When war was declared between the United States and Great Britain in 1812, Baltimore sent forth about 60 fast sailing vessels, which preyed as privateers on British commerce. In return, Admiral Cockburn sailed into the Chesapeake with a British fleet. He made a number of landings, and had skirmishes with the people. The Federal authorities were inefficient. Finally, in August 1814, a reinforcement of British troops having arrived under command of Gen eral Ross, the British fleet sailed up the Patuxent River and disembarked a considerable expedition. The British forces were met by the Americans near Bladensburg, and the latter were shamefully defeated. The British ad vanced and took the Federal capital — Wash ington. After a short time, they retired, re embarked on the fleet and sailed up the bay to attack Baltimore. The army under General Ross landed at North Point, and attacked the Maryland militia, driving them back several miles upon the defenses of the city. In the attack, General Ross was killed. A landing party to the southwest of the city was unsuc cessful. Fort McHenry, on the end of a peninsula at the mouth of the harbor, was bom barded by the fleet. During the night of the bombardment, Francis Scott Key, a lawyer of fine ability, who was detained on a British ship, whither he had gone to endeavor to effect the release of a prisoner, wrote the
Maryland was a close State politically, and was so conservative that the Federalist party lingered there for years after it had gone out of existence elsewhere. In 1806 the property qualification for voters was abolished, a racial one being substituted. The growth of Balti more city and the larger counties rendered the people therein discontented with the constitu tional rules of equality of representation in the legislature. In 1837 the Democratic electors for the senate of the State, who numbered 19 out of 40 (the quorum being 24), refused to go into the body, in the hope of accomplishing constitutional revision. They failed to prevent the election of a senate, and the party was repudiated by the voters at the ensuing election, but the constitutional amendments desired were speedily achieved, and, in 1838, the gov ernor's council was abolished; the governor's election made by the people for a three-year term; and the senate made also a body elected by the people, one member coming from each county and one from Baltimore city. An napolis lost its representation in the general assembly. In 1836 Carroll County was estab lished out of parts of Frederick and Baltimore, and took its name from the venerable Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who had been the last survivor of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and had died in 1832. William Wirt, an eminent lawyer and a resident of Baltimore city, was nominated for the Presi dency by the anti-Masonic party, and received the electoral vote of Vermont at the election of 1832. From that time, for 30 years, Baltimore was the place at which many National political conventions were held.
At this time, in Maryland, as in other States, large amounts had been borrowed to aid works of communication, such as railroads and canals. A financial crisis came upon the country, after the failure of the Bank of the United States to obtain a recharter, and Maryland was in danger of bankruptcy. That this evil was averted and the State's credit maintained was due to the high integrity of Thomas G. Pratt, then gov ernor, and to the great helpfulness of George Peabody, then a London banker, but formerly in business in Baltimore. The failure to re charter the United States Bank was mainly due to two men, President Andrew Jackson and Roger B. Taney, a Maryland lawyer, who had been called to the President's Cabinet as At torney-General, and, having already conceived a distrust for that bank, had not only agreed with the President in his opposition to it, but had increased his hostility. Taney was trans ferred to the Treasury Department, so as to accomplish more against the bank, by removing the Federal government deposits from it. The Senate refused to confirm the appointment — an unprecedented act. Jackson nominated Taney again to a seat on the Supreme Court bench, and the nomination was rejected. A vacancy in the chief justiceship gave Jackson a third op portunity to honor Taney, and a change in the membership of the Senate secured his confirma tion, so that he presided over that august tribunal from 1838 to 1864. The Maryland bar was a famous hod) of men. William Pinkney, who served as Minister to England and won laurels as an orator in the United States Senate, was considered the leader of the American bar, until he died, and after Daniel Webster died, for 20 years, Reverdy Johnson was the most prominent American lawyer. Johnson was a Whig, served as Attorney-General in Taylor's administration, was twice senator from Mary land and was Minister to England.
Troops from Maryland played a gallant part in the Mexican War. The agitation for
rotation in office and for a greater number of elective offices was so strongly felt in Mary land that a new constitution was adopted in 1851. The term of the governor was increased to four years, at which it has remained. At this time, Howard County was created out of part of Anne Arundel, and Baltimore city was made independent of Baltimore County. To use the English phrase, it was created a county borough. Maryland had given considerable support to the colonization of negroes in Liberia, and John H. B. Latrobe, an eminent lawyer, was for many years president of the Colonization Society, but there was little abolition sentiment in the State. The Republican party was not organized in Maryland until 1866, but there was very con servative Union sentiment in the State, and the Whigs had been powerful there. There was also a strong nativist element, which was brought into politics by a considerable foreign immigration to Baltimore about 1850, and by the fact that these immigrants usually voted the Democratic ticket. As a result of the com bination of these elements, Fillmore carried the State (the only one he did carry) as the native American (or "Know Nothing") candidate for the Presidency in 1856, and Thomas H. Hicks, the candidate of the same party, was chosen governor in 1857. Baltimore city, about that time, was characterized by election riots and disturbances between mobs, composed of partisans of "Know-Nothings" and of Demo crats, and also between mobs, composed of ad herents of rival volunteer fire companies. The police force there was inefficient, and, as a re sult, in 1860 it was placed under State control, under which it still remains. When the Presi dential election of 1860 came, Breckenridge, the candidate of the Southern Democracy; car ried the State by a narrow plurality, over Bell, the Conservative Union candidate, supported by the Old Line Whigs. As soon as Lincoln's election was announced, the Gulf States began to secede. Maryland was in a difficult situa tion. She was a border State, slaveholding, conservative, Union loving, having ties both to North and to South. Governor Hicks was a Union man, but not a man of strong personality. Lincoln called for troops. On the 19th of April, the Sixth Massachusetts regiment reached Baltimore. Locomotives were not then allowed to draw trains through the city, but mules pulled the cars from one station to the other along Pratt street. The commander of the regiment permitted his men to remain in the cars, and the crowd, seeing them so transported, became menacing. Stones were thrown, shots were fired and several men were killed on either side — the first bloodshed of the Civil War. Governor Hicks promptly called a session of the legislature to meet in Frederick, the centre of the Unionist part of the State, where the local influences overawed the Secessionists in the legislature, so that the question of disunion was never brought to a vote. Later, the Fed eral officers arrested some prominent disunion ists and confined them for several months. Baltimore was reduced to quiet and obedience to Federal law, when Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, with Union troops, took post in May on Federal Hill, overlooking the city. There was some friction with Federal authorities during the remainder of the conflict but the question was settled that Maryland would continue loyal to the National government. The credit for sav ing Maryland to the Union is, in large measure, due to the efforts of Reverdy Johnson and Henry Winter Davis, an eloquent orator and congressman. Some Marylanders crossed the Potomac, and, enlisting in the Confederate army, fought bravely. Gen. Bradley T. John son was the most important of their officers. The Union army also contained a large number of Maryland soldiers, the chief officers being Gen. John R. Kenly and Gen. Charles E. Phelps. Union troops were stationed along the Potomac, and three important campaigns took place wholly or partly in the State. In the autumn of 1862, General Lee came into the State with the Army of Northern Virginia, and met Gen eral McClellan and the Army of the Potomac, near the village of Sharpsburg, on Antietam Creek, in Washington County, fighting there a bloody battle, after which Lee was forced to into nto Virginia. This Maryland campaign had, as one of its incidents, the occupation of Frederick by Stonewall Jackson, which gave rise to the poem of "Barbara Frietchie." In 1863 Lee crossed the State twice on his way to and from Gettysburg, and, in 1864, Gen. Jubal A. Early entered Maryland, and fought the battle of the Monocacy near Frederick against Union forces under Gen. Lew Wallace. They were defeated, but the delay they caused the Con federate army, together with a second delay, occasioned by Early's stopping to collect a ran som of $200,000 from Frederick, gave the Fed eral authorities time to bring troops to Wash ington and avert danger of the capital's falling into the Confederate's hands. A raiding party came within five miles of Baltimore at this time. During the war, James R. Randall wrote the song, "Maryland, my Maryland," to encourage the secession element in the State.