Missouri could not escape the dreaded, impending conflict. She carried the elements of it within her own bosom. Union and disunion forces angrily faced each other throughout all her borders. They jostled each other in the streets, marts and society of St. Louis. But amid these strong cross-currents of opinion, she remained securely anchored to the Union. She was, to be sure, somewhat battered and broken, but was surprisingly kept from the disaster of disunionism, that overtook most of her sister slave States. It is my object in this chapter to show that this great State, probably contrary to the expectation of a majority of her inhabitants, was early in 1861, through the very machinery devised to take her out of the Union, kept from that destructive folly.

When a Southern State contemplated seceding from the Union, first of all, through an act of its legislature, it provided for the creation of a sovereign Convention. The delegates to this Convention were duly elected by the people. At the appointed time they assembled, organized for business, and took up the question of secession, which they had been chosen to examine and decide. If they passed an ordinance of secession, it was believed that by such action the relations of the State to the Union were utterly and irrevocably severed, unless the convention determined of its own motion, or was required by the legislative act that called it into being, to submit the ordinance to the people to be ratified or rejected by their suffrages. For example, in Texas and Virginia the secession ordinances were ratified by popular vote.

In Missouri the secession Governor, re-enforced by a secession legislature, early in 1861, began to devise measures to take the State out of the Union. He followed in the wake of the Cotton States. The legislature, in full sympathy with him, passed an act which provided for the calling of a State Convention. In a “Whereas,” which precedes the sections of this act, it announced in fair words its “opinion,” that “The condition of public affairs demands that a Convention of the people be called to take such action as the interest and welfare of the State may require.” Then the act specifies the time and the conditions of the election of the members of the contemplated Convention, and specifically designates the subject that the Convention was expected to consider, viz.: “The then existing relations between the government of the United States, the people and governments of the different States, and the government and people of the State of Missouri, and to adopt such measures for vindicating the sovereignty of the State, and the protection of its institutions as shall appear to them to be demanded.” But this act contained one section of vital importance. It provided that any act of the Convention, changing or dissolving the political relations of Missouri “to the government of the United States,” should not be deemed valid until ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of the State. However, when this act became a law, neither the Governor nor the legislature seemed to have the slightest doubt that the people of the State would ratify by a decided majority an ordinance of secession; happily, no occasion ever arose for testing that question.

Nor was the confidence entertained by the Governor and the legislature unfounded. They had every reason to believe that the same voters who had elected them, when appealed to, would elect a Convention that would favor their project of secession, and that an ordinance of secession submitted to them would be triumphantly ratified. But

Still, to the secessionists at that time all things betokened certain success. Their skies looked bright. If there were a threatening cloud as big as a man’s hand they did not see it.

But too great confidence often leads men to overlook weaknesses in their most hopeful projects. Those who devised the legislative act providing for a convention, neglected to put into it any provision for limiting its continuance or life. It was made a sovereign body, and also the sole judge as to the time when it should adjourn sine die. So, as we shall see, the Governor and the legislature “builded better than they knew.” To them the Convention proved to be a boomerang, but to the State a priceless blessing.

This act was approved by the Governor on the 21st of January. The election of the members of the Convention took place on the 18th of February, and the Convention met, according to the provision of the act by which it was created, at Jefferson City, the capital of the State, on February 28th, 1861.

But if this Convention was to keep the State from secession as some began to hope it might, it was unmistakably clear that it should not continue its deliberations at the capital of the State. Jefferson City was then a small, and to sojourners in it, a somewhat desolate place. Since the legislature was in session the Convention could not meet in its halls, which, for such a body, were the only suitable places of meeting in the city. Instead of that, the delegates were compelled to occupy for their deliberations a small, repulsive court-house. No desks were there provided for them. Moreover, the hotel accommodations were meagre and unattractive, and, most of all, the libraries and reading-rooms of the capital were about equivalent to nothing. The tallow candles and oil lamps which at night gave just enough light in the houses and on the muddy streets to make darkness visible, were far more luminous than the intellectual lights of that then cheerless place; and the light of the legislature then in session was darkness. There was at that time hardly any considerable town in Missouri more intellectually stagnant than its capital. Should the Convention carry on its deliberations there, its members would have few if any facilities for the investigation of vastly important questions that were certain to arise, while all the currents of influence that would flow in upon them, would urge them on to declare for secession. To all this the Union men of St. Louis, together with a few scattered here and there throughout the State, were keenly alive. Dr. Linton, a distinguished physician of our city, and a member of the Convention, said, “When I got to Jefferson City and heard nothing but the ‘Marseillaise’ and ‘Dixie’ in place of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ I felt uneasy enough, and when I heard Governor Jackson speak I felt badly.... I recollect, with my colleague, Mr. Broadhead, hearing ‘Dixie’ played on the streets, and that we stepped up to the leader of the band and asked him to play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner;’ he said, being a foreigner, ‘Me ’fraid to play that.’ We assured him that there was no danger, and he played one stanza of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ but immediately went off into ‘Dixie,’ and of course we went off in disgust.”

The Union men of St. Louis not only saw the danger arising from the continuance of the Convention in Jefferson City, but they determined if possible to avert it. Having in secret seriously considered the whole matter, they cautiously and wisely laid their plan to bring the Convention to their own city. Since many men in the State were deeply prejudiced against St. Louis, regarding it as the stronghold of Free-soilism, it was necessary carefully to conceal the movement that was being made. If any delegate from St. Louis had openly moved that the Convention should adjourn to our city, the motion would undoubtedly have been promptly and decisively voted down. But the delegates from St. Louis, instead of making an open move, quietly and unobserved found some delegates from the country to whom they deemed it safe to make their suggestions, and without any knowledge of it on the part of the Convention these men were won to their ideas. When, therefore, the Convention, on the second day of its session, was perfecting its organization, Mr. Hall of Randolph County,—a strong pro-slavery district near the centre of the State,—moved that when the Convention adjourned, it should adjourn to meet “in the Mercantile Library Hall of St. Louis, on Monday morning next, at 10 o’clock.” The motion met with strong opposition, but after some discussion it became evident that there was probably a majority in its favor. Still, the Convention, wishing to act prudently in a matter of such vital importance, inquired if it were certainly known that they could occupy the hall mentioned in the motion of the gentleman from Randolph County? This brought to his feet Judge Samuel M. Breckinridge, a delegate from St. Louis, who said that at the request of some members from the country, he had already telegraphed to St. Louis, and had received an answer that the Convention could occupy without expense either of the two halls belonging to the Mercantile Library Association. The undivulged fact was that the Union men of St. Louis, days before, had arranged to offer to the Convention, without cost, either of these halls, if by any means that body could be induced to occupy it. At last, to remove any objection that might arise from pecuniary considerations, the citizens of our city telegraphed that the railroad fare of all the members of the Convention had also been provided for; so, at the close of the second day’s session at Jefferson City, on March 1st, the Convention, by a decided majority, adjourned to meet on the following Monday, March 4th, at 10 A. M. in the Mercantile Library Hall of St. Louis; and by that move the doubt that Missouri would secede from the Union was greatly strengthened.

On Monday morning, when the Convention met for the first time in its new quarters, its members found themselves in a beautiful hall, such as some of them had never before seen. Each member was provided with a desk, and pages were at hand to do his bidding, all at the expense of the loyal men of the city. The free use of the Mercantile Library and Reading Room, with its papers and periodicals from every part of the Union, and also of the Law Library of the city, was also tendered them. Then, by a secret prearrangement, in companies of from six to twelve, the members of the Convention were daily invited by Union men to dine with them; and, so long as the Convention continued its sessions, in the most conservative and kindly way, at the tables and in the parlors of the best and most intelligent men and women of the city, the whole question of secession in all its phases was thoroughly discussed. By such a procedure, without arousing antagonism, deep-rooted prejudice began gradually to give way, and new light, unobserved, penetrated the minds of the members of this sovereign Convention, and, as one by one the days passed, the hope of the disloyal that Missouri would secede was constantly on the wane.

Let us now notice the composition of this sovereign body, in whose hands was providentially placed the political destiny, not only of Missouri, but perchance also of the entire Republic. It had ninety-nine members. Of these, fifty-two were lawyers, seven of whom were judges. These men by their training were capable of clearly and firmly grasping the fundamental principles of law and government. Happily more than half of the Convention was of this class. Twenty-six were farmers, who from habit of thought were decidedly conservative. Eleven were merchants, who intuitively discerned the conditions that must be maintained in order to secure and promote the commercial prosperity of their State. Three were physicians, one of whom, Dr. Linton, was an exceptionally clear-headed and brilliant man. There were also one lumber dealer, one bank commissioner, one civil engineer, one blacksmith, one tanner, one leather dealer and one circuit clerk. Each of these, by his pursuit, was fitted to appreciate what was necessary to secure the highest material interests of the State. The Convention as a whole was in ability quite above the average, and unmistakably superior both in intellectual and moral force to the legislature which had called it into being.

Considering the vastly important question which the Convention was called upon to decide, it is also a matter of great interest to note the ages of its members. One man, like an elderly maiden, was coy, and refused to give his age; of the remaining ninety-eight, six were between twenty-four and thirty; twenty-one were between thirty and forty; forty-one were between forty and fifty; twenty-four were between fifty and sixty; and six were between sixty and seventy. Most of these men, then, were in the maturity and vigor of manhood. Two-thirds of the Convention, lacking one, were between forty and sixty, old enough to have gotten rid of crudities of thinking, and the impulsiveness and rashness of young blood, and yet young enough to be free from the enfeebling touch of age.

And since they were to deal with the question of secession, the underlying cause of which was slavery, we should not fail to consider their nativity, and the influences that surrounded them in early life, when the deepest and most lasting impressions are made upon men. Thirty of the ninety-nine delegates to this Convention were born in Kentucky; twenty-three in Virginia; thirteen in Missouri; nine in Tennessee; three in North Carolina; three in New York; three in New Hampshire; two in Maryland; two in Pennsylvania; two in Illinois; one in Alabama; one in the District of Columbia; one in Ohio; one in New Jersey; one in Maine; one in Prussia; one in Bremen; one in Austria; and one in Ireland. Eighty-two were born in the South, including the one from the District of Columbia, while there were only thirteen born in the North and four in Europe. When we observe that more than four-fifths of the Convention had been born and brought up in slave States, we might rationally conclude from this surface view that Missouri would soon follow her seven erring sisters, like them secede from the Union, and link her destiny to the Southern Confederacy.

Beyond question the Convention was almost unanimously pro-slavery. Some of those born and educated in the North had become sweeping and positive in their advocacy of slavery. There were none in the Convention who did not denounce the Abolitionists, and very many of its members condemned with equal severity the Republican party. All of them, with possibly a very few exceptions, desired to protect and preserve the system of human bondage that had unhappily fastened itself upon the nation. But right here where there was so high a degree of unanimity, strange to say, the Convention divided. The vexed question with them was, “What will preserve slavery?” Some of them were in favor of going out of the Union to preserve it; others with at least equal emphasis and force urged that in order to preserve it Missouri must remain in the Union. These delegates pointed to the geographical position of their State; on three sides of her were free States. If she should secede, she would be confronted on the east, north and west by a foreign nation and by hostile territory, which would be an asylum for fugitive slaves. One speaker declared: “It will make a Canada of every Northern State, and the North will be a borne from which no slave traveller will return.” Such men vehemently urged that secession would be the inevitable destruction of slavery in Missouri. If the State should secede, it would not be long before she would present to the world the anomaly of a slave State without a slave. To be sure, the Cotton States withdrew from the Union in order to preserve slavery; but even if the citizens of Missouri believed that they had the constitutional right to secede, they could not follow the example of the Gulf States, for if they did, they would blot out forever the very institution that they were so earnestly striving to save. So many in Missouri, and not a few in this Convention, reasoned.

While, however, the Convention was divided on the question of the secession of the State, and, during its earlier sessions, how evenly divided none could tell, nearly all, if not all, of its members were professed Unionists. The people had elected them as Unionists. It was loudly proclaimed that Unionism had triumphed at the polls by from forty to sixty thousand majority. Nearly every man that spoke during the deliberations of the Convention with great vigor asserted that he was in favor of maintaining the Union. The Hon. Hamilton R. Gamble, chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations, in explaining to the Convention the report of that committee, said: “As far as my acquaintance with the gentlemen of this Convention extends, I know of no gentlemen who avow, or insinuate, or in any manner admit, that they entertain any unfriendly feeling to the Union. You may speak to any member of the Convention you please in reference to his position about the Union, and he will proclaim that he is in favor of the Union. How, then, in the introduction of this question before this body, shall I undertake to speak in favor of the Union, when there is a unanimity, an entire unanimity, among all the members upon the very view which I would endeavor to take and enforce?”

Any one unacquainted with the hair-splitting political doctrines of that day might have been deceived by this emphatic and universal profession of Unionism by the members of this sovereign Convention. Calhoun also frequently made the strongest declarations of his warm attachment to the Union. But neither he nor they had in mind the actual government formed by the people of the States under the Constitution, in contradistinction to the confederation that preceded it, but simply a compact of sovereign States, which having been voluntarily entered into could by any State be lawfully terminated at will. Many in this Convention were conscious or unconscious disciples of Calhoun, and in their speeches advocated his political heresies. Their effusive professions of devotion to the Union deceived no one who was at all conversant with our political history. The Hon. Mr. Gamble, whose words I have quoted in reference to their “entire unanimity” for the Union, understood them perfectly, and he expatiated on their professions of devotion to the Union in order to induce them, if possible, to act in accordance with them, and to vote to keep Missouri in that Union for which they expressed such fervent love. On the surface there was unity; beneath the surface, contrariety. Some of the Convention meant by the Union a centralized, sovereign government under the Constitution, while others meant a loose compact of sovereign States.

And if both parties when they spoke of the Union had meant the same thing, which manifestly they did not, the phrase, “Union man,” would still have been ambiguous. In the debates of the delegates it came out clearly that there were two kinds of Union men in the Convention, conditional and unconditional. Mr. Sheeley of Independence said: “I admire this Union, and while perhaps I will stick in it as long as any man in the Convention, who is not an unconditional Union man,” thus openly announcing himself a conditional Union man. Mr. Vanbuskirk of Holt County, in an able speech, declared that on the part of some of the Convention, “the whole matter is brought to this point, that it is Union upon condition; that is, Union with the ‘buts’ and ‘ifs,’ or ‘under existing circumstances.’” Of course that kind of Unionism was a mockery. Only about six months before, the rabid secessionist, Yancey of Alabama, had proclaimed himself to be a pre-eminent Union man, but declared that if Abraham Lincoln should be elected to the Presidency, he would favor immediate secession. That was being a Calhoun Unionist, a Unionist according to a construction of the Constitution that was utterly at variance with John Marshall’s interpretation of it. In 1861, in Missouri, whenever a man said, “I am a Union man in the Constitution,” we knew for a certainty that his Unionism was conditional, and that he should probably be classed with the secessionists.

Let us notice the conditions on which the loyalty of these “but” and “if” Unionists was based. First, they felt themselves to be under no obligation to sustain the Union unless the Federal government should guarantee to them their rights. They meant by this, their rights in slave property. The people of the Northern States must not obstruct by legislation, or in any other way, the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law; in fact must aid the Southern slaveholder in recapturing his fleeing property.

In the second place, they demanded a compromise by which slavery south of 36° 30′ should be protected in the territories. In demanding no more than this, many of them thought that they were making very generous concessions to the North, since they believed that, under the Constitution, the Southern slaveholder had the undoubted right to go into any territory of the United States with his human chattels, and there be protected in both person and slave property.

In the third place, they announced that they would not sustain the Union, if the general government should attempt to coerce the seceded States. They declared that they would neither aid their seven erring sisters in making an attack on the Federal government, nor the Federal government in coercing the States that had left the Union. This view was urged by Mr. Howell on the floor of the Convention in a resolution, a part of which was, “We earnestly remonstrate and protest against any and all coercive measures, or attempts at coercion of said States into submission to the general government, whether clothed with the name or pretext of executing the laws of the Union, or otherwise. And we declare that in such contingency Missouri will not view the same with indifference.” This resolution intimated, and it came out clearly in the ensuing debate, that if the United States should attempt to compel by force the collection of the national customs in the South, such an act on the part of the general government would be regarded as coercion. This is sufficient to reveal the true character of the conditional Unionists. They affirmed emphatically, “we are in favor of keeping Missouri in the Union, if the Northern States will guarantee the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, protect slavery in the territories south of 36° 30′, and the general government will not even in the execution of the Federal laws south of Mason and Dixon’s line use any force whatever; but if these conditions are not fulfilled, we are in favor of going out of the Union, and uniting our fortunes with the Southern Confederacy;” and when the Convention adjourned to St. Louis, the Unionism of a decided majority of its members was unquestionably of that conditional type.

Since we have so fully set forth the composition and views of the Convention, it will be unnecessary to reproduce in detail its organization and proceedings. The Hon. Sterling Price, afterwards a Confederate general, was chosen president, and presided over the deliberations of the Convention with ability and impartiality. The delegates to the Convention took an oath to sustain the Constitution of the United States and that of the State of Missouri. A strong Committee on Federal Relations was appointed, of which Hon. Hamilton R. Gamble, an unconditional Union man of whom we have already spoken, was chairman. During the first sittings of the Convention, numerous resolutions in reference to the attitude that Missouri ought to maintain toward the Union were introduced and referred to the Committee on Federal Relations; and while that committee was deliberating, the members of the Convention occupied the time in making speeches on the general subject of secession. As each one seemed anxious to declare himself, there was much speaking. Both extreme and conservative views were freely aired, and each day evidently added new strength to the position that it would be unwise for Missouri to sever her relations with the Union.

There was one unique incident that profoundly stirred the whole Convention. The Convention of the State of Georgia, that passed an ordinance of secession, sent the Hon. Luther J. Glenn as a commissioner to present it to the Convention of Missouri and to urge its delegates to enact a similar ordinance and to join the Southern Confederacy. He appeared at Jefferson City, during the proceedings of the second day of the Convention, and his communication from Georgia to the Convention was read by the Chair.^[8] This communication was promptly laid on the table, but the incident greatly disturbed all genuine Union men, especially since the commissioner with his secession message had been received with open arms by the Governor, and in the evening both houses of the disloyal legislature in joint session had listened to an address from him with the most manifest marks of sympathy.^[9]

At the first day’s session in St. Louis this communication of the Georgia commissioner was called up, and a motion was made that he be invited to address the Convention. Thereupon there was hot debate. Hon. Sample Orr, referring to Mr. Glenn, said: “He is here to-day and called an ambassador by some, by others a commissioner. If he is an ambassador, he has missed the right city. He should have gone to Washington. If he is here as a commissioner from a sister State, then the oath we have taken forbids that we should have an alliance with any other State in the Confederacy.” He meant by Confederacy, the United States. Mr. Smith, a delegate from St. Louis, said: “We did not come here to receive ambassadors from foreign States.” But finally the Convention deemed it best on the whole to listen to the gentleman from Georgia, who then proceeded to tell the very old story of the atrocious conduct of the Northern abolitionists, and of the equally reprehensible acts of the Chicago Convention, that nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency; of the deplorable condition of his State, on account of the protective tariff, that built up the North and pulled down the South, and that, on account of these things, which a long-suffering people could no longer endure, his State had peaceably seceded, and he was commissioned by Georgia to urge Missouri to follow her example.^[10]

Georgia’s Ordinance of Secession and the address of her commissioner were referred to a special committee, of which the Hon. John B. Henderson, the author of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States,^[11] was chairman. On the eighteenth day of the sittings of the Convention, Mr. Henderson, slaveholder though he was, presented a comprehensive report recommending the rejection of the prayer from Georgia to secede, presented by Mr. Glenn, and urging the weightiest and most conclusive reasons against the disruption of the Union. This report was stronger meat than the Convention was then able to digest, so after a short, sharp debate it was laid on the table^[12] and was never afterwards taken up. It did not need to be. It had done its work. The author of it had seized his opportunity to deal a staggering blow against the secession of Missouri, and the effect of it could not be neutralized. So what at first was a menace was transmuted into a blessing.

The Georgia commissioner made a vow that he would never buy a new hat until Missouri seceded from the Union. In 1900 he was still living. The silk hat that covered his obfuscated brain when he represented seceded Georgia before the Convention in St. Louis had been fixed over three times. He was still proud of it and of the cause that he represented in 1861. Whether he now lives, we do not know. He has died, or will die, in the faith. He was made of stern stuff. If he has, or when he shall have, departed to the land where silk hats are not needed, and from which no one ever secedes, every one who admires pure grit will heartily breathe the prayer, Requiescat in pace.

We return now from this peculiar and important transaction, unexpectedly thrust upon the attention of the Convention from without, to notice that, by the time it had fairly begun its work in St. Louis, the secession legislature which had created it, repented of what it had unwittingly wisely done, and began to agitate the question whether it had the power to repeal the ordinance that called the Convention into being, and thus permanently dissolve it. They saw of course that the Convention was not of their way of thinking. They refused to vote the necessary means for the publication of its proceedings. Mr. Foster of the Convention said in debate, “Although the legislature of Missouri called this body into existence, yet, sir, its complexion so very materially differs from the complexion of the legislative body, that, if they had the power, in my judgment, they would crush us out of existence to-day.” To the Union men of St. Louis and the State this growing antagonism of the two law-making bodies was a cheering symptom. The legislature, however, soon learned from its legal advisers that it could not efface the wisdom into which it had blindly blundered; that the chicken which it had so fondly hatched and fostered into maturity could not be put back into the shell again; that, in short, there was no political power in Missouri superior to the sovereign Convention which it had evoked into being, and which was now calmly and wisely deliberating in the great commercial city of the State.

All parties were finally convinced that though the legislature had created the Convention, it could not destroy it. So the work of this sovereign body moved on undisturbed. On the eighth day of its sittings the Committee on Federal Relations reported through its chairman. In their report the Committee, with but partial success, detailed the political events which led to the secession of the Cotton States, and had raised the question of secession in the remaining slave States. But they presented with cumulative force many cogent reasons why Missouri should not follow her erring sisters in seceding from the Union, and finally crystallized their recommendations on the whole subject of secession in seven resolutions, the first and chief of which was, “That at present there is no adequate cause to impel Missouri to dissolve her connection with the Federal Union.” This resolution seems to us now tame and timid. But a more sweeping and positive resolution could not have been carried through the Convention. Its very weakness was its strength. Its apparent obeisance to the doctrine of secession made it acceptable to many conditional Union men. When the loyal men of St. Louis heard it, they were lifted up with hope.

However the Committee was not unanimous. On the next day some conditional Union men on the Committee presented a minority report. Then numerous amendments were offered, and for eight days longer the debate went on, more earnest and vigorous than ever, but each day it was evident that the more positive secession sentiment was slowly vanishing, so that when on the sixteenth day of the Convention, the vote was taken on the resolution quoted above, while nine members of the Convention were absent, all present but one voted for it. George Y. Bast, a farmer from Rhineland, Montgomery County, has the unenviable distinction of being the minority of one that voted for the secession of Missouri. The other resolutions of the Committee, with varying majorities, were also adopted.

On the 22d of March the Convention adjourned to meet on the third Monday in December following; but it also appointed a committee of seven, one from each congressional district, to whom the power was delegated to call the Convention together before the third Monday in December, if, in their judgment, the public exigencies demanded it.

The reasons urged by the Convention against the secession of Missouri as we gather them from its reported proceedings, briefly stated, were these:

First: the geographical position of Missouri. She was so far north that her climate was better adapted to the white man than to the black. Moreover, she was shut in on three sides by free States, into which, if she seceded from the Union, her slaves would flee and from which they could not be brought back.

Second: she had other, and far greater interests than her slaves. They numbered only one hundred and twelve thousand, while she had within her borders more than one million, one hundred thousand white men. During the then preceding decade her slaves had increased twenty-five per cent; while her white population had increased one hundred per cent. The taxable value of her slaves was only forty-five million dollars, while that of her other property was three hundred and fifteen million dollars. Most of her slaves were engaged in raising tobacco and hemp, while her white population, which, through immigration, was rapidly increasing, was developing her mining, manufacturing, and commercial interests. The members of her sovereign Convention, from whose brains the cobwebs had at last been swept, and whose vision had become clear, saw that the immigration of free white men to Missouri would nearly, if not wholly, cease, if the State by secession should be placed under the political domination of the Confederacy, whose corner-stone had been declared by its brilliant Vice-President to be African slavery.

Third: timid men were everywhere crying out for compromise. And most of the members of the Convention still hugged the delusion that the political antagonisms, which were then shaking the nation to its foundations, and had already severed seven States from the Union, might be overcome by compromise. To inaugurate measures by which such compromise might be effected some advocated a convention of the border slave States; others of the border slave and border free States; and still others of all the States, and, so long as they cherished hope of such a peaceful adjustment of difficulties, they thought it inexpedient for Missouri to secede.

Fourth: most of the Convention believed that the seven States which had already seceded had been carried out of the Union by ambitious politicians; that the people had not been permitted fairly and fully to discuss the question of secession, and freely to cast their ballots for or against it. During the deliberations of the Convention extreme Southern politicians, like Yancey of Alabama, were roundly and bitterly denounced. Moreover, the State pride of the Missourians had been deeply stung by the seceded States. Those States, they affirmed, had rudely snapped the tie which bound them to the Union, without any consultation with the border slave States, and then after they were out of the Union and had gone so far as to set up a Southern Confederacy, they complacently turned around and invited the States whose counsels they had ignored to join them. Missouri felt that she should have been consulted before secession was enacted, and some strong pro-slavery members of the Convention declared in unmistakable terms that they were utterly opposed to following the cotton lords of the South Atlantic and Gulf States. Thus the precipitancy of the hot-headed Southern politicians became no inconsiderable element of the force which kept Missouri in the Union.

But there is reason for grave doubt if even all these considerations combined would have led to this result, if the Convention had continued its deliberations at Jefferson City. It was well known that the object of the Governor and the legislature in creating the Convention was to secure the secession of the State. Had it continued its sittings at the State capital, the influences by which it would have been surrounded would probably have incited its members to enact an ordinance of secession. But the adjournment to St. Louis at once awakened a reasonable hope of a better outcome. The delegates were now surrounded by an entirely different atmosphere. They met in that city the highest intelligence and the staunchest loyalty in the State. They were mightily impressed with the fact that scores of men there who had formerly been slaveholders in the South were unflinchingly loyal to the old flag. Gradually they came to see that secession antagonized all the commercial, educational, and moral interests of the State; that it was, in short, a suicidal policy. As they deliberated day by day, even those who had been the warmest advocates of such a policy began to waver. Every day their vision grew clearer and truer. Even the president of the Convention, who so soon afterwards became a commander of Confederate troops, for the nonce, seemed to be a genuine Union man, and when the vote was taken on the question of secession, as we have already noted, only one man could be found in the entire Convention, who had the hardihood to vote against the resolution, that it was not just then expedient for Missouri to secede from the Union.

The victory was won. It was a momentous victory. Who won it? A little band of intrepid Union men, men of whom, with perhaps two exceptions, the nation at large knew little or nothing. They had come together in St. Louis from every part of the Republic and from foreign countries. That city was their adopted home. They had largely laid aside the prejudices that they brought with them from their former places of abode. Their contact with each other had made them larger, grander men. Upon them unexpectedly a day of darkness had fallen. Dangers thickened around them, but the very perils which beset them united their hearts in unswerving, burning loyalty to the Union. At last the only hope of keeping their State in the Union was the sovereign Convention called into being for the very purpose of taking it out of the Union. So, before God, they firmly resolved to use as well as they could the unpropitious instrument made ready to their hand. They could not directly control the deliberations and votes of the Convention. Forbidding as the prospect seemed to be, there was hope, however, if this sovereign body could be induced to carry on its deliberations in their adopted city. They must invite the Convention to do this. Not openly; such publicity would utterly defeat their purpose. They must work in secret. Fortunately some of their own number were members of the Convention. They were good men and wise and true. They did their delicate work with skill. The Convention, apparently self-moved, came to St. Louis. It deliberated there. Missouri stayed in the Union.

What was the significance of this outcome to the nation at large? It had a mighty influence in keeping Kentucky, West Virginia, Delaware and Maryland in the Union. It cheered and strengthened our wise, conservative, patriotic President, whose manifold perplexities and vast responsibilities pressed upon him like the superincumbent weight of a mountain. It put into the Union army more than one hundred and nine thousand men, of whom more than eight thousand were colored,^[13] besides the Home Guards in every considerable town of the State. It is probable, however, that part of this number, even if the State had seceded, would have found its place in the Union ranks; but the doctrine of State rights was so dominant that probably at least seventy-five thousand of that number would have followed the State and helped fight the battles of the Southern Confederacy. It is quite possible that this great military force added to the Federal army really decided the conflict in favor of the Union; and that when some future historian impartially surveys the whole field, he may be constrained to affirm that a band of patriotic men, most of them unknown to fame, in a border city, on the western bank of the Mississippi River, confronted with apparently insurmountable obstacles, by prudent, decisive action, not only saved their State from the madness of secession, but the whole Union from irretrievable disruption.