Maryland, My Maryland!"

"The Despot's Heel Is on Thy Shore!"

Following the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter at Charleston on April 9, 1861, Lincoln ordered governors of the remaining Union states to call up their state militias and supply an army of 75,000 to invade and subdue the seven Southern states that had seceded. While this was received enthusiastically in many Northern states, the Border States viewed this as tyranny they would not follow. Consequently, the border states of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas seceded, and secession efforts were underway in Missouri and Kentucky. The order was likewise not well received in Maryland.

During the American Civil War, Maryland, a slave state, was one of the border states straddling the South and North. Despite some popular support for the cause of the Confederate Staes of America, Maryland did not secede during the Civil War. Governor Thomas H. Hicks, despite his early sympathies for the South, helped prevent the state from seceding.

One of the first steps of Lincoln’s administration was to secure the capitol in Washington, although the Southern states wished to secede peacefully, they had indicated no aggressive intentions against the Northern capitol. In order to get to Washington, the mustered Union regiments had to come through Baltimore. Since the railroad did not go through the city of Baltimore, they had to disembark their troops trains north of the city and proceed by wagon, horse, and foot through the city, and then embark by train again on the other side. Unfortunately, on April 19^th, the 6^th Massachusetts Regiment chose to March through the city fully armed and in military formation. They were jeered by unsympathetic crowds of bystanders. Furthering the misfortune, the troops fired on the crowds killing twelve people. Fire then began to be returned from the crowd, and four soldiers were killed. These twelve civilians and four Union soldiers, whose blood flecked the streets of Baltimore, were the first battle deaths of a war that would take the lives of 620,000 Union and confederate soldiers and an estimated 50,000 Southern civilians from all causes.

By May of 1861, Lincoln, his cabinet, and generals had already begun to close down dissenting newspapers all over the country from Chicago to New York. Lincoln also took it upon himself to suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus, a constitutional guarantee of the Bill of Rights with precedent dating back to the English Magna Carta. Habeas corpus is a fundamental liberty which prevents arbitrary arrest and imprisonment indefinitely without defined charges, trial, or means of release. Suspension of habeas corpus under conditions of civil disorder can only be temporary and must be authorized by Congress within thirty days.

In that same month of May 1861, a resident of Baltimore, John Merryman, who had been arrested on the order of Union General George Cadwallader and held at Fort McHenry without charges or trial, petitioned U.S. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney for a writ of habeas corpus. Granted a writ and set a date for a hearing, but it was ignored by Lincoln and his Generals. Cadwallader responded by letter that Lincoln had suspended his habeas corpus, so there would be no compliance with the Supreme Court. Taney then ordered a Federal Marshall to Fort McHenry to enforce the writ, but Union Army officials refused his entrance.

Taney responded by writing a blistering court opinion, a constitutional classic, which held Merryman's arrest to be unlawful and a violation of the Constitution, and that only Congress could suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus. The Chief Justice stated that if Lincoln’s actions were allowed to stand, “… the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws, but every citizen holds, life, liberty and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found.”

Lincoln not only ignored the Supreme Court's ruling, he wrote out an order for the arrest of Chief Justice Taney. This arrest, however, in the end was not actually carried out for fear of extremely adverse public opinion and political consequences.

With these developments, a sizable portion of the Maryland public was becoming sympathetic not only to the South, but even secession. Therefore, there was much talk of it among Maryland State Legislators. Consequently, Northern informers were asked to identify members of the Maryland Legislature that might support secession in the coming legislative session. Secretary of War Simon Cameron then issued an order to Major General Banks in Maryland that “all or any part of the Legislative members must be arrested to prevent secession.”

On the night of September 12-13 all suspected Southern sympathizers in the Maryland Legislature were arrested and imprisoned in Fort McHenry. In all, fifty-one persons were arrested and imprisoned. Ironically, among those arrested and imprisoned was the grandson of Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner.

To further tighten the Union political hold on Maryland, all the members of the Union forces were allowed to vote in the November election, even though many of them were citizens of other states. Voters had to walk through platoons of soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets to reach their polling place. The London Saturday review noted:

“It was as perfect an act of despotism as can be conceived. It was a coup d'etat and every essential feature.”

The disorder inspired James Ryder Randall, a Marylander living in Louisiana, to write a poem which would be put to music and, in 1939, become the state song, “Maryland, My Maryland” (it remained the official state song until March 2021). The song's lyrics urged Marylanders to "spurn the Northern scum" and "burst the tyrant's chain" – in other words, to secede from the Union. Confederate States Army bands would later play the song after they crossed into Maryland territory during the Maryland Campaign in 1862.

Hence the lines of Maryland State song, that few now realize were directed against Abraham Lincoln, his Cabinet, and his Generals. These are the most famous verses:

‘The despot’s heel is on thy shore,

Maryland, My Maryland!

His torch is at thy temple door,

Avenge the patriotic gore,

That flecked the streets of Baltimore,

And be the battle queen of yore,

Maryland, My Maryland!

Dear Mother! Burst thy tyrant’s chain,

Maryland, My Maryland!

Virginia should not call in vain,

Maryland, My Maryland!

She meets her sisters on the plain,

‘Sic simper!’ ‘Tis The proud refrain

That baffles minions back amain,

Maryland, My Maryland!

Arise in majesty again,

Maryland, My Maryland!’

Twenty thousand of Maryland's sons were able to escape the Union occupation of their mother state and distinguished themselves in the Confederate Army.

*Many other modern countries include writs of habeas corpus in their constitutions. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln famously used an executive order during the Civil War to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to keep Maryland, and important train routes between Washington, DC and the North, from falling to Confederate sympathizers.