may organize new counties or alter the boundaries of old ones, but not without a majority consent of the parts concerned. County commissioners are elected as prescribed by law; the term, however, cannot exceed six years. A sheriff and a surveyor are also elected for each county. Coroners, elisors, and notaries public are appointed for each county.
Other Constitutional or Statutory Provisions. General elections are held biennially, on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The legal rate of interest is per cent. A married woman may acquire, hold, and manage property independently of her husband, and dispose of the same as if single. Her husband must join her, however, in the execution of any deed. Debtors are protected in the possession of property to the value of $500.
History. In 1632 Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, received from Charles I. a charter conferring on him the possession of the territory now forming the States of Maryland and Delaware. The grant had been obtained by George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, the father of Cecil, but he died before the charter was issued. It was the intention of the lord proprietor to found a feudal State in Maryland (named in honor of Charles's Queen, Henrietta Maria), and to that end he was invested with sovereign powers, subject only to the recognition of the King as lord paramount by the payment of a yearly tribute of two Indian arrows. One of the chief causes that led to the settlement of Maryland was the desire of Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, to found a colony where his fellow-believers might profess their religion openly without incurring the penalties to which they were subjected in England. Other denominations, however, in the proprietor's scheme, were to be on an equal footing with the Catholics, and of the twenty gentlemen and two or three hundred commoners who arrived at Point Comfort, Va., in February, 1634, under the leadership of Leonard Calvert, it is probable that more than half were Protestants. On the 25th of March mass was celebrated on Saint Clement's Island in the Potomac, and shortly after the site of the city of Saint Mary's was traced on land bought from the Yaocomico Indians, near the banks of the river.
In his use of the vast powers granted him by the King, Baltimore was as moderate as in the expression of his religious views, and he made no attempt to establish anything like an absolute government. By the terms of the charter, laws for the province could be made by the Proprietor only, with the consent of the freemen or their deputies, and on January 26, 1635, the first assembly of freemen met at Saint Mary's. The right of initiating laws, claimed both by the Assembly and by the Proprietor, was conceded in 1638 to the people, Baltimore reserving to himself the mere veto power. The first ‘statutes of the province’ were passed in 1638 and 1639. With the Indians friendly relations were established. The worst enemy of Lord Baltimore's colony was William Claiborne (q.v.), a Virginian, who had established a trading post on Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay in 1631. He refused to recognize the authority of Lord Baltimore, and in 1638 his settlement was captured by Leonard Calvert during Claiborne's absence in England. In 1643 a company of Puritans, excluded from Virginia for nonconformity, settled at Providence, now Annapolis, and put themselves in opposition to the Government. The outbreak of the Civil War in England enabled Baltimore's enemies to carry their opposition to a great length. In 1645 Captain Richard Ingle, acting ostensibly in the name of Parliament, seized Saint Mary's. Claiborne also returned from England, regained possession of Kent Island, and the Governor attempted in vain to dispossess him. For nearly two years Ingle held the province under his sway until Governor Leonard Calvert returned from Virginia with a military force and recovered possession. As early as 1638 the molestation of Protestants had been punished. In 1649 an act was passed at the desire of the Proprietor guaranteeing freedom of worship to all followers of Jesus Christ. The Puritans continuing to be turbulent, their settlement by way of conciliation was in 1650 erected into a separate county, named Anne Arundel, and as other Puritans arrived from England, Charles County was shortly afterwards organized for their benefit. Their numbers increased to such an extent that they soon had a majority in the Assembly. In 1652 commissioners from England visited Maryland, among whom were Claiborne and Bennett, the Puritan leader of Anne Arundel County. The authority of the English Commonwealth was completely established in the colony, and Kent Island was given up to Claiborne. A commission for the government of the colony was organized with Captain William Fuller at its head. The Puritans made use of their ascendency to repeal the Toleration Act of 1649 and to enact penal laws against the Catholics. A severe conflict ensued. Providence was attacked March 25, 1655, by the proprietary party; but the assault was repulsed, the whole invading force being either killed or taken prisoners. In 1654 Lord Baltimore made a vain attempt to regain possession of the province, but succeeded only in defeating a scheme for uniting Maryland to Virginia. Three years later his title was recognized by the Protector and in 1658 the proprietary government was restored. The period before the Revolution of 1688 was marked by an important treaty with the Susquehanna Indians (1661) and some difficulties with William Penn concerning the boundary line between the two provinces in the Delaware country. Upon the deposition of James II., the incompetency of the Governor, the failure to proclaim the new monarchs, and preposterous rumors of a Popish plot stirred up the people and an Association of the Protestant Freemen headed by Captain John Coode seized the province in the name of William and Mary. The Legislature laid before the King a list of complaints against the government of Lord Baltimore, and in August, 1691, the Proprietor was deprived of his political privileges, though his property rights were left intact. In 1715, however, the province was restored to the fifth Lord Baltimore, a Protestant. At the beginning of the eighteenth century tobacco was the staple product. Commerce and manufactures were greatly restricted by the Navigation Acts. There were very few towns, Baltimore being founded as late as 1729, Frederick in 1745, and Georgetown in 1751. Prosperity was widely diffused, and the standard of living, owing to the abundance of game and fish, high. All
