The radicals for many months had been deeply dissatisfied with the conservatism of the old Convention. While recognizing its inestimable service in keeping Missouri in the Union, they were strongly opposed to its policy of gradual, compensated emancipation. They clamored for a new Convention to which this, and other vitally important questions, should be submitted. So many in the State adopted and advocated their views that the legislature in February, 1864, passed an act creating and calling a new Convention to meet in St. Louis on January 6th, 1865, “to consider, first, such amendments to the Constitution of the State as may be by them deemed necessary for the emancipation of slaves; second, such amendments to the Constitution of the State as may be by them deemed necessary to preserve in purity the elective franchise to loyal citizens; and such other amendments as may be by them deemed essential to the promotion of the public good.”

At the election in November, the people, as we have already noted, by a decisive majority, declared for a new Convention and elected delegates to it most of whom were radicals. The Charcoals were at last in the saddle. The conservatives were dispirited; and even the more moderate radicals held their breath in fear of measures too extreme and impracticable. But, whatever drawbacks there were, on the whole the radical triumph was a healthful onward movement.

On January 6th, 1865, the Convention met in the small Mercantile Library Hall. There were sixty-nine delegates. More than half of them had been born and bred in slave States. Twenty-three were natives of the free States, while ten were immigrants from Europe, chiefly from Germany. Some of those who were natives of the South had recently been converted from their pro-slavery notions and were intent on magnifying their new faith. They were uncompromising radicals.

Unlike the old Convention, there were in this more farmers than lawyers, while the medical profession was as numerously represented as the legal; almost one-fifth of the Convention were physicians. There were also twelve merchants, mostly from small towns whose business had never been large. Editors, clerks, a mechanic, a railroad agent, a law student, a nurseryman, a surveyor, a schoolmaster, and a major of Missouri volunteers made up the rest.

In the main the delegates were young. More than a third of them were under forty, and more than two-thirds under fifty; none of them were enfeebled by age. But a single glance at them convinced any intelligent beholder that, taken as a whole, they were in capacity mediocre; and most of them by their occupations had not been fitted to grapple with questions that pertained to the fundamental law of the State. The people who chose them had evidently not kept clearly in view the delicate and difficult work that they would be called upon to perform. To a large extent passion and prejudice born of the hour had controlled the voters in their choice of delegates. In their anxiety to elect men who were uncompromisingly in favor of immediate emancipation, they had not been sufficiently careful in demanding that they should also be men qualified to do their part intelligently in reconstructing the organic law of the commonwealth.

Moreover, the Convention did not fairly represent the whole body of loyal men in the State. Ruling out all downright rebels as justly debarred from voting, the conservative anti-slavery element secured at the best but a very small representation in this deliberative assembly. The stringent oath of allegiance, framed by the old Convention and rigidly required of every voter, kept many from making any attempt to deposit their ballots; not because they were not, even under such a severe test, legal voters, but because they shrank from the catechizing to which they would be subjected at the polls by men who looked with suspicion upon any one with conservative views.

Now when the Convention made up mainly of men holding ultra notions came together and organized for work, choosing, at its second session, for president, Arnold Krekel of St. Charles, a native of Prussia, an able lawyer, but an extremist of the most pronounced type, all St. Louis was agog. This first important act of the Convention unmistakably revealed its radical drift, and showed how potent in it were the ultra political notions of our German fellow-citizens. It proceeded at once to the paramount business for which it had been created and called together, the emancipation of the slaves of Missouri. On the fifth day after its organization it passed, with only four votes in the negative, the following ordinance:

“Be it ordained by the People of the State of Missouri, in Convention assembled:

“That hereafter, in this State, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; and all persons held to service or labor as slaves are hereby declared free.”

The hall was packed with spectators; and when the almost unanimous vote for this ordinance was announced by the president they broke out into loud applause; they swung hats, waved handkerchiefs, stamped, clapped their hands and cheered. The president cried, “Order, order,” pounded with his gavel and called on the sergeant-at-arms to suppress the exultant uproar; but every effort was futile; he might as well have attempted to still a hurricane by pounding on a board with a gavel and by threatening it with an attack by one man armed. And how foolish it was to try. For many years men in that shouting crowd had longed for that hour; they had often feared that they should die without the sight. And now that it had come in such unexpected ways their joy must have vent. And in spite of all efforts to quiet them they continued to cheer until they were exhausted. No wonder. The event that excited them was great and significant. More than a hundred thousand slaves were in a moment made freemen and the greatest obstacle to the progress of Missouri was swept out of the way.

When at last the glad cries of the onlooking throng died away, Dr. Eliot was called upon to voice the gratitude of all present by returning thanks to Almighty God. He came to the president’s desk and from a full heart poured out in tremulous tones this fitting petition:

“Most merciful God, before whom we are all equal, we look up to thee who hast declared thyself our Father and our helper and our strong defence, to thank thee that thou art no respecter of persons, to thank thee that thou didst send Jesus Christ into the world to redeem the world from sin, and that he was the friend of the poor, that he came to break the manacles of the slaves, ‘that the oppressed might go free.’ We thank thee that this day the people of this State have had grace given them to do as they would be done by. We pray that thy blessing may rest upon the proceedings of this Convention, that no evil may come to this State from the wrong position of those who do not agree with the action of to-day, but that we, all of us, may be united to sustain this which is the law of the land. We pray, O God! but our hearts are too full to express our thanksgiving! Thanks be to God for this day that light has now come out of darkness, that all things are now promising a future of peace and quietness to our distracted State. Grant that this voice may go over the whole land until the Ordinance of Emancipation is made perfect throughout the States. We ask it through the name of our dear Lord and Redeemer. Amen.”

This prayer was followed by some moments of reverent silence; the hearts of all present had been deeply touched. Then the hush that had fallen alike on delegates and spectators was reluctantly broken. In subdued tones a motion was offered that the Ordinance of Emancipation be engrossed on parchment, attested by the secretary and signed by the members of the Convention. This was unanimously adopted.

Without a moment’s delay, it was moved and carried that a duly authenticated copy of the Ordinance be sent by special messenger to the Governor of the State, at Jefferson City, and that he be requested to issue a proclamation to the people of the commonwealth, apprising them that, “by the irrevocable action of the Convention, slavery is abolished in the State of Missouri, now and forever.”

The Convention, being in no mood to take up other business, adjourned till the next day. But the report of what they had done had already spread through the whole city. It outran the newsboys who were soon vociferously hawking on every street the extras that had been quickly sent forth from the newspaper presses. All business for the rest of the day was suspended. The joyful peal of bells from tower and steeple struck every ear. Crowds spontaneously gathered on the streets. They eagerly rehearsed and animatedly discussed what the Convention had done. Most approved it; a few condemned it. Public buildings and most private dwellings quickly hung out in profusion the national banner, and when night came hundreds of buildings were illuminated. There was a carnival of joy.

The negroes filled their churches, sang songs of deliverance, and poured out their quaint thanksgiving to God that the day for which they had so long sighed had come. As their leaders prayed, those in the pews, swaying their bodies back and forth, cried: “Bress de Lawd, Amen, Glory, Hal’luah, We’s free.” To them it was the day of days. Their year of jubilee had come. They shouted, and sang their touching melodies till long after midnight.

But our picture would be far from complete without a glance at the capital of the State. Before the special messenger, bearing the Ordinance of Emancipation, had reached Jefferson City, the telegraph had anticipated both him and his message. The legislature was in session. On receipt of the news, business was at once suspended and the members of both houses, with rare exceptions, gave themselves up to rejoicing. By a resolution enthusiastically adopted, Colonel Jameson of St. Louis, Mr. Kützner of Hannibal, and Mr. Doan of Grundy were invited to sing “John Brown.” Standing in front of the speaker’s desk they sang it amid hearty applause, the members of the legislature joining in the chorus, “Glory, glory Hallelujah.” When the legislature adjourned, there were several spontaneous gatherings of the citizens of Jefferson City. These meetings were addressed by the ablest speakers residing at the capital; also by some members of the legislature, and by the Congressman of the district. National banners were run up on all public buildings, and out from the windows of most of the private houses; bells rang, bands played, and in the evening tar barrels were burned in the streets, while every window-pane of the Capitol seemed to be illuminated. The trees and the neighboring hills caught up the light and seemed to rejoice with the city; reminding many of the rapt words of the prophet; “The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”

On the same day, January 11th, as “requested” by the Convention, Governor Fletcher, reciting the Ordinance of Emancipation, proclaimed to all the inhabitants of the commonwealth “that henceforth and forever no person within the jurisdiction of this State shall be subject to any abridgement of liberty, except such as the law may prescribe for the common good, or know any master but God.”

And so the curtain fell on the first and greatest act of the Convention. If, after eliminating from the Constitution of the State all that pertained to involuntary servitude, thus making it consonant with the Ordinance of Emancipation, the Convention had adjourned sine die, it would have covered itself with imperishable glory. But the act of the legislature by which it was created gave to it almost unlimited powers. It was especially called upon so to amend the Constitution that the elective franchise should be preserved in its purity to all loyal citizens, and to make such other amendments as it might think “essential to the public good.” Under this last clause apparently there was nothing that they might not legally do, and in their remaining work they went to the full limit of their powers. Instead of simply revising the old Constitution they in fact made a new one, and in spots it was admirable. It contained the most progressive doctrines of popular government; but in prescribing who should be legal voters their enactments were so extreme that they appear to us now quite ludicrous. To justify this statement we venture to give in full sections 3 and 6 of article II of the Constitution, together with the prescribed oath, believing that any intelligent reader who begins the perusal of them will proceed with increasing interest to the last line.

“Sec. 3. At any election held by the people under this Constitution, or in pursuance of any law of this State, or under any ordinance or by-law of any municipal corporation, no person shall be deemed a qualified voter, who has ever been in armed hostility to the United States, or to the lawful authorities thereof, or to the Government of this State; or has ever given aid, comfort, countenance, or support to persons engaged in any such hostility; or has ever, in any manner, adhered to the enemies, foreign or domestic, of the United States, either by contributing to them, or by unlawfully sending within their lines, money, goods, letters, or information; or has ever disloyally held communication with such enemies; or has ever advised or aided any person to enter the service of such enemies; or has ever, by act or word, manifested his adherence to the cause of such enemies, or his desire for their triumph over the arms of the United States, or his sympathy with those engaged in exciting or carrying on rebellion against the United States; or has ever, except under overpowering compulsion, submitted to the authority, or been in the service, of the so-called ‘Confederate States of America;’ or has left this State, and gone within the lines of the armies of the so-called ‘Confederate States of America,’ with the purpose of adhering to said States or armies; or has ever been a member of, or connected with, any order, society, or organization, inimical to the Government of the United States, or to the Government of this State; or has ever been engaged in guerrilla warfare against loyal inhabitants of the United States, or in that description of marauding commonly known as ‘bushwhacking;’ or has ever knowingly and willingly harbored, aided, or countenanced, any person so engaged; or has ever come into or left this State for the purpose of avoiding enrollment for or draft into the military service of the United States; or has ever, with a view to avoid enrollment in the militia of this State, or to escape the performance of duty therein, or for any other purpose, enrolled himself, or authorized himself to be enrolled, by or before any officer, as disloyal, or as a Southern sympathizer, or in any other terms indicating his disaffection to the Government of the United States in its contest with rebellion, or his sympathy with those engaged in such rebellion; or, having ever voted at any election by the people in this State, or in any other of the United States, or in any of their Territories, or held office in this State, or in any other of the United States, or in any of their Territories, or under the United States, shall thereafter have sought or received, under claim of alienage, the protection of any foreign government, through any consul or other officer thereof, in order to secure exemption from military duty in the militia of this State, or in the army of the United States; nor shall any such person be capable of holding, in this State, any office of honor, trust, or profit, under its authority; or of being an officer, councilman, director, trustee, or other manager of any corporation, public or private, now existing or hereafter established by its authority; or of acting as a professor or teacher in any educational institution, or in any common or other school; or of holding any real estate, or other property, in trust for the use of any church, religious society, or congregation. But the foregoing provisions in relation to acts done against the United States shall not apply to any person not a citizen thereof, who shall have committed such acts while in the service of some foreign country at war with the United States, and who has, since such acts, been naturalized, or may hereafter be naturalized, under the laws of the United States; and the oath of loyalty hereinafter prescribed, when taken by such person, shall be considered as taken in such sense.”

“Sec. 6. The oath to be taken as aforesaid shall be known as the Oath of Loyalty, and shall be in the following terms:

“‘I, A. B., do solemnly swear, that I am well acquainted with the terms of the third section of the second Article of the Constitution of the State of Missouri, adopted in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-five, and have carefully considered the same; that I have never, directly or indirectly, done any of the acts in said section specified; that I have always been truly and loyally on the side of the United States against all enemies thereof, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the United States, and will support the Constitution and laws thereof, as the supreme law of the land, any law or ordinance of any State to the contrary notwithstanding; that I will, to the best of my ability, protect and defend the Union of the United States, and not allow the same to be broken up and dissolved, or the Government thereof to be destroyed or overthrown, under any circumstances, if in my power to prevent it; that I will support the Constitution of the State of Missouri; and that I make this oath without any mental reservation or evasion, and hold it to be binding on me.’”

We see from this how intensely in earnest were the delegates of this Convention. But this oath was not wholly a creation of theirs. It had a gradual growth. We have seen with what imperativeness General Halleck demanded an oath of allegiance of all officers of the State, county and city, without which they were not permitted to exercise their functions. The generals of the department that came after him rigorously maintained the same policy. The first sovereign Convention adopted it and strenuously enforced it by the sword. This Convention, receiving it from the first, with wonderful genius for probing the conscience, elaborated it. Under its manipulation the oath became retrospective, introspective and prospective. No man could take it without perjury, who by word or act had been in the past, was in the present, or should be in the future, disloyal to the government of the United States. It not only prohibited one who could not subscribe to it from voting, but also from holding any government office of whatever grade, teaching in any school or preaching the gospel. And to make sure that the fountains of justice should be freed from every suspicion of disloyalty, the Convention vacated the offices of the judges of the Supreme Court, circuit and county courts, and special courts of record throughout the State, and of all clerks of courts, county recorders, and circuit attorneys and their assistants, and “empowered and directed” the Governor of the State to fill these offices so vacated by his appointment. Since most judges and subordinate officers of the courts were unable to subscribe to the oath of loyalty without perjury, the Convention was determined that court officials should be appointed that could. And thinking it unsafe to wait for the slow process of a popular election and probably fearing, if they should, that the elections might not go according to their liking, they took a short cut to clean the Augean stables. It looked like revolution. At all events the Convention went to the full limit, if not beyond the limit, of its powers. The judges of the Supreme Court resisted what they regarded a gross usurpation of authority; but their resistance was vain. They were arrested and tried before the City Recorder as disturbers of the peace, and so sank from public view.

While the Convention designated the oath the “Oath of Loyalty;” the people, seizing upon its exact intent, called it the Test Oath. Its object was to test the loyalty of those who were required to take it. But the oath was too indiscriminate. It did not sufficiently recognize different degrees of guilt. Many in our city and State who were at first swept by the excitement of the hour into the ranks of the secessionists, soon saw their error and thereafter loyally supported the Federal government. Others had at times expressed their sympathy with secessionism, but in all their overt acts had been faithful to the Union. It would naturally have been expected that ordinarily wise and humane legislators would have provided for the full, unconditional pardon of such men. But no; this oath of loyalty was pitiless. It made not the slightest provision for the penitent. The majority of the Convention seem to have proceeded on the assumption that men who had been guilty of rebellion in any degree, if they had but expressed a sympathetic emotion in its behalf, were unfit either to vote or teach or preach.

And, for a decade, the most genuine and heartfelt repentance would be altogether vain; since the Convention provided, in the 25th section of the second article of the Constitution, that the General Assembly of the State might repeal the provisions of the oath, so far as they affected voters, after 1871, but so far as they pertained to lawyers, school teachers and ministers not till after 1875. Therefore irrespective of the degree of his guilt, to the attorney, the pedagogue or the preacher, these astute constitution-makers, with a scent for disloyalty keener than that of a hound, for ten long years, granted “no place of repentance,” even though he should seek it “diligently with tears.”

It would, however, be unjust to overlook the fact that there was in the Convention a conservative minority, who steadily and sturdily fought this extreme legislation. They contended that it was unjust to many in the State; that, especially since the end of the war must be near, the true policy was that of forgiveness and reconciliation; that those who in spite of their Southern birth and education had, through bitter experiences, become loyal, should not have their new-born faith crushed out of them by this merciless oath; that the oath was a political blunder since it would give all the enemies of the new Constitution some just ground for their opposition to it. The debate was long and sharp. Dr. Linton, a physician of our city, who had been a member of the first Convention, while loyal to the core, distinguished himself by his strong opposition to the oath. He had a genius for cogent, laconic speech. And since Charles D. Drake, a Southerner by birth, was the pre-eminent advocate of the oath and the author of most of its details, with grim sarcasm he called it “the Draconian oath.” But the faithful minority could not stem the tide of radicalism in the Convention and this notorious oath became a part of the new Constitution of Missouri.

But we must cordially recognize the fact that the authors of it, and all in the Convention who voted to make it part and parcel of the ground law of the State, were genuinely patriotic. They sought not primarily party ends, but the highest good of their commonwealth and of the entire Republic. While they no longer doubted the favorable issue of the terrible grapple of the Northern and Southern armies at Petersburg and the Weldon Railroad, they clearly saw that this battle of blood would be followed by a desperate political contest; that what disunionists should fail to gain by the sword, they would endeavor to achieve by statecraft. They were firmly persuaded that Missouri now faced her greatest peril; that her future destiny trembled in the balance. If her old, corrupt politicians, who, through necessity and with a sigh, had relinquished their hold on slavery, should at once gain political ascendency, much, if not all, that had been wrought out on the field of carnage, would be hopelessly lost. The leaders of the Convention, with an accurate knowledge of the situation, shaped its legislation effectively to meet, if possible, the emergency. They framed this searching test oath to hold in check the rebellious, pro-slavery element of the commonwealth, until the new order of things should be thoroughly established. They were firmly resolved that those who had striven with savage might to force Missouri into secession, and link her to a Confederacy founded on slavery, should not shape her future political character; that since God had preserved the people in their passage through a sea of blood, the taskmaster should not now lead them back to a worse than Egyptian bondage. Whether the acts of the Convention were wise or unwise, the whole drift of the Constitution framed by it clearly shows that this was its sole and commendable object.

But after the Emancipation Act was passed, the Convention, having, against the earnest protest of some of its own members, doggedly set itself to the work of making a new Constitution, lost, to a large extent, the confidence of many of the best loyal men of the State. Even a goodly number of the delegates that composed it became to the extent of their power obstructionists. Absenteeism grew apace, and only by the rigid enforcement of the rules could the Convention be saved from disastrous disintegration. Some of its members fell into a vein of ridicule and one of them offered a string of satirical resolutions, which, though unmitigated balderdash, the Convention complacently spread on its minutes.

Most of the constituents of the Convention, while generously recognizing the great merit of much of its work, were often ashamed of what it did and said. In fact its debates were never published, beyond the brief and imperfect reports of them in the daily papers. In explanation of this curious fact, it was hinted that the leaders of the Convention were so mortified by them, that they managed to suppress the whole, both good and bad together.

The Convention, after dragging drearily on for seventy-eight days, completed its work. It submitted the new Constitution which it had wrought out to the suffrages of the people, that it might be by them adopted or rejected. On the sixth of June it was ratified at the polls by less than two thousand majority. This slender majority was in part accounted for when, on analyzing the vote, it was found that the saner radicals either stayed at home on election day or voted with the opposition.

On the first day of July (1865) the Governor formally proclaimed the vote for the adoption of the “Revised and amended Constitution,” and declared that “it will take effect as the Constitution of the State of Missouri, on the fourth day of the present month of July.” And while this Constitution was not in all respects what the sanest minds demanded, it contained so much that was progressive and admirable that its rejection at that transitional epoch would have been a calamity. While some parts of it were reprehensible, it embodied much of the most advanced statesmanship of the day, and crystallized in fundamental law what we had achieved by the war. It was progress made permanent.

But as soon as the Constitution became operative, there was throughout the State confusion, trouble and distress. No attorney, clerk of court, judge of any grade, teacher male or female, deacon, elder or minister was permitted to perform the duties which pertained to his profession or office unless he had subscribed to the test oath. Hosts of those upon whom this demand was made could not take it without perjury. If without subscribing to it they ventured to do the duties which belonged to their respective callings, they were liable to a fine of five hundred dollars or to imprisonment in the county jail for not less than six months, or to both; if they should take the oath falsely they would be adjudged guilty of perjury, and punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than two years. As was inevitable, arrests and indictments for the violation of this statute were frequent. Its attempted enforcement outraged and angered the people. A multitude of protests loud and bitter came up from every part of the commonwealth. Sympathy was aroused especially for those who had repented of their disloyalty, and now ardently desired to serve their country, but in whose faces the new Constitution shut and barred every door of forgiveness. Christian pastors, especially of the Episcopal and Baptist churches, raised the cry of persecution. But persecution was the very farthest from the purpose of the framers of the Constitution. In their bill of rights they set forth with great breadth and explicitness the doctrine of unrestricted religious liberty. And in fact in the enforcement of the test oath there was no religious persecution. No one was punished for holding and promulgating any religious tenet. Moreover, the oath was required of lawyers and school teachers as a prerequisite to their duties as well as of ministers. Many ministers all over the State had in one way or another supported the rebellion, and were now suffering for that and nothing else.

But the Convention had strangely blundered. After having proclaimed unrestricted religious liberty, it had decisively invaded it. For a civil offence it had meted out an ecclesiastical penalty. For his disloyalty to the Federal government and the State, it declared under pains and penalties, that the pastor should neither marry the betrothed, bury the dead, administer the ordinances of the church, nor preach the gospel. Thus what, with a flourish of trumpets, it proclaimed in its Bill of Rights, it struck down by its enacted Oath of Loyalty. In its legislation it entered a sphere from which by its own pronunciamento it was utterly debarred. It forgot the pithy utterance of the martyred Lincoln, when appealed to restore a pastor to his parish and pulpit from which on political grounds he had been deposed by a Presbyterian synod, that “he could not run the government and churches too.” What a pity that the leaders of the Convention in their consuming zeal for loyalty undertook the impossible task of doing both. Especially when just the smallest modicum of logic in the interpretation of their own new Constitution would have kept them from this colossal folly.

But blessed be the Supreme Court of the United States! About three years after the new Constitution had been ratified by the people, it declared by barely one majority that the notorious test oath was unconstitutional. A multitude in our State ever after held in grateful remembrance that one Federal judge, who tipped the scales against the oath that had too long been a thorn in the side of the body politic.