The gravity of the situation was appreciated by the Governor and the friends of the Union. Miss Carroll addressed articles through the press and wrote many letters to prepare the public mind in Maryland for the struggle. Fortunately the people (thus warned) failed to endorse this call; consequently the leading statesmen of the disunion party abandoned their cherished expectation of inaugurating their Government in the National Capitol.
Many of the conspirators, however, still sought to seize Washington and forcibly prevent the inauguration of the President elect on the 4th of March. The military organizations of the South were deemed sufficient for the enterprise, and a leader trained in the wars of Texas was solicited to lead them. The more sagacious of their party, however, discountenanced the mad scheme. They assured Miss Carroll that no attempt would be made to seize the Capitol and prevent the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, so long as Maryland remained in the Union.
The ruthless assault upon the Massachusetts troops in Baltimore, as they were passing through on their way to Washington, on the 19th of April, with the antecedent and attendant circumstances, roused to the highest degree the passions of all who sympathized with the secession movement, and the mob became for the time being the controlling force of that city. So largely in the ascendant was it and so confident were the disunionists in consequence that they, without warrant of law, assumed the responsibility of issuing a call for the Legislature of Maryland to convene in Baltimore. Governor Hicks, fearing that the Legislature would respond to the call, and that if it did it would yield to the predominant spirit, give voice to the purpose of the mob, and adopt an act of secession, resolved to forestall such action by convening that body to meet at Frederick City, away from the violent and menacing demonstrations of Baltimore.
The Legislature thus assembled contained a number of leading members who were ready at once for unconditional secession. There were also others who, with them, would constitute a majority and would vote for the measure could they be sustained by public sentiment, but who were not prepared to give that support without that assurance. The field of conflict was, therefore, transferred from the halls of legislation to the State at large, and to the homes of their constituents, and there the battle raged during the summer of 1861. In that conflict of ideas Miss Carroll bore an earnest and prominent part, and the most distinguished men have given repeated evidence that her labors were largely instrumental in thwarting the secessionists and saving Maryland to the Union. The objective point of the labors of the disunion leaders was a formal act of secession, by which Maryland would become an integral portion of the Confederacy, not only affording moral and material aid to the Southern cause, but relieving the rebel armies in crossing the Potomac from the charge, which at that stage of the conflict the leaders were anxious to avoid, of ignoring their vaunted doctrine of State rights by invading the territory of sovereign States. With the usual arguments that were urged to fire the Southern heart and to reconcile the people to the extreme remedy of revolution, special prominence was given to what was stigmatized as the arbitrary and unconstitutional acts of President Lincoln. To place the people in possession of the true theory of their institutions and to define and defend the war powers of the Government were the special purposes of Miss Carroll's labors during these eventful months."