What Took Maryland so Long?

[struggle4progress]

by Christian McWhirter

I occasionally give talks on Civil War music, and when I do, there’s a line that almost always gets a laugh: I read audiences the lyrics of “Maryland, My Maryland,” wait a beat, and then say, “amazingly, that’s still Maryland’s state song” ... I might not be able to tell that “joke” much longer ...

Randall wrote it .. in response to an April 19, 1861, riot in Baltimore ... The poem spread quickly across the South and ... became a huge hit — for a time topping even “Dixie” as the Confederacy’s most popular patriotic anthem. When Robert E. Lee’s army invaded Maryland in September 1862, they sang the tune as they crossed the Potomac — anticipating hordes of new recruits and .. the state’s .. secession ...

... Lost Cause advocates revived “Maryland, My Maryland” as a symbol of their .. struggle against “northern oppression” and it eventually ..., in 1939, became the state song ...

... Listeners do not need to know American musical or racial history to understand it has no business being a state song. The lyrics are overtly pro-Confederate, and thereby pro-slavery and pro-secession. These aspects are odd enough from a state that never joined the Confederacy but they’re certainly anathema to modern listeners ...

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/162382

[Igel]

1. Randall didn't write it in response to the riot.

He wrote it in response to Lincoln's troops actions and Lincoln's actions.

The state government asked that the troops not be transported. They were. Through the middle of Baltimore. Rolling stock was commandeered, and the protests developed into riots and deaths. This was unnecessary. It was expedient for Lincoln and showed federal strength, but was unnecessary. There's little to defend here.

In response Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. He arrested a large continent of the Md state legislature on mere suspicion of being about to secede. That was more of the "Northern oppression." There's nothing to argue against here. Lincoln was wrong. Full stop.

The courts smacked down Lincoln's unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus and most people forget that he suspended habeas corpus not during war time. The political prisoners were eventually released, but it took a while.

Randall was generally sympathetic to the Southern cause, but nothing in the lyrics can refer to the actual war because, well, it hadn't started yet. It was a good rallying song against Lincoln because, bluntly, he screwed up and acted contrary to his oath. Archaic codes of honor make us feel a need to defend him, but one can't let good acts blind us to bad ones any more than bad ones blind us to what an otherwise bad person does that are good.


What "Lost Cause" advocates wanted is much later. The two acts--the writing and making it the state song--are separated by many decades.

[struggle4progress]

2. ... After Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861, the only lines for overland supplies,

After Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861, the only lines for overland supplies, troop movements, transportation, and communication to Washington, D.C., ran through Maryland, with the railroads running through Baltimore. Baltimore was a rough city for the Union ... In February .. a mob attacked the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment as it marched through Baltimore on its way to Washington. Confederate sympathizers in Maryland were numerous, organized, and sometimes violent ... Lincoln issued an order to General Winfield Scott authorizing him to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, at or near any military line between Philadelphia and Washington if the public safety required it ... On May 25, federal troops arrested John Merryman in Cockeysville, Maryland, for recruiting, training, and leading a drill company for Confederate service. Merryman's lawyer promptly petitioned Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, sitting as a trial judge, for a writ of habeas corpus ... Taney ordered delivery of a writ of habeas corpus to General George Cadwallader directing him to appear before Taney on May 28 with Merryman in tow. After Cadwallader refused service of the writ, Taney ruled on May 28 that the president did not have the power to suspend the writ ... Lincoln ignored Taney, and that was the end of the federal judiciary's involvement ... On July 4, Lincoln delivered a message to the special session of Congress. He referred to his suspensions of the writ ... "Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power. But the Constitution itself, is silent as to which, or who, is to exercise the power ... Whether there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and if any, what, is submitted entirely to the better judgment of Congress" ... Congress did not enact legislation authorizing suspension of habeas corpus until March 3, 1863 ... Lincoln's 1861 orders authorizing suspension remained in force, and on September 24, 1862, he issued a proclamation imposing martial law and suspending the writ of habeas corpus ...

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0029.205/--lincoln-s-suspension-of-the-writ-of-habeas-corpus?rgn=main;view=fulltext

[struggle4progress]

3. ... On April 19, 1861, the first blood spilled in that war stained the cobblestones of Pratt Street

Station. Union Soldiers of the 6th Massachusetts Brigade encountered demonstrators on the walk from President Street Station to Camden Station. The demonstrators attacked the soldiers, and people on both sides died. Federal troops soon occupied the city. Confederate sympathizer Randall, grieved and angered at the thought of the bloodshed in his hometown, wrote the poem "Maryland, My Maryland" ... Although he tried to enlist in the Confederate Army, tuberculosis kept him out. He did, though, eventually enter the Confederate Navy ...

http://baltimoreauthors.ubalt.edu/writers/jamesrandall.htm