The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-01-09
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We have already expressed our satisfaction in
the main with the tone and temper of the Gov
ERNoR's Message. We have characterized it as it
is-a moderate sensible, unpretending document
remarkably free from those faults and exaggera-
tons of style which are the common vice of our
American State papers, and from any display of
violent partisanship, extreme political opinions.
This much praise we think is justly due to Gov
ernor Hicks, and it gives us pleasure to accord it.
We have no fault, as we have already said, to
find with the GOVERNOR for what he has done.
Our objections are rather on the score of what he
has not done. The faults of the Message are faults
of omission rather than of commission, and first
and most conspicuous among them, is the absence
of any distinct and specific allusion to the social
and political condition of the city of Baltimore,
and TO the frauds and violence which, since the ad-
journment of the Legislature, have twice defeated
any expression of the popular will through the
customary and appointed medium of the Ballot
box. Not only so-the outrages which were
perpetrated in this city on the I'd of November,
and of which not only this community but the
people of the entire State were the victims, are
nowhere referred TO in the Message, except in the
vaguest and most general terms The GOVERNOR
recommends the passage of stringent laws for the
protection of voters and for the punishment of
those who in any way seek or conspire to inter
fere with or prevent the exercise of the right of
voting bnt he nowhere refers TO the oc-
currences which have demonstrated the ne
cessity for such additional legislation -
He simply says that ''frauds upon the elective
franchise form common subject of complaint
tIin different &c IF ha Stota Tba Il
mission which he is willing to make goes no fur
Their than saying, 'that in those counties border
ling upon neighboring States, and in our large
'and populous city, fraudulent votes have been
'cast, at all our elections, by dishonest per-
"sons who are residents and by non-residents u
OF the absolute wholesale Acknowledgement of this
entire community, and the consequent invalida-
ton of election, in which the interests of the
whole State were involved, the GOVERNOR takes no
notice whatever. OF the ruffanism which, on
the I'd day of November, took armed possession
of the polls, and trampled upon the rights of
thousands of citizens, he has not word to
say. He does, indeed, pronounce the practice of
fraudulent voting to be "a growing evil of
s'great enormity," but be takes care to
qualify the admission by saying that at has
ernor HICKS is well aware as any man in the
State, that the election outrages of former years
afford no parallel to those which were recently
perpetrated in this city and that these latter trans
cend hundred thousandfold in magnitude and
enormity, all the frauds that ever were committed
in any of the border counties. To put those
outrages in the same category with the exceptional
cases of illegal voting which may have happened
in some obscure district near the Delaware or
Pennsylvania line, is little less than an insult TO
the public intelligence and the general sense of
injury and wrong. We do not believe, of
course that it was so inteuded. We acuuit
the GOVERNOR Of any wilful or elaborate
misrepresentation of the facts. We only charge
him with ignoring and Withholding them
That the GOVERNOR not only knows but feels the
real nature of the case, we have the best possible
proof in the recommendations which be makes.
These only to be justified on grounds of
grave public necessity. and by a recent and pain
full experience of the utter insuficiency Of all ex-
listing safeguards for the protection of the Ballot
box and the rights of voters. They are emnently
sound and practical, and except that they do not in
clude the necessity of new Police Bill for the city
of Baltimore, cover nearly the whole ground taken
by the Reformers We regret, that in presenting
them, and in urging them, as he has done, upon
the attention of the Legislature, the GOVERNOR
should not have strengthened his argument as well
as his own claims to the public respect and graft
tude, by candid and manly exposition of the facts