Border State Loyalty

A leading banker of Baltimore, who, like a large majority of the commons and a small minority of the aristocracy of that city, is heartily for the Union, recently assured a friend from this city that a majority of the Legislature of Maryland – four-fifths of them elected expressly as unionists – were now in heart with  the rebel confederacy.  “Why so?”  “Because they have been alienated by so much emancipation talk at Washington this winter.”  “Well, what do you think would make Maryland heartily and steadfastly loyal?”  “The abolition of slavery, sir,” replied the Baltimorean; “That and nothing else!” – N. Y. Tribune.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, February 20, 1862, p. 2