The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1861-01-30
BALTIMORE.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 80, 1861

Ever since the beginning of our present trou-
bles portion of the people of Maryland has
urged the State to adopt what is commonly called
position of mastery inactivity" The party
which has favored this policy has persstenly ar
raigned those who advocated different course as
secessonists, and it has gradually assumed for it
self the designation of the ''Union party" With
the causes which have provoked this crsis-with
the principles which, on either side, are
claiming recognition-with the stubborn facts
which stand in the way of any reconcilia-
ton between the sections-the "Union party
as it terms itself, persstently refuses to deal.
1t does not care, apparently, either to dis
cuss the vital questions involved in the pending
dispute or to propose any measures of adjustment;
its views are in no way affected by what has al
ready happened, and its course is not to be deter
mined by what may happen. 1t simply advises
that Maryland shall 'clng to the Union" That
this counsel is dictated, for the most part, by pa
triotic motives, no one is disposed to deny. But
before the people accept it they should consider
what it means, and whittier it will lead them.
Ninety-nine men out Of every hundred in Mary
land are anxious for the preservation of the
Union, and there are few sacrifices that they
would not freely and gladly make in its behalf.
But how they are to help to save it, under the
guidance of the party which has especially charged
itself with the safety of the Republic may well
puzzle any one who does not deliberately shut his
eyes to what is transporting around him. How
long will the Union be left for TO cling to if the
revolution in the South moves forward as rapidly
in the next as it has in the past month Six
States are now out Of the confederacy two more
are about to follow, and four or five more will
take the same step before the fourth of March I'M
less the fair concessions which Virginia demands
are granted. While all this is going on Maryland
will be supposed to be ''clinging to the Union"
If Virginia withdraws, a new confederacy will
be formed, which will include at least eleven or
twelve States, and another nation will announce
its existence to the world. Still Maryland will be
thought to De 'clinging to the Union" The
President of the Southern Republic will be inaug-
urated, its Congress convened its army and navy
organized, After this is done Maryland will be
said to be ''clinging to the Union" still. The
Northern Republic, finding it too late to offer COM
promises to the slave States and seeing il futile to
attempt to coerce them, would proceed to reorgan-
ize its congressional and judicial districts and
enter upon its career an Independent nation.
Will Maryland dream even then that she is scling-
ding to the Union? And yet such is about the
result to which the mastery inactivity pol
icy will lead us. Maryland will ultimately
if the work of disruption goes on, find herself the
willing or unwilling member of a Union, but the
Union, to which she has been always so loyalty
attached, will have disappeared forever. She may
stand henceforth by the flag around which so
many gories cluster, and she may sit for years to
come in the shadow of the Federal Capitol; but
she cannot long keep up the delusion to which
she seems disposed to cling so fondly. And when
she does awaken to the fact that the DAYS of the
Republic are numbered, her grief will be the bit
terer for the reflection that in its hour of peril
she shrank from the responsibility of making any
decided struggle 10 save it. Maryland was wont
to play, in troublous times, nobler part than
that TO which she has descended now. If the peo-
pie Of this State wish, as unquestionabIy be-
lieve they do, TO adhere to the Union, they must
first help save it. 1t is not yet too late 10 avert
the threatened fate of the Republic Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina can be
kept in the present Confederacy by timely COM
promise, if the North will offer or accept SUCH
The concessions they demand are just and reason-
able and if the dispute between the border slave
States and the North can be arrange upon that
basis, there is room to hope that the Union may
yet be preserved, even as it was before solitary
State had whispered its intention to secede In
this good work Maryland ought cordially to CO.
operate. 1t is her duty to express her opinions
decidedly, and to advocate the proposed compro.
mise earnestly. If she hesitates to act the North
may refuse to make any concessions, and the end
of this Confederacy is, in that case, near at hand
If she takes the position that it becomes her tc
assume, the present discussions may be healed
and Maryland can then ''cling TO the Union will
the proud satisfaction of knowing she has helped
to preserveit.