Page:History of Maryland, 1879, v3.djvu/29

 HISTORY OF MARYLAND. CHAPTER XXXIV. Profoundly conscious of the responsibility attending the Act, yet no less impressed with a sense of the deep national wrongs, the Congress of the United States, on June 18th, 1812, declared war against Great Britain. On the day following, the President issued a proclamation, declaring " that war exists between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of America," and appealing to all the people, " as they love their country, as they value the precious heri- tage derived from the virtue and valor of their fathers, as they feel the wrongs which have forced on them the last resort of injured nations," to support the measures adopted by the authorities for obtaining "a speedy, a just, and an honorable peace."

Notwithstanding this patriotic appeal, the publication of the proclama- tion at Boston, was the signal for a general mourning ; the ships in the harbor displayed their flags at half-mast, and there, as in other northern cities, public meetings were held and resolutions adopted, denouncing the war as unnecessary and ruinous, and tending to a connection with France destructive to American liberty and independence.^

From the moment of the declaration of war, a "Peace Party" was formed including nearly all the federalists, by whom a steady, systematic and vigorous opposition was kept up against its prosecution. The demands of this party for the restoration of peace were as loud and imperious as had been their cry for war in the years 1806-7, and their conduct at the two periods was irreconcilable with any principle of patriotism and consistency. " The measure itself, and its authors and abettors," says Mr. Carey, " were denounced with the utmost virulence and intemperance. The war was, how- ever, at first opposed almost altogether on the ground of inexpediency, and the want of preparation. Afterwards its opposers rose in their denunciations. They asserted it was unholy, wicked, base, perfidious, unjust, cruel and corrupt Every man who in any degree co-operated in it, or gave aid to carry it on, was loaded with execration." The pulpit, as usual in the Northern » The Senate of Massachusetts declared, that tent of territory by unjust coniiuests, and to " the war was founded on falsehood, declared aid the tjrant of Europe In his ^iews of a^- without necessity, and its real object was ex- ^randlzement."— Wir€ Branch. -v. iU.