page_title: Edwin Warfield
section_title: Governor of Maryland
hierarchical_section_title: Edwin Warfield / Governor of Maryland
caption_attribution_description: English: Maryland governor Edwin Warfield (left) leading the 3rd Brigade in the President Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade, photographed by William H. Rau on March 4, 1905. This images was cropped from a stereo card found here.
context_page_description: Edwin Warfield, a member of the United States Democratic Party, was the 45th Governor of Maryland in the United States from 1904 to 1908.
context_section_description: Warfield chose to run for Governor of Maryland in 1899, but lost the Democratic nomination after he was opposed by influential Maryland politicians, including Arthur Pue Gorman, a powerful U.S. Senator who had his own state political machine and was allied to similar interests and "old pols" in Baltimore City.  However, even though it was apparent the party bosses did not hold him in favor, he again sought the nomination in 1903 openly discouraging African-Americans' ability to vote.  He was successfully nominated by the party, and defeated his Republican opponent, Stevenson A. Williams, by over 12,600 votes.  He was inaugurated as the 45th Governor of the "Old Line State" on January 13, 1904.
  The most significant event of his tenure as Governor came when Arthur Pue Gorman, who had opposed Warfield's election, proposed the "Gorman Amendment" to the Maryland State Constitution of 1867, which would have effectively disenfranchised all black voters in the state.  The bill easily passed the Democrat-controlled General Assembly, but Warfield refused to sign the bill into law.  While Warfield was in favor of some of the bill's provisions, such as denying the vote to the less-educated black voters of the state, he feared it would eventually lead to greater levels of disenfranchisement which could threaten all voters in the state.  The bill was put before the public, and was defeated by 30,000 votes, a defeat to the crypto-segregationists in the party in which Warfield played a major role in.  Warfield's actions in this affair further alienated him from the Democratic machine in Maryland, which was openly hostile towards him by the time he left office.
  As governor, Warfield also favored the establishment of direct-voting for U.S. Senators.  He argued this before the General Assembly in 1906, believing the power should be in the hands of the people.  The direct election of senators eventually became national law with the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Other accomplishments as governor included the authorization and approval in 1904 of an official state Flag of Maryland, (by using the design and colors on the shield of the Calvert family's coat-of-arms with a red-and-white cross with bottony (trefoil) ends of the Crosslands and the black-and-gold chevrons of the Calverts, each in two alternating quarters, like the shield. During the previous Civil War, the severely divided Border State used the two elements of the Maryland shield to represent their side of the War, (Unionists wore black/gold chevrons and Confederate Marylanders wore badges with red/white crosses on their uniforms. The return of a quartered flag and seal and shield represented a reuniting of the "Old Line State" and was fostered by the newly re-organized militia as the Maryland National Guard flying the new/old Maryland flag.  Another historical "final act" was the success of a long search and process by the then U.S. Ambassador to France to discover the where-abouts in Paris, France of an American naval hero's burial site and have the return of the body of American Revolutionary War Captain John Paul Jones, (1747-1792), considered the father of the United States Navy to the specially-prepared marble crypt under the newly constructed domed chapel at the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Also the western expansion and annex construction (with two new marble chambers for the houses of the General Assembly of Maryland) along with the remodeling of the old Maryland State House on State Circle, including the Old Senate Chamber to match its original Colonial appearance when General George Washington resigned his position in the Continental Army at the State House in December 1784, then serving as a temporary national capitol with the Confederation Congress then meeting there.  Warfield left office in January 1908.
caption: Gov. Warfield leading the 3rd Brigade of the Maryland National Guard in the inaugural parade of 26th President Theodore Roosevelt on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., photographed by William H. Rau on March 4, 1905
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