Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1864-04-15
STATE ELECTIONS.
En,anciDatiOn TriuIuDE in MaryIaud,


The emancipationists carried Maryland at the
Constitutional Convention election yesterday
| by an overwhelming majority. The counties
of Cecil, Allegheny, Washington, Frederick,
Carroll, Hartford and Baltimore give emancipa-
| ton maorities from two to three thousand each.
The city of Baltimore gives nine thousand ma
| iOrity for immediate and uncompensated eman
cipation. The conservatives took no part in the
election, many of them declining TO vote.
The Baltimore AmericdB estimates that there
will be a majority in the Convention of at least
! twenty for immediate and unconditional eman-
cipation.
The Convention is called for by a large ma
iority, and "a decided majority has been elected
| to it in favor of unconditional and immediate
emancipation.
1t is precisely what everybody, well read in
the current history of the times, expected, that
! Maryland should vote for convention to revise
her constitution as to enable her to get rid of
slavery. But the majority reported is larger
than any one expected, and is a gratifying evil
dence ofthe sincerity and earnestness of the an
ti-slavery movement in the State.
In fact, there does not appear to have been
any formal opposition to the project ofa conven-
ton; the votes given against ii are comparative
ly few in number, and the controversy at the
polls related mainly TO the question whether the
| prospective abolition of slavery should be m-
tileUIdle anu VI W SHOULD
be accompanied with proviso for the compen-
sation of the shareholders. Slaves having al
ways been considered property, it was argued
! that those citizens who are suddenly deprived
of their services should be paid for the loss.-
But the reply was, that the large majority of
those who hold slaves are the holders of land
| and that by the destruction of slavery, the land
would increase in value to such an extent as to
become in itself an ample compensation. Be-
sides, it was further urged, slavery is wrong in
ITSELF an injury to the community, a public nui-
sance, and no one ought to be remunerated for
doing right or for refraining frop Il practice
which is harmful to the public. Whatever the
force of the argument, 1t seems that the people
of Maryland are in favor of eXtingushiDg the
evil at once, and without conditions.
Some of the coppcrhead Journals which dis
| like this result, and which think that unless
man has a right ito wallop his own nigger" as
! Matthews used to say, he has no civil rights
whatever, represent the election as d farce
They intimate that it was held under military
dctatiou-a view of things that the Tory Jour
nails of England will eagerly catch up and make
| the most of in ridculug our democratic institu-
tions. But there is no basis 70. the untruth-
Every citizen in Maryland, who is an honest
citizen and faithful to tho government under
which he lives, has enjoyed the most perfect lib
erty of discussion and action. He has been free
To oppose or IaNOr iie measure DeIOGe DQDllc,
| and free to cast his vote as he pleased. Tra-
| tors of course have not been allowed to approach
the polls; men in open and avowed sympathy
with what is virtually foreign government the
/ knot of rebels at Richmond, have not been al
/ lowed to participate i'll controlling the destnies
of "a State whose allegiance they have abandon
ed; it would have been suicidal and ruinous to
permit them; but all Others have been as unre-
strained in Maryland as they are in Connecticut
or New Hampshire. 1t is the mere fetch of
desperate and disappointed faction to proclaim
elections, which they cannot manage or win,
! irregular We have heard the tune ever since
elections were held,
! 1t is willful blunder which does not see that
the results in Maryland are the effects of great
change of public opinion going ON III all the b0r-
| der slave states. That change was predicted as
! inevitable before the war began. 1t was seen
] by every man of the slightest discernment, that
those states would be, in the first place, largely
| depleted of their slaves by the new facilities of
escape incidental TO a state of war; IN the Sec
ond place, that the presence of armies in the
midst of a slave population would give it new
aspirations for freedom as well as new chances
for escape; and i'll the third place, that natural
resentment against those who had stirred up the
Wharf.-The slayeholders-would make them ene-
mics in quarters where before they had none
A stronger reason, however, for the change in
| the middle states is that slavery has never had
very strong hold of them the removal of it
has been agitated from early times in Maryland,
Virginia, kentucky and Missouri and the main
obstacles to action have come from the more
southern states where the system was more te-
nacious and vital. But now that those states
have plunged the country into war, now that
/ their influence has been withdrawn. now that
they have provoked a convulsion to which the
greatest social changes can add but little the
genuine sentiment of the people asserts ITSELF
| and their long-smothered hostility to slavery
comes forth. Now is the time ifever, they say,
| to get rid of a hideOus incubus, and there is no
! riddle or farce in the matter