Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/42

32 the General Assembly of the State in the name of her people does hereby protest against the same and against the arbitrary restrictions and illegalities with which it is attended, calling upon all good citizens at the same time, in the most earnest and authoritative manner, to abstain from all violent and unlawful interference of every sort with the troops in transit through our territory, or quartered among us, and patiently and peacefully leave to time and reason the ultimate and certain re-establishment and vindication of the right.

"Resolved: That under existing circumstances it is inexpedient to call a Sovereign Convention of the State at this time, or to take any measures for the immediate organization or arming of the militia."

These resolutions passed the Senate, ayes 11, nays 3; House, ayes 43, nays 12. General Butler replied to this defiance by seizing Baltimore the very night these resolutions passed. He acted, they resolved! An equally significant incident had occurred in Baltimore just the week before. Judge William F. Giles, judge of the district court of the United States for the district of Maryland, issued the writ of habeas corpus on May 4th to Major Morris, commanding at Fort McHenry, commanding him to produce before the court without delay the body of John George Mullen, an enlisted soldier, one of the garrison of the fort who sought his discharge on the ground of minority. Under the law of the United States it was unlawful to enlist a minor under eighteen years of age in the military or naval service without the consent of his parent or guardian. Mullen alleged in his petition that he was under the lawful age and had been enlisted illegally. Major Morris neither produced the man nor made any response to the mandate of the writ; but on May 7th he addressed a letter to Judge Giles, in which he peremptorily refused to obey the writ. In this first trial of strength between law and arms, law became silent, as usual. On May 25th John Merryman, one of the first citizens of Baltimore county, was arrested at his home by a squad of soldiers and locked up in Fort