The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1866-08-31


Sadler, Sr., John L. Williams, W. P. @. Whit
aker, G. B. Hitchcock, J. H. O'Neill, J. Ware
ham, r. R. Vandiver and J. B. Coale, who re-
ported resolutions to the meeting, expressing
warm and earnest attachment to the Union-all
of which were adopted and from which we make
the following extract:
Resolyed That we have witnessed with pro-
found regret the enactment of laws by some of
the Northern States, which are in direct viola
ton Of and hostile to constitutional laws passed
by the General Government, and we consider
that in justice to the rights of citizens of all the
States, such obnoxious State enactments should
be repealed as speedily rs possible.
RESOLVED, That we earnestly entreat our sister
States of the South to weigh well the consequent
ces of secession, and not to act with precipitancy
and without consultation with those States
whose interests are identical with her own.
RESOLVED, That we are determined 10 maintain
our equitable rights in the confederacy, under
the Constitution and in the Union; but, if after
exhaustng every means of Cancellation, they are
then and there denied us, we will cordially unite
with those States that acknowledge and respect
them.
While this as well as the meetings heretofore
mentioned, were meetings in favor of the Union
of the States, there is no such doctrine as "un-
conditional Union" taught by either; "but if
say the Havre de Grace resolutions, "after ex-
haustng every means of Cancellation, they are
then and there denied us, we will cordially unite
with those States that acknowledge and respect
them" The condition here made is, that the
Union under the Constitution, made by the men
of other days, was the Union, and the only one
that these gentlemen taught obedience to-
When we come to remember that the gentlemen
composing this and other meetings of a like char
aeter, are men of the highest responsibility and
intelligence, and their proceedings characterized
by calmness and dignity, we cannot escape the
conclusion, that the utterances of these meetings
were the true sentiments of the people of this
county and of the State at large. There is no
where to be found in these resolutions any harsh
condemnation of the course pursued by the
South Notwithstanding acts of secession had then
been passed. True, you may find gentle remon-
strances and appeals for consultation. The I'M
conditional Unionism now urged as the only
passport to registration, is of much later origin,
and took its rise in Massachusetts, about the time
OF the issuing of the first Abolition proclama-
tons, and after that spirit of fanaticism had de-
feated the Crittenden Resolutions and the object
of the Peace Congress. Every well meaning man
in the land was for the Constitution of Washing.
ton, and Internationally for it, and this is what
many men meant who allied themselves with the
party calling itself by that name. But the lead
ers meant not that instrument, but one of their
own choosing, creating them lords and the peo-
pie hewers of wood and drawers of water. This
is the Union which Stevens & Co. were uncondi-
tionally for; and this is the very kind of Union
ism that can only be sustained by depriving good
citizens and true men of their rights al the ballot
box, hence we have all this parade about uncon-
ditional Unionism and intense loyalty in con-
nection with the registration of voters. Does
any man pretend at this day that the tyrannies
and outrages perpetrated on the people of this
State, during the disgraceful reigns of Butler
and Schenck, at Baltimore, were for any other
purpose than to intimidate the people, and force
them to submit to the rule of mere handful of
politicians Ifany man doubts their complete
success in this scheme, let him look to the vote
which has been had in this State for the last four
or five years. Does any human being believe for
one single moment that if every man in the State
who was entitled to vote, had been permitted to
exercise that privilege, that the present State
Constitution would ever have been adopted p
Every man knows that it would not.
In referring to the resolutions passed at the
meetings held in this county, it is not our inten-
ton to intimate that the persons composing these
gatherings were not Union men many of them
were and are, in the true sense of the term. Our
object in this reference is to show that at that time
no man in this county, at least, thought ofany
other Union than that of the fathers of the repub-
lie, and that consequently they were conditional
Union men, and so educated the people of this
county. IT. then, the masses were slow to adopt
the Abolition doctrines afterwards set up, and
by the aid of bayonets successfully forced upon
US, they are not to blame; they did but follow
the advice of more prominent men, and if in the
they were wrong, it is the fault of those who set
the example.