Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis | Page 9

like the sneering devil at the crucifixion, crying out,
"Come and deliver thyself!" and then no man, with the heart of a man,
who loved his country and feared his God, dared longer delay to
prepare for that great struggle which was destined to rock the earth.
Poor Maryland! cursed with slavery, doubly cursed with traitors! Mr.
DAVIS had said that Maryland was loyal to the United States, and had
pledged himself to maintain that position before the people. The time
soon came for him to redeem his pledge. On the morning of the 15th of
April the President issued his proclamation calling a special session of
Congress, which made an extra election necessary in Maryland. Before
the sun of that day had gone down, this card was promulgated:
To the voters of the fourth congressional district of Maryland:
I hereby announce myself as a candidate for the House of
Representatives of the 37th Congress of the United States of America,
upon the basis of the unconditional maintenance of the Union.
Should my fellow-citizens of like views manifest their preference for a
different candidate on that basis, it is not my purpose to embarrass
them.
H. WINTER DAVIS. APRIL 15, 1861.
But dark days were coming for Baltimore. A mob, systematically
organized in complicity with the rebels at Richmond and Harper's Ferry,
seized and kept in subjection an unsuspecting and unarmed population
from the 19th to the 24th of April. For six days murder and treason held
joint sway; and at the conclusion of their tragedy of horrid barbarities
they gave the farce of holding an election for members of the house of
delegates.
To show the spirit that moved Mr. DAVIS under this ordeal, I cite from
his letter, written on the 28th, to Hon. William H. Seward, the

following:
"I have been trying to collect the persons appointed scattered by the
storm, and to compel them to take their offices or to decline.
"I have sought men of undoubted courage and capacity for the places
vacated.
"We must show the secessionists that we are not frightened, but are
resolved to maintain the government in the exercise of all its functions
in Maryland.
"We have organized a guard, who will accompany the officers and hold
the public buildings against all the secessionists in Maryland.
"A great reaction has set in. If we now act promptly the day is ours and
the State is safe."
These matters being adjusted, he immediately took the field for
Congress on his platform against Mr. Henry May, conservative Union,
and in the face of an opposition which few men have dared to
encounter, he carried on, unremittingly from that time until the election
on the 13th of June, the most brilliant campaign against open traitors,
doubters, and dodgers, that unrivalled eloquence, courage, and activity
could achieve. Everywhere, day and night, in sunshine and storm, in
the market-houses, at the street corners, and in the public halls, his
voice rang out clear, loud, and defiant for the "unconditional
maintenance" of the Union. He was defeated, but he sanctified the
name of unconditional union in the vocabulary of every true
Marylander. He gathered but 6,000 votes out of 14,000, yet the result
was a triumph which gave him the real fruits of victory; and he
exclaimed to a friend, with laudable pride, "With six thousand of the
workingmen of Baltimore on my side, won in such a contest, I defy
them to take the State out of the Union." Though not elected, he never
ceased his efforts. With us it was a struggle for homes, hearths, and
lives. He said at Brooklyn:
"You see the conflagration from a distance; it blisters me at my side.

You can survive the integrity of the nation; we in Maryland would live
on the side of a gulf, perpetually tending to plunge into its depths. It is
for us life and liberty; it is for you greatness, strength, and prosperity."
Nothing appalled him; nothing deterred him. He said, at Baltimore, in
1861:
"The War Department has been taught by the misfortune at Bull Run,
which has broken no power nor any spirit, which bowed no State nor
made any heart falter, which was felt as a humiliation that has brought
forth wisdom."
He also said, speaking of the rebels, and foretelling his own fate, if they
succeeded in Maryland:
"They have inaugurated an era of confiscations, proscriptions, and
exiles. Read their acts of greedy confiscation, their law of proscriptions
by the thousands. Behold the flying exiles from the unfriendly soil of
Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri."
And so he worked on, never abating one jot of his uncompromising
devotion to the Union, like a second Peter the Hermit, preaching a
cause, as he believed, truly represented by insignia as sacred as the
Cross,