Excerpt from Correspondence Between S. Teackle Wallis, of Baltimore: And the Hon. John Sherman, of the U. S, Senate, Concerning the Arrest of Members of the Maryland Legislature, and the Mayor and Police Commissioners of Baltimore, in 1861

It is no part of my puapose to follow you through the long array of allegations and insinuations, outside of the only question between us, by which you endeavor to bolster up the justice of the proceedings which for so long deprived the Mayor and Police Commissioners of Baltimore and the members of the State Legislature of their liberty. I have no means whatever of access to the documents which you profess to cite, or to the correspondence which you say is in the hands of the Government ofli cers, and upon which you found your principal impeachment of the fidelity of the police authorities. I cannot tell to what extent they exist, or what is their authenticity. But having, as a member of the Legisla ture, examined and fully approved the course of the Police Board, I know enough of the facts to justify me in declaring that the statements in regard to them, of which you have allowed your letter to be the vehicle to the public, are partial, garbled and unjust, and frequently untrue. I willingly persuade myself that you have been deceived into promulgating them, for I fancy that I can see in them the work of bands which are not yours, but which private disappointments and malice, and local interests and hatred, have made the perpetual bearers of falsehood and malignant counsels to the Executive chamber, during the whole long agony of this wretched war. If you had reflected, for an instant, 'it seems to me that you would not have permitted yourself to enter upon a crusade, under such guidance.

It is now nearly eighteen months since the Baltimore Commissioners of Police, then prisoners illegally confined at Fort mchenry, presented their respectful memorial to the two Houses of Congress. They protested their innocence of any offence against the laws of the country; insisted upon their right to be informed of the accusations against them; invited scru tiny into their whole conduct, private and oflicial, and asserted their readiness to meet, without a moment's delay, any charge which might be responsibly laid against their individual or official proceedings. Suggest ing their inability to obtain redress, pending the suspension of the habeas corpus in Maryland, they respectfully and earnestly invoked the imme diate interposition of Congress in their behalf. That memorial was treated with Open indignity and contempt. From the moment of its pre scutation, down to this hour, neither the Senate, of which you are a member, nor the lower House, has given any heed to their complaints, or taken one step towards the vindication of their rights or of public liberty or justice in their behalf. You have not given them the accusations against them (if any) or the names of their accusers. You have not afforded them an opportunity of even proving their innocence, much less have you allowed them a public hearing or trial, before either a Congres sioual committee or the constituted judicial tribunals. Grand jury after grand jury, selected by a Marshal of Mr. Lincoln's appointment, (to say nothing of grand juries of the State, ) has met, since they were taken from their homes in July, 1861. At least one Federal grand jury has deliberj ately investigated the whole proceedings which you have discussed in your letter, with all the evidence in the possession of the Government before it - including, of course, everything to which you have had access, in order to prepare the defence of the Government which you have published. Yet no bill of indictment has been found, or could be procured to be found.

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