Excerpt from Message of the Governor of Maryland to the General Assembly: In Extra Session, 1861

Legislature of Maryland.

State of Maryland, Executive Chamber, Annapolis, April 25th, 1861.

Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Delegates:

The extraordinay condition of affairs in Maryland has induced me to exercise the constitutional prerogative vested in the Grovernor to summon the Legislature in special session, in the hope that your wisdom may enable you to devise prompt and effective means to restore peace and safety to our State.

I shall detail briefly the startling events which have induced me to summon you together, and which have so suddenly placed us in the state of anarchy, confusion and danger from which I sincerely trust you may be able to extricate us.

Believing it to be the design of the Administration to pass over our soil troops for the defence of the City of Washington, and fearing that the passage of such troops would excite our people and provoke collision, I labored earnestly to induce the President to forego his purpose. I waited upon him in person and urged the importance of my request. I subsequently communicated with him and his cabinet by special despatches, entreating an abandonment of their designs.

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