Thomas Holliday Hicks
Thomas Holliday Hicks (September 2, 1798February 14, 1865) was a politician in the divided border-state of Maryland during the American Civil War. As governor, opposing the Democrats, his views accurately reflected the conflicting local loyalties. He was pro-slavery but anti-secession. Under pressure to call the General Assembly into special session, he held it in the pro-Union town of Frederick, where he was able to keep the state from seceding to join the Confederacy. In December 1862, Hicks was appointed to the U.S. Senate, where he endorsed Abraham Lincoln's re-election in 1864, but died soon afterwards. Early career Born in 1798 near East New Market, Maryland, Hicks began his political career as a Democrat when he was elected town constable and then, in 1824, elected Sheriff of Dorchester County. Later, he switched to the Whig Party and was elected to the House of Delegates in 1830 and re-elected in 1836. In 1837, the legislature elected him a member of the Governor's Council, the last to be chosen before that body was abolished. In 1838, he was appointed Register of Wills for Dorchester County. He stayed in that job until his election as governor. Governor of Maryland In 1857, as the Whig Party disintegrated, Hicks joined the Native American Party, more commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party. As such, in 1858, he ran for governor and defeated Democrat John Charles Groome by 8,700 votes. The election, however, was notable for fraud, open intimidation of voters, and unprecedented violence. Hicks was one of the oldest men to become governor. In his gubernatorial inaugural address, Hicks criticized the numbers of foreign immigrants coming to America and warned that they would "change the national character". Slavery and the coming of war Hicks opposed abolitionists and supported slave owners. He denounced "[t]he attacks of fanatical and misguided persons against property in slaves" and added that slave owners had a right under the "[United States] Constitution to recover their property." Hicks belatedly supported the Union of the states and sought to prevent Maryland from seceding and joining the Confederacy. This would have isolated Washington, D.C., in Confederate territory. Hicks reflected the divisions in his state. In Hicks' writings about the South and its secession, he referred to it as "we." He wrote that "they", the North (and Abraham Lincoln), were wrong in "refus[ing] to observe the plain requirements of the Constitution" to permit new states to join the Union as slave states. Baltimore Riot of 1861 After the bloodshed in Baltimore, involving Massachusetts troops which were fired on while marching between railroad stations, on April 19, 1861, Baltimore Mayor George William Brown, Marshal George P. Kane, and former Governor Enoch Louis Lowe requested that Hicks burn the railroad bridges leading to Baltimore, in order to prevent further troops from entering the state. Hicks reportedly approved this proposal. These actions were addressed in Ex parte Merryman, the famous case of Maryland militia Captain John Merryman who was arrested by Union forces. After initially denying that he had authorized