488 



MISSOURI. 



to David Walker, President of the Arkansas Conven- 

 tion, dated April 19, 1861, says : " From the beginning, 

 my own conviction has been that the interest, duty, 

 and honor of every slaveholding State demand their 

 separation 1 from the non-slaveholding States." Again, 

 he says : " I have been, from the beginning, in favor 

 of decided and prompt action on the part of the South- 

 ern States, but the majority of the people of Missouri, 

 up to the present time, have differed with me." Here 

 we have the declaration of his opinion and wishes, and 

 the open confession that a majority of the people did 

 not agree with him. 



But he proceeds : " What their future action (mean- 

 ing the future action of the people) may be, no man 

 with certainty can predict or foretell ; but my impres- 

 sion is, judging from the indications hourly occurring, 

 that Missouri will be ready for secession in less than 

 thirty days, and will secede if Arkansas will only get 

 out of the way and give her a free passage." 



It will presently be seen, by an extract from another 

 letter, what the Governor means by being ready for 

 secession ; but it is very remarkable that he should 

 undertake not only to say that she would be ready to 

 secede in thirty days, but further, that she will secede, 

 when in fact your Convention, at that time, stood ad- 

 journed to the 3d Monday of December next. His 

 declaration that the State would secede is made, doubt- 

 less, upon some plan of his own, independent of the 

 Convention. 



Nine days after this letter to the President of the 

 Arkansas Convention, he wfote another, addressed to 

 J. W. Tucker, Esq., the editor of a secession news- 

 paper in St. Louis. This letter is dated April 28, 

 1861. The writer says : " I do not think Missouri 

 should secede to-day or to-morrow, but I do not think 

 it good policy that I should so openly declare. I 

 want a little time to arm the State, and I am assum- 

 ing every responsibility to do it with all possible de- 

 spatch." 



Again he says : " We should keep our own counsels. 

 Everybody in the State is in favor of arming the State ; 

 then let it be done. All are opposed to furnishing 

 Mr. Lincoln with soldiers. Time will settle the bal- 

 ance. Nothing should be said about the time or the 

 manner in which Missouri should go out. That she 

 ought to go, and will go, at the proper time, I have no 

 doubt. She ought to nave gone last winter, when she 

 could have seized the public arms and public property 

 and defended herself." 



Here we have the fixed mind and purpose of the 

 Governor, that Missouri shall leave the Union. He 

 wants time a little time to arm the State. He thinks 

 secrecy should be preserved by the parties with whom 

 he acts, in keeping- their counsels. He suggests that 

 nothing should be said about the time or the manner 

 in which Missouri should go out ; manifestly implying 

 that the time and manner of going out, which he and 

 those with whom he acted, proposed to adopt, were 

 some other time and manner than such as were to be 

 fixed by the people through their Convention. It was 

 no doubt to be a time and manner to be fixed by the 

 Governor and the General Assembly, or by the Gov- 

 ernor and a military body to be provided with arms 

 during the little time needed by the Governor for that 

 purpose. 



There have been no specific disclosures made to the 

 public of the details of this plan, but the Governor 

 expresses his strong conviction that at the proper time 

 the State will go out. 



This correspondence of the Governor occurred at a 

 time when there was no interference by soldiers of the 

 United States with any of the citizens, or with the 

 peace of the State. The event which produced exas- 

 peration through the State, the capture of Camp Jack- 

 son, did not take place until the 10th of May. Yet, 

 the evidence is conclusive, that there was at the time 

 of this correspondence a secret plan for taking Missouri 

 out of the Union without any assent of the people 

 through their Convention. 



An address to the people of Missouri was issued by 

 Thomas C. Reynolds, the Lieutenant-Go vernor, in 



which he declares that in Arkansas, Tennessee, and 

 Virginia, his efforts have be%n directed unceasingly, to 

 the best of his limited ability, to the promotion of our 

 interests, indissolubly connected with the vindication 

 of our speedy union with the Confederate States. 

 Here is the second executive officer of Missouri avow- 

 edly engaged in travelling through States, which he 

 must regard, while Missouri remains in the Union, as 

 foreign States, and those States endeavoring, as he 

 says, to promote the interests of our State . 



The mode of promoting our interests is disclosed in 

 another passage of the address, in which he gives the 

 people assurance that the people of the Confederate 

 States, though engaged in a war with a powerful foe, 

 would not hesitate still further to tax their energies 

 and resources at the proper time, and on a proper oc- 

 casion in aid of Missouri. The mode of promoting our 

 interests, then, was by obtaining military aid, and this 

 while Missouri continued in the Union. The result of 

 the joint action of the first and second executive offi- 

 cers of the State, has been that a body of military forces 

 of Arkansas has actually invaded Missouri, to carry 

 out the schemes of your own officer, who ought to have 

 conformed to your will, as you had made it known at 

 elections, and' had expressed it by your delegates in 

 Convention. 



Still further to execute the purpose of severing the 

 connection of Missouri with the United States, the 

 General Assembly was called, and when assembled, 

 sat in secret session, and enacted laws which had for 

 their object the placing in the hands of the Governor 

 large sums of money, to be expended in his discretion 

 for military purposes, and a law for the organization 

 of a military force, which was to be sustained by ex- 

 traordinary taxation, and to be absolutely subject to 

 the orders of the Governor, to act against all op- 

 posers, including the United States. By these acts, 

 schools are closed, and the demands of humanity for 

 the support of lunatics are denied, and the money raised 

 for the purposes of education and benevolence may 

 swell the fund to be expended in war. 



Without referring more particularly to the provi- 

 sions of these several acts, which are most extraordi- 

 nary and extremely dangerous as precedents, it is 

 sufficient to say that they display the same purpose to 

 engage in a conflict with the General Government, and 

 to break the connection of Missouri with the United 

 States, which had before been manifested by Gov. 

 Jackson. The conduct of these officers of the" Legis- 

 lative and Executive Departments has produced evils 

 and dangers of vast magnitude, and your delegates in 

 Convention have addressed themselves to the impor- 

 tant and delicate duty of attempting to free the State 

 from these evils. 



On the same day, Lieut.-Gov. Keynolds issued 

 a proclamation at New Madrid, addressed to 

 the people of Missouri. He said : " I return to 

 the State to accompany in my official capacity, 

 one of the armies which the warrior statesman 

 whose genius now presides over the affairs of 

 our half of the Union, has prepared to advance 

 against the common foe." His view of the pos- 

 ture of affairs, and the measures which should 

 be adopted, is thus stated : 



To provide for this very condition of things, our 

 General Assembly, in May last, passed an act, by 

 which, in view of the rebellion in St. Louis and the 

 invasion of our State, the Governor was " authorized 

 to take such measures as in his judgment he may deem 

 necessary or proper to repel such invasion or put down 

 such rebellion." 



As that rebellion and invasion have been sanctioned 

 by the Government and people of the North, one of the 

 most proper measures to protect our interests is a dis- 

 solution of all connection with them. In the present 

 condition of Missouri, the Executive is the only consti- 

 tutional authority left in the free exercise of legitimate 

 power within her limits. Her motto, " Sal-ut populi 



