"Lincoln's war was nothing if it was not a war prosecuted by the Republican Party against the Southern states. It was therefore the very definition of treason under the U.S. Constitution. ...Article 4 states: 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.' ...Lincoln violated the first part of Article 4 by imprisoning members of the Maryland legislature in 1861."
--Thomas DiLorenzo from When Dictatorship Came to America, Nov 12, 2009

Anyone who has ever listened to the lyrics of Maryland ’s historic state song will recognize immediately that Maryland , at least during the Civil War, had what could easily be described as a “Yankee problem”. Maryland had always recognized herself as a Southern state with political and social institutions similar to other southern states. Considering this fact, it was not surprising that the Lincoln train would meet trouble once it crossed the Mason-Dixon Line.

The transformational election of 1860 was unprecedented in American history. On its face, the election made Abraham Lincoln President via the Electoral College without a popular vote mandate. Lincoln’s opponents had a heavy popular majority. The election was purely sectional with the Republicans seen as a “Northern” party. Lincoln was particularly disliked politically in Maryland . He received only 1211 votes and no electoral votes. In 1860 Maryland’s population was 560,000. Maryland’s eight votes went to Democratic candidate John C. Breckinridge.

As the deep Southern states began seceding following the election, Maryland , while remaining in the Union , had strong Southern sentiment. Maryland’s legislature approved a resolution calling for the "peaceful and immediate recognition" of the Confederate states. On April 12, 1861, the firing on Ft. Sumter led to the immediate call up of 75000 militia troops to suppress “combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceeding, or the powers vested in the Marshals by law”. Troops immediately were transported to Washington D.C. from the North. Four thousand Massachusetts troops arrived in Baltimore on April 19. Violence occurred.

No true history of this period in Maryland ’s history would be complete without knowing more of the picture. Lincoln was never certain of Maryland’s allegiance. On April 19, he took matters in his own hands and issued an order for the arrest and detention of anyone suspected of subversive deeds or utterances while suspending the writ of habeas corpus. This resulted in the landmark judicial decision of Ex Parte Merryman. The Federal Circuit Court of Maryland ruled against Lincoln ’s heavy handed actions and forbade the arbitrary imprisonment of Maryland citizens as unconstitutional. The opinion, written by Chief Justice Taney, held that Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution gave to Congress alone the power to suspend the writ in cases of rebellion and that Lincoln’s action had been without warrant and represented a threat to the liberty of all Americans. Lincoln ignored the ruling and even went to the point of allegedly having an arrest warrant issued for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney.

One would have thought that this brush with the Supreme Court would have tempered President Lincoln’s actions. When it appeared that the popularly elected Maryland legislature was close to passing a Secession Ordinance, Lincoln quickly acted and had Secretary of State William Seward arrest 31 pro-secession legislators thereby preventing Maryland from joining the Confederacy.

That fall, Lincoln allegedly tampered with Maryland state elections by placing Federal Provost Marshalls at polling places and arresting known Democrats. Troops from Maryland in the Union Army were given a special 3 day furlough to vote. These actions provided what Lincoln sought, a pro-Union legislature in Maryland . He had effectively thwarted the will of a majority of Maryland ’s citizens. But, even during the course of the war, the military hierarchy was suspicious of Maryland ’s Union troops and their ultimate loyalty.

"[I]n his first inaugural address Lincoln announced that it was his duty 'to collect the duties and imposts,' and then threatened 'force,' 'invasion' and 'bloodshed' (his exact words) in any state that refused to collect the federal tariff...."
-- Thomas DiLorenzo from Another Court Historian’s False Tariff History, 1/18/11

"Lincoln destroyed the most important principle of the Declaration — the principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Southerners no longer consented to being governed by Washington, D.C. in 1860, and Lincoln put an end to that idea by having his armies slaughter 300,000 of them, including one out of every four white males between 20 and 40. Standardizing for today's population, that would be the equivalent of around 3 million American deaths, or roughly 60 times the number of Americans who died in Vietnam."
-- Thomas DiLorenzo from The Mythical Lincoln, 2/12/2002