mayor of the city, who has not been arrested, they constitute the board of police, a quasi corporation created by the legislature of Maryland, and having exclusive police jurisdiction in the city of Baltimore. The nature and extent of their functions and duties will be made known to your honorable bodies by an examination of the code of Public Local Laws of the State of Maryland (art. iv., secs. 806 to 822, an secs. 199 to 228 inclusive.) It will there he seen that their powers are of the amplest character, and that they not only have control of the whole police department of the State within the city limits, but are likewise charged with the appointment of all judges of election, and the conduct of all elections, whether Federal, State, or municipal, to be held in the city; so that every such election is, by special enactment, declared invalid and of no effect unless held by the board and under its control and supervision.

It will further appear by the explicit terms of the law that no police force can lawfully exist in Baltimore unless appointed and governed by the police board, and that neither officers nor men, when appointed, have any official authority or jurisdiction independently of or apart from the board; but that all of them are merely employed, in pursuance of the express provisions of the law, "to enable the board to discharge the duties imposed upon them." By section 819 of the article of the code already referred to, heavy pecuniary penalties are imposed upon any person who shall forcibly resist or obstruct the execution or enforcement of any of the provisions of the law, in the premises, or disburse any money in violation thereof; and it is made the duty of the board to enforce such penalties by civil action, leaving the parties who may have violated the law still subject to indictment for any criminal offense committed by them in the course of such violation.

Your memorialist, with their colleague, Mr. Hinks, were duly appointed by the legislature of Maryland, at its January session, 1860, to carry out the provisions of the police system of which they have thus indicated the leading features and they duly took the oath to do so, which is prescribed by the law. The term of office of Messrs. Howard and Davis does not expire until the 10th of March, 1862, and that [of] Messrs. Gatchell and Hinks extends for still two years longer. None of them are subject to removal except by the legislature of Maryland, from which they derive the authority and functions. All the provisions of the police law were fully tested by legal proceedings instituted in the superior court of Baltimore City shortly after its enactment, and carried on appeal to the court of last resort in the State. The result was an unqualified recognition by all the judges of the conformity of the law in all particulars with the constitution of Maryland and that of the United States.

Such being the official tenure and lawful and constituted powers and duties of your memorialist, they were astonished, on the 27th of June last, to be visited, previous notice, by Colonel Kenly, of the Maryland Volunteers, then encamped near Baltimore, and to be in formed by that officer that he was instructed by Major-General Banks to read them a proclamation declaring their official authority superseded, and appointing Colonel Kenly, provost-marshal to administer the police law of the State in their stead. Of that proclamation a copy is appended to this memorial,* by which it will be seen that although various causes are alleged for the arrest of Colonel George P. Kane, marshal of police, and for superseding his official authority likewise, no ground of complaint whatever is pretended to exist against the board of police, and no excuse

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*See p. 140.

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