convention, Together with the Old Constitution, the Law Under which the
Convention Assembled, and the New Constitution, (Annapolis: Richard P. Bayly,1864). Page 3. And,
Federal Register, 1863. Pages 86-87 and 423-429. And, Montgomery Blair to Abraham Lincoln. February
23, 1865. Lincoln Papers. And, William J. Leonard and William C. Farrow to John A.J. Creswell, March
30, 1864, Creswell Papers, Volume VII, Library of Congress. It can sometimes be quite difficult to figure
out exactly how many delegates to a convention were officeholders. Sometimes names in the Federal
Register and/or the newspaper account of the convention can be misspelled. Furthermore, the Federal
Register has tens of thousands of names, organized not alphabetically but by office, so individuals can be
hard to find.
60
As for the presidency, Chase was outmaneuvered by Lincoln and dropped out of
contention months before the convention, which was held in Baltimore in June.247 A few
radicals refused to accept Lincolns victory and involved themselves with John C.
Frmont, who tried to run as a radical alternative to Lincoln. Afraid that Frmont might
siphon off votes from his own party, in September Lincoln successfully negotiated a deal
whereby he would remove Montgomery Blair as postmaster general in return for Frmont
withdrawing from the race.248
Davis was thrilled at Blairs ouster, writing that Our necks are relieved from that
galling humiliation.249 He was quite unhappy about Lincolns triumph over Chase,
however. In fact, he despised the president. While there had been tension between them
for some time, Davis reached a breaking point in January 1864 when Lincoln refused to
intervene on behalf of Davis in his crusade against Blair, calling it a personal quarrel.
Feeling that he had been gravely insulted, Davis left the room. He told his cousin and
Lincolns friend David Davis that I would be responsible for Lincoln not getting the
electoral votes in Maryland.250 Davis actually convinced himself that Lincoln was
working against emancipation in Maryland, writing that I begin to hope in spite of the
Presidents ill will, we will carry the constitutional convention for emancipation.251
Clearly, such a claim was entirely without merit. In fact, one has to wonder about
Daviss grasp on reality. From early 1862 Lincoln had pushed for emancipation in
Maryland, before Davis himself had decided to support the end of slavery. From
247
McPherson. Pages 713-714. And, Wagandt. Pages 237-238.
248
McPherson. Pages 715 and 776.
249
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. September 29, 1864. Samuel F. DuPont Papers, Series B,
Box 43.
250
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. January 28, 1864. Samuel F. DuPont Papers, Series B, Box
43.
251
Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. February 29, 1864. Samuel F. DuPont Papers, Series B, Box
43.
61
nominating conventions to bribery to stump speeches, Lincolns officeholders were
involved at every level of the effort to ensure that Maryland ended slavery in the new
state constitution.252 When the constitution fell short amongst the voters of the state, in
part due to increased turnout in Southern Maryland, with 29,536 voters opposed to the
new constitution and 27,541 supporting it, it was the soldiers of Lincolns army voting
via absentee ballot who ensured the victory of emancipation. 2,633 soldiers voted in
favor of emancipation, while only 263 soldiers voted against it. 253 While the votes were
being counted, Henry W. Hoffman sent Lincoln frequent telegrams with the newest
results.254 Lincoln cared deeply about ending slavery in Maryland. In fact, Lincoln told
his private secretary, John Hay, that If he [Davis] and the rest can succeed in carrying
the state for emancipation, I shall be very willing to lose the electoral vote.255
When Marylanders living in Washington came to serenade Lincoln after the
constitutions victory, he replied: Most heartily do I congratulate you, and Maryland,
and the nation, and the world, upon this event. I regret that it did not occur two years
sooner, which, I am sure, would have saved the nation more money than would have met
all the private loss incident to the measure; but it has come at last, and I sincerely hope its
friends may fully realize all their anticipation of good from it, and that its opponents may
by its effect be agreeably disappointed.256
252
253
254
Henry W. Hoffman to Abraham Lincoln. October 15, October 17, October 17 (two telegrams were sent
that day), 1864. Lincoln Papers.
255
Don E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher, Eds., The Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln,
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). Page 229.
256
Response to a Serenade, [October 19, 1864], in, Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham
Lincoln, Volume Eight, (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, 1953). Page 52.
62
Politics and Patronage in the Years after Emancipation
The abolition of slavery in Maryland should have been the Unconditional
Unionists finest hour. Instead, the passage of the new constitution coincided with the
beginning of the radicals fall from power. A costly mistake by Henry Winter Davis
during the summer of 1864 played a key role in the decline of the Unconditional
Unionists in Maryland. When Lincoln vetoed a Reconstruction bill co-authored by Davis
and Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, the Baltimore congressman was livid. He penned a
vicious attack on Lincoln, and with Wades approval, published it in Horace Greeleys
New York Tribune. The attack came to be known as the Wade-Davis Manifesto.257 The
Manifesto was vicious. Davis accused the president of grave Executive usurpation, of
defeating the will of the people by an Executive perversion of the Constitution, and
referred to his veto as the rash and fatal act of the Presidenta blow at the friends of his
Administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the principles of republican
government. Davis warned Lincoln that if he wanted the support of the radicals, he
must confine himself to his executive dutiesto obey and execute, not make the laws
to suppress by arms armed Rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress.258
257
Foner, The Fiery Trial. Pages 301-302. (According to Eric Foner, radicals like Davis believed
Reconstruction should be postponed until after the warand that the federal government should attempt to
ensure basic justice to the emancipated slaves. Lincoln, on the other hand, saw Reconstruction primarily
as an adjunct of the war efforta way of undermining the Confederacy, rallying southern white Unionists,
and securing emancipation. Lincolns views on Reconstruction did not remain static, just as they did not
remain static during the debate over emancipation. It seems that in his final days Lincoln was moving
towards a position on the issue closer to that of the radicals. As early as 1864 he was privately encouraging
southern white Unionists to consider granting voting rights to at least some African Americans. Foner, The
Fiery Trial. Pages 282-283, 302, and 332.)
258
New York Tribune. August 5, 1864.
63
Daviss move backfired when many antislavery radicals criticized him for trying to
undermine Lincoln while he was running for reelection.259
Being allied with Henry Winter Davis had long been a double edged sword. Peter
Sauerwein noted Perverse and hard-headed as he is, he has wonderful power with the
people. They admire him for his very insolence.260 Yet Daviss arrogance won him as
many enemies as it did admirers. In the wake of the publication of the Wade-Davis
Manifesto, however, Davis became a far more serious liability for the Unconditional
Unionists in Maryland, who suffered several major setbacks in the second half of 1864.
While the radicals wanted State Comptroller Henry Goldsborough to be the Union
Partys nominee for governor, the nod instead went to conservative leader Thomas
Swann. In fact, the state ticket was full of conservative Unionists according to the radical
Frederick Examiner, which editorialized that we should have been more gratified if
gentlemen who bore the heat and burden of the contest, of which the great
Constitutional Reform in Maryland is the first fruits had been chosen as candidates for
one or two of the offices on the ticket, in preference to those, who gave their adhesion to
immediate and Uncompensated Emancipation at a later day Nonetheless, the
Examiner endorsed the ticket.261 On the Eastern Shore, John Creswell lost his seat to
259
Charles Bracelen Flood, 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009).
Pages 281-282. And, Foner, The Fiery Trial. Pages 301-302. (Gerrit Smith, a former one-term antislavery
congressman, an early mentor of Frederick Douglass, and frequent presidential candidate of radical
abolitionist groups, published a letter in the New York Times criticizing Wade and Davis for publishing
their attack. He wrote that while There is a great deal of truth in it, and generally a very forcible
presentation of that truththe country cannot now afford to have the hold of Mr. LINCOLN on the popular
confidence weakened. Pardon me for saying that the eve of the Presidential election is not the time to be
making an issue with Mr. LINCOLN in regard to either his real or supposed errors. New York Times.
August 16, 1864.)
260
Baker. Pages 97-98.
261
Frederick Examiner. October 26(?), 1864.
64
Democratic Candidate Hiram McCullough.262 He was likely weakened by the attacks of
William J. Leonard, who called him the echo and tool of H. Winter Davis.263 Perhaps
seeing which way the political winds were blowing, Henry Hoffman, the collector of
customs in Baltimore and a leader of the Unconditional Unionists turned on Davis. Davis
complained that at the conservatives were able to fill the state ticket with their own
nominees in part because of Hoffmans cowardly and selfish hesitations and trimmings,
despite having once worked with Davis to deny Lincoln the Republican presidential
nomination for the 1864 election, Hoffman now tried to curry favor with the president.264
Although he realized that Davis deserved much of the credit for the abolition of
slavery in Maryland, Sauerwein was also aware that Daviss arrogance robbed them of
the chance to enjoy their victory. confound him! he ruined us as a party in the very
hour of our triumph, he wrote.265
In reality, thanks to the Lincoln administration, the Unconditional Unionists were
not quite finished as a party. After suffering the bitter disappointment of seeing his bitter
enemy Salmon Chase appointed as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a
position he coveted, Blair sought a seat in the United States Senate. He tried to convince
Lincoln to remove Hoffman as collector of customs and replace him with Thomas Hicks,
the former Maryland governor who was elected by the legislature in 1862 to fill a vacant
senate seat. Blair then hoped to be elected to the Senate by a coalition of Democrats and
262
John L. Moore, John P. Preimesbeerger, and David R. Tarr, Eds., Congressional Quarterlys Guide to
United States Elections; Volume 2, (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2001). Page 896.
263
Baltimore American. October 3, 1864. (Leonard was Fraziers successor. He had been sponsored by the
radicals but when he considered running against Creswell himself, the congressman convinced Stanton to
remove him from office. The above attack was part of Leonards response to losing his job. Wagandt.
Pages 188 and 252.)
264
Wagandt. Page 243. And, Henry Winter Davis to Samuel F. DuPont. October 19, 1864. Samuel F.
DuPont Papers, Series B, Box 43.
265
Wagandt. Page 265.
65
conservative Unionists. Although he suggested he might be willing to give Hoffman a
diplomatic post, a proposition Blair opposed, Lincoln was not interested in simply
removing Hoffman from office. The situation changed, however, when Hicks died on
February 13, 1865. Both Creswell and Blair sought to replace him. With considerable
assistance from the War Departments patronage machine, Creswell emerged
victorious.266
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles confided in his diary that Lincoln supported
Blair but Welles himself unwittingly suggested otherwise when he wrote that Blair
thinks the President does not aid him as much as he had reason to suppose he would, and
finds it difficult to get an interview with him. I think he has hardly been treated as he
deserves, or as the President really wishes, yet the vindictiveness of the Chief Justice and
Stanton deter him, control him against his will.267 Considering how frequently Lincoln
outmaneuvered his political opponents and the many times his critics wrongly believed
he was being manipulated by various members of his Cabinet, Welless belief that
Stanton and Chase had control over Lincoln is absurd. It is far more plausible that
Lincoln opposed Blairs senate bid. He had multiple opportunities to help Blair, who
spent several months trying to convince him to fire Hoffman.268 Not only did Lincoln
refuse to fire Hoffman, he allowed Stanton to assist Creswell. Instead, Lincoln tried to
266
Carman and Luthin. Pages 323-324. And, Wagandt. Page 266. And, Montgomery Blair to Abraham
Lincoln, February 23, 1865. Lincoln Papers. And, William H. Purnell to Montgomery Blair, March 9,
1865. Lincoln Papers.
267
February 21, [1865,] Tuesday, in Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles: Secretary of the Navy
Under Lincoln and Johnson; With an Introduction by John T. Morse, Jr.; Volume II: April 1, 1864-
December 31, 1866, (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911). Page 243.
268
Carman and Luthin. Pages 323-324.
66
convince Blair to take an important diplomatic post and withdraw from the senate
contest.269
Davis and many of his Unconditional Unionist allies never realized how lucky
they were to have Lincoln in the White House. Despite all that Lincoln did to help the
emancipation movement in Maryland, Davis thought Lincoln was working to protect
slavery. When Lincoln was assassinated, Davis wrote that the assassination was a great
crime, but the change is no calamity. I suppose God has punished us enough by his weak
rule& ended it!270
Even if they did not realize it, John Wilkes Booth dealt a crushing blow to
Maryland radicals by placing Andrew Johnson in the White House. Eric Foner notes that
Johnson was self-absorbed, insensitive to the opinions of others, unwilling to
compromise, and unalterably racist. He established a highly oppressive regime in the
South that returned many ex-Confederates to power and returned the freed-people to a
condition reminiscent of slavery.271
Blair become one of Johnsons closest advisors and used his renewed influence to
gain control over Maryland patronage. His hand was strengthened when Winter Davis
died of pneumonia in late 1865. Blair abandoned the Republican Party and set up about
trying to form a new party comprised of conservative Unionists and Democrats. He
accused the Unconditional Unionists of trying to bring about negro equality. He also
attacked a new voting registry system created by the Unconditional Unionists that would
make it more difficult for many Democrats to vote because it required prospective voters
269
William H. Seward to Abraham Lincoln, March 9, 1865. Lincoln Papers.
270
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume Two, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2008). Page 821.
271
67
to take an oath pledging their past allegiance to the Union. Rather than forming a new
party, however, Blair ended up helping Maryland Democrats. Swann, despite being the
nominee of the Union Party, joined the Democrats shortly after becoming governor. He
was able to circumvent the registration law by appointing conservative registrars. In
1866, the Democrats took control of both houses of the General Assembly. Under the
new regime, Creswell was not reelected. In 1867, the Democrats replaced the 1864
constitution.272
In the new constitution they included a clause that stated slavery shall not be
re-established in this State; but having been abolished, under the policy and authority of
the United States, compensation, in consideration thereof, is due from the United
States.273 The 1864 constitution had created Marylands first uniform public school
system, the Democrats returned control over education to the counties. The Democrats
returned a great deal of political power to Southern Maryland by restoring the
malapportionment done away with in 1864.274 They also deleted a clause from the 1864
constitution that declared we hold it to be self-evident that all men are created equally
free; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which
are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the proceeds of their own labor and the pursuit of
happiness.275
272
Baker. Pages 135-136, 144-149, 152-158, 164, and 171-173. And, Wagandt. Pages 267-268.
273
Edward Otis Hinkley, Ed., The Constitution of the State of Maryland; Formed and Adopted by the
Convention which Assembled at the City of Annapolis, May 8, 1867, and Submitted and Ratified by the
People on the 18th Day of September, 1867. With Marginal Noted and References, To Acts of the General
Assembly and Decisions of the Court of Appeals, and an Appendix and Index, (Baltimore: John Murphy &
Co., 1867). Page 18.
274
Fields. Pages 134-135.
275
Edward Otis Hinkley, Ed., The Constitution of the State of Maryland; Reported and Adopted by the
Convention of Delegates Assembled at the City of Annapolis, April 27, 1864, and Submitted and Ratified by
the People on the 12th and 13th Days of October, 1864. With Marginal Noted and References, To Acts of
the General Assembly and Decisions of the Court of Appeals, and an Appendix and Index, (Baltimore: John
68
The events after Lincolns assassination reveal just how important he was to the
success of the Unconditional Unionists and the achievement of abolition in Maryland.
Conservatives who had grudgingly accepted the radical agenda when it was supported by
the administration in Washington quickly joined the Democratic Party after he died.
Without federal patronage to sustain it, the Unconditional Unionist coalition collapsed
while the Democrats remained in control of Maryland politics for the rest of the
Nineteenth Century.276
Conclusion
In early 1861, while traveling to Washington to be inaugurated, Abraham Lincoln
had to sneak through Baltimore in the dead of night, fearing for his safety.277 About two
months later, rebel forces in Charleston attacked Fort Sumter, beginning a Civil War
which would last for four years. When Massachusetts troops passed through Baltimore on
their way to Washington, responding to Lincolns call for volunteers in the wake of the
attack on Fort Sumter, they were set upon by a secessionist mob. The riot caused the first
deaths of the war. At the time, there was a real possibility that Maryland might join the
rebellion.
Less than four years after Lincoln had to sneak through Baltimore in the dead of
night, he was nominated by his party to run for a second term at a convention held in
Baltimore. Less than four years after a mob sympathetic to the proslavery rebellion
Murphy & Co., 1864). Page 13. (The 1867 Constitution, did, ironically, grant African Americans the right
to testify in court. Fields. Page 134.)
276
Baker. Pages 175-178 and 203.
277
69
attacked federal troops, Maryland was free of slavery. In just four years, Maryland
politics were entirely transformed.
While federal troops played a key role in holding Maryland in the Union in 1861,
patronage played an important role as well. Rather than work solely with the miniscule
Maryland Republican Party, Lincoln gained the loyalty of the Maryland Constitutional
Unionists through patronage. Without them, he would have lacked a significant base of
support in Maryland.
The patronage system was even more important when it came to ending slavery in
Maryland. It was federal officeholders who formed the core of the Unionist political
organization. When emancipation became the policy of the administration, it also became
the policy of the administrations patronage network and therefore the policy of the
Union Party. Lincoln ensured this by making support for emancipation the litmus test for
party loyalty. Furthermore, not only did Lincolns patronage power help create a pro-
emancipation political organization, it also ensured the victory of pro-emancipation
candidates in key elections. His officeholders used numerous tactics, many of them quite
shady, to ensure the end of slavery in Maryland.
Even during the Civil War, which saw a vast expansion of federal power, the
central government lacked the type of formal power over the states it holds today.
Through patronage, however, skilled presidents like Lincoln were still able to exert a
great deal of influence over states policies. Of course to achieve that influence, Lincoln,
and other presidents of the era, acted in a manner that to modern sensibilities seems
questionable if not deeply corrupt. On the other hand, in the case of Maryland during the
70
Civil War years, that corruption played a major role in the liberation of thousands of
slaves without any compensation to their owners.
71
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Baltimore American
Baltimore Sun
Charleston Mercury
Easton Gazette
Frederick Examiner
New York Times
New York Tribune
Abraham Lincoln Papers

John A.J. Creswell Papers
Blair Family Papers
Samuel F. DuPont Papers
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University Press: New Brunswick, 1953).
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3. Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume Six, (Rutgers
4. Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume Eight, (Rutgers
5. Joshua Cohen, Scrapbooks, 1861-1865. Maryland Historical Society.
6. Don E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher, Eds., The Recollected Words of

Abraham Lincoln, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
7. Edward Otis Hinkley, Ed., The Constitution of the State of Maryland; Reported and
Adopted by the Convention of Delegates Assembled at the City of Annapolis, April 27,
1864, and Submitted and Ratified by the People on the 12th and 13th Days of
October, 1864. With Marginal Noted and References, To Acts of the General
Assembly and Decisions of the Court of Appeals, and an Appendix and Index,
(Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1864).
8. Edward Otis Hinkley, Ed., The Constitution of the State of Maryland; Formed and
Adopted by the Convention which Assembled at the City of Annapolis, May 8, 1867,
and Submitted and Ratified by the People on the 18th Day of September, 1867. With
Marginal Noted and References, To Acts of the General Assembly and Decisions of
72
the Court of Appeals, and an Appendix and Index, (Baltimore: John Murphy & Co.,
1867).
9. Henry W. Hoffman, Reasons of Hon. Henry W. Hoffman, of Maryland: House of

Representatives, July 14, 1856.
10. Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, Public Service
Held in the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, May 16,
1882, in the Presence of the R.W. Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, I.O.O.F., in Honor
of the Memory of James L. Ridgely, (Philadelphia: W.R. Charter, 1882).
11. Michael P. Johnson, ed., Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: Select
Speeches and Writings, Second Edition, (New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011).
12. Edward B. McPherson, The Political History of the United States, during the Great
Rebellion, (Washington: Philip & Solomons, 1865).
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Leikin, Eds., The Salmon P. Chase Papers; Volume 1: Journals, 1829-1872, (Kent:
The Kent State University Press, 1993).
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and 18, 1860, (Albany: Weed, Parsons, and Company, 1860).
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(Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1965).
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United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1859; Showing the State or Territory from
Which Each Person was Appointed to Office, the State or Country in which he was
Born, and the Compensation, Pay, and Emoluments Allowed to Each; the Names,
Force, and Condition of All Shops and Vessels Belonging to the United States, and
when and where Built; Together with the Names and Compensation of all Printers in
Any way employed by Congress, or any Department or Officer of the Government,
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1860).
73
19. Report of the Committee on Elections, on Contested Elections in Somerset County,

Together with the testimony taken before the Committee. (Annapolis: Bull & Tuttle,
1864).
20. The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of State of Maryland, Assembled at

Annapolis, Wednesday, April 27, 1864: Being a Full and Complete Report of the
Debates and Proceedings of the Convention, Together with the Old Constitution, the
Law Under which the Convention Assembled, and the New Constitution, (Annapolis:
Richard P. Bayly, 1864).
21. Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles: Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson; With an Introduction by John T. Morse, Jr.; Volume II: April 1, 1864-
December 31, 1866, (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911).
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1. Jean H. Baker, The Politics of Continuity: Maryland Political Parties from 1858 to
1870, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973).
2. Judy Bieber, Power, Patronage, and Political Violence: State Building on a Brazilian
Frontier, 1822-1889, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999).
3. Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume Two, (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2008).
4. Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin, Lincoln and the Patronage, (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1943).
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the Nineteenth Century, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).
6. Charles Bracelen Flood, 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History, (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2009).
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74
8. Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010).
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1854-1861, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
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Winter 1860-1861, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008).
11. Ari Hoogenboom, Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform
Movement, 1865-1883, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961).
12. Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2007).
13. Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to
Morse, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).
14. James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1988).
15. John L. Moore, John P. Preimesbeerger, and David R. Tarr, Eds., Congressional
Quarterlys Guide to United States Elections; Volume 2, (Congressional Quarterly
Press, 2001).
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(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).
17. Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project, Accessed March 31, 2011,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1860.
18. John Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County, from the Earliest Period
to the Present Day: Including Biographical Sketches of their Representative Men,
(Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881).
19. Bernard C. Steiner, Life of Henry Winter Davis, (Baltimore: John Murphy Company,
1916).
20. Mark W. Summers, The Plundering Generation: Corruption and the Crisis of the
Union, 1849-1861, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). Page 55.)
21. Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the
Thirteenth Amendment, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
22. Charles Lewis Wagandt, The Mighty Revolution: Negro Emancipation in Maryland,
1862-1864, (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2004).
75
23. Lew Wallace, Lew Wallace: An Autobiography, Volume 2, (New York: Harper &
Brothers Publishers, 1906).
24. Matthew Wasniewski, Farar Elliott, and Robin Reeder, Biographical Directory of the
United States Congress, 1774 to Present, Accessed March 30, 2011,
http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp.
25. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, (New York:
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American National Biography Online

Archives of Maryland Online
Marylands Comptrollers
76
Peter Atwood Sicher was born in Towson, Maryland on August 4, 1988.
He attended Jemicy School from 1995 to 2003.
He graduated from the Park School of Baltimore in 2007.
From October 2009 to April 2010 he served as a News and Features Editor
with the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, an award winning undergraduate
student newspaper. He served as a Magazine Editor with the News-Letter
from April 2010 to April 2011.
In June, 2010 he was a Gilder Lehrman One Week History Scholar.
In May 2011, he graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in History.
In July, 2011 he completed the requirements for a Master of Arts degree in
History from Johns Hopkins University.
77

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A HELPING HAND

FEDERAL PATRONAGE AND THE CREATION OF THE MARYLAND

A thesis submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity

As late as 1860 there was no Republican Party organization in Maryland worthy

of influential players in both state and national politics, of newspapers, and of

federal government stimulated this transformation in Maryland politics.

emancipation political organization, it also ensured the victory of pro-emancipation

shady, to ensure the end of slavery in Maryland.

ADVISOR: Dr. Michael P. Johnson

Vaidyanathan, the history reference librarian at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at

improved. I could not have completed this paper without him.

Maryland Politics Before the Civil War

The Henry Winter Davis-Montgomery Blair Rivalry

The Spoils System: How it Worked

Maryland Politics and Patronage in the First Phase of the War

An Overview of Custom House, Post Office, and Other Patronage in Maryland

The Beginning of the Emancipation Movement in Maryland

Patronage, Provost Marshals, and the 1863 Elections

The Case of James Lott Ridgeley

Politics and Patronage in the Years after Emancipation

About the Author

Turnover amongst Baltimore City Custom House employees

Turnover amongst Baltimore City Postal Clerks

Turnover amongst Maryland Postmasters

Maryland Congressional Districts in 1861

Maryland Congressional Districts in 1863

On February 28, 1861, Jeremiah Morton stood up to address the Virginia

recipient of a fat office, be it a Judgeship, be it a Collectorship, be it a Postmaster of this

we shall have from this glorious Union.2

of the Federal Government within the Southern States.3

the coalition of ex-Whigs, Know-Nothings, and Constitutional Unionists led by Henry

party and in the abolition of slavery in Maryland.

Maryland Politics Before the Civil War

Aware of these changes, proslavery politicians further south were deeply

In reality, the Republican Party in Maryland was extremely weak. In the

the Know-Nothings) devoted only a paragraph to Frmonts candidacy, beginning, Of

from Baltimore City, perhaps as many as two thirds.12

more reliable supporter among the slave states than Maryland.13

Republican Party, but in Maryland, it was reincarnated as the anti-immigrant American

American Party remained competitive in Border South states such as Maryland.14

In the 1856 presidential election, American Party presidential nominee, ex-

President Millard Fillmore, defeated Democratic candidate James Buchanan in Maryland

The Henry Winter Davis Montgomery Blair Rivalry

Davis and Montgomery Blair, were more complex.17

and out of resentment of Southerners control of their party.19

Nonetheless, he remained active in politics, involving himself with the antislavery

Republicans in Missouri, Montgomery led the party in Maryland.21

advisor, Judge David Davis of Illinois.24

Blair controlled the Maryland delegation to the 1860 Republican National

During the election, Davis apparently wanted Lincoln to win, although he

colleagues who wanted to run their own ticket.31

famous Chief Justice John Marshall.33

claimed that Republicanismin Maryland, is a simple farce. In the last presidential

responsibility of indicating names of prominent citizens whose representations

are entitled to perfect reliance.36

afforded, of our securing Republican ascendency in Maryland.37 Francis S. Corkran told

Lincoln that if Davis was favored then Republicanism in Maryland is dead.38

Meredith, were all allies of Davis.39

The Spoils System: How it Worked40

The use of political patronage to create a political organization, popularly known

successors would further expand the system.

requesting a position in Washington. The constituent claimed a right to a position based

Temporary jobs might be provided in exchange for votes.48