1861 Missouri Speaks
Rebooting History
Essential Information
In order to provide background for the letters and articles in the Missouri Speaks Collection, we have written fifteen "Essential Information" articles on a variety of topics found in the volumes. These have all been pulled together on this page. Below you will find Essential Information Articles # 1-15.
Essential Information Number 1:
Newspapers in St. Louis
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#2.1)
The majority of the newspapers in St. Louis during the pre-Civil War period were closely tied to political parties, and viciously attacked and denounced one another as they advocated for the party they supported. On the other hand, except when they were attacking the positions of another paper, they rarely reported on the positions of the other political parties. In St. Louis, there were five politically significant newspapers that are often mentioned in 1861 Missouri Speaks.
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1. Missouri Democrat – Republican Party
2. Missouri Republican – Democratic Party
3. Evening News – Constitutional Union Party[
4. St. Louis Bulletin – Advocated for the South
5. State Journal – Secessionist
Numbers 1 and 2 above are misnomers, as their names do not reflect the political parties for which they advocate. This is a result of the political upheavals of the 1850s. The national Whig Party collapsed, the Missouri Democratic Party split, and the anti-slavery Republican party was founded. The Missouri Republican switched from the slavery wing of the Whig Party to the slavery wing of the Democratic Party, and the anti-slavery Missouri Democrat switched its support to the anti-slavery Republican Party. Below are descriptions of each of the papers mentioned above. (Click the link below to continue reading.)
Essential Information Number 2:
Extension of Slavery
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#6.1)
The concept of the “extension of slavery” has to do with allowing slavery into the territories of the west that had not yet become states. Lincoln won the election on the platform of slavery remaining where it already existed (in Missouri and the South), but against it being allowed to extend into areas where it did not currently exist (in the new territories). Most in the South, on the other hand, felt it should be able to take their slaves anywhere, not just the territories. Senator Jefferson Davis,* during the Senate Committee of Thirteen debate,** demanded the right “to introduce slavery into all the territories as fully as it exists in the slave states, coupled with a guaranteed right for slave owners to travel with their slaves in free states, as desired.” (FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#6.1)
*Senator Jefferson Davis would be elected president of the Confederate States of America.
**For Committee of Thirteen Information, see (FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#10.1).
Essential Information Number 3:
Secession Convention
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#20.1)
States that seceded used the mechanism of state conventions to give their secession a “legal” foundation. Historically, the convention system had been used to write or amend constitutions. It was used for the U.S. Constitution and every state constitution. With the secession conventions, the governors would propose a convention; if the legislature approved the proposal, they would determine the scope of what could be considered special requirements, such as the voters approving convention decisions. The legislature also had the option of requiring the voters to approve even holding a convention. Finally, the legislature would set a date for the election of convention delegates, and the date and place where the convention would convene. For information on Missouri’s convention see Essential Information #11: Missouri’s Secession Convention (FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#35.3).
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For an article on conventions in general and reviews of several state secession conventions, including Missouri, see: (FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan-Annex-23).
Essential Information Number 4:
St. Louis Political Groups
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#20.4)
Less than a week after Gov. Jackson declared, in his inaugural address, that “it was both the interest and the duty of Missouri to make common cause with the other slave-holding states in the impending conflict,” a large group of St. Louis secession extremists, calling themselves Minute Men, publicly organized and eventually started arming themselves. As a result, two Union supporting groups also organized; one group was Unconditional Unionists, the other Conditional Unionists.
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The Unconditional Unionists were extremists that were against compromise or concession and supported using federal forces, if necessary, to enforce the law and keep Missouri and other slave states in the Union. The Conditional Unionists wanted to maintain the Union, but advocated for compromise on the slavery issue. They held that the Republican Party was solely responsible for the slavery crisis, demanded the North compromise on the slavery question, and were against using the military to force the seceding states to remain in the Union.
Essential Information Number 5:
Minute Men
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#21.1)
Three period quotes and an editor's note will be used to explain who the Minute Men were and what they accomplished.
Quote #1:
C.S.A. General Basil Duke, Minute Men Organizer (from his memoirs).
"This organization was designated the “Minute Men” and was a semi-political and military character. We made no secret of the organization or our purpose, but openly proclaimed both…the chief and primary objective of this organization was the capture of the [St. Louis Federal] Arsenal."*
*Basil W. Duke, The Civil War Reminiscences of General Basil W. Duke, C.S.A. (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911), p. 38.
Essential Information Number 6:
Metropolitan Police Bill
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#22.1)
On March 27, 1861, Missouri’s secessionist-controlled legislature passed a Metropolitan Police Bill which took control of the police force from the republican mayor in St. Louis and created a four-member Board of Police Commissioners appointed by the governor, with the mayor an ex-officio member. The board had absolute control of all conservators of peace in both the city and county, and the authority to call out lawfully organized military forces to prevent disorder. Once the bill passed, the governor appointed all Southern sympathizers to the board, including Basil Duke, one of the Minute Men organizers. Duke later wrote, “the Police Bill was in reality a war measure, adopted to enable our people to control St. Louis …I knew the meaning of the measure, …and tried to carry it into action.”
“In brief, the Board is to have command both of the purse and the sword, and to be responsible only to the General Assembly. In speaking of such a nefarious scheme for robbing the people of St. Louis of the right of self-government, and putting them under the thrall of an irresponsible band of despotic [secessionist] commissioners.” (FLP: Ser 1MD-Feb-Annex-60) The full text of the bill is at 1861 Missouri Speaks, Series 2, Vol. 1, (FLP: Ser 2PS-Mar#14).
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Primm, James N. Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri, 1764-1980. Pruett Publishing Company, Boulder Colorado, 1981, p. 247.
In 2013, St. Louis finally got control of its Police force.
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St. Louis Gains Control Of Its Police Force
NPR, August 28, 2013
St. Louis is about to get something it hasn't had in 152 years: control of its own police force. Thanks to a statewide ballot measure approved last fall, the state hands over control to the city on Sunday.
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"It's only right for the city, which spends $180 million annually on cops, to take command," says Maggie Crane, director of communications for Mayor Francis Slay. “This is really just an antiquated system that needed to be changed.” It all dates back to the Civil War. Claiborne Jackson, Missouri's segregationist governor, didn't want the Unionist city controlling its own arsenal. [History buffs will recall that Missouri, while a slave state, never seceded.]
Essential Information Number 7:
Central Union Club & Union Safety Committee
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#23.1)
In an earlier editor’s note, it was stated: “The Minute Men were directly responsible for the organization of the St. Louis Central Union Club and the St. Louis Union Safety Committee. That committee, by using spies to monitor secessionist activities, was able to check many of the governor’s secessionist moves, thereby playing a major role in preventing him from carrying Missouri out of the Union.”
In Essential Information #8, below, the Central Union Club, sponsored by the Republican Party and the Missouri Democrat, starts to take form as a call is made for an organizational meeting, stating: “Now when bad men combine, good men should unite. The action of the local disunionists demand the formation of a great Union party here, all the more essential.”
Essential Information Number 8:
Wide Awakes
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#28.2)
The St. Louis version of the Wide Awakes was the Union equivalent of the Minute Men, a quasi-military group, originally organized in Missouri by Frank Blair Jr. to provide security against hooligan interference at Republican campaign rallies. When Blair attempted to pull all Union-supporting political parties together under one banner, it was necessary to downplay the Republican Party. Part of that effort was to disband the Republican Party’s Wide Awakes. In reality, they only changed their name and clandestinely started planning for war under the umbrella of what were called "Central Union Clubs." Eventually, they organized, trained and armed sixteen infantry companies, totaling 14,000. Many of them answered Lincoln's call for volunteers and enlisted in the Union Army after the attack on Fort Sumter. They eventually became the 90-day volunteers that made up the majority of Captain Lyon’s force, used to capture the secessionist-led state militia at Camp Jackson on May 10, 1861. They also served under General Lyon all the way to the Battle of Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 1861.
Essential Information Number 9:
Conditional Unionist
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#28.5)
On Saturday, January 12, a well-attended organizational rally was held in front of the St. Louis Court House. The attendees will fall into a category called, among other things, Conditional Unionists.* The rally organizers were advocating compromise between the North and the South over the slavery issue and against coercion by the federal government to keep the seceding states in the Union. Generally speaking, the attendees were average citizens, businessmen, and the professional class of St. Louis that were for remaining in the Union, and wanted to avoid war. The organizers had no interest in supporting either the Minute Men or the Unconditional Unionists, as they consider both groups extremists that considered a North-South war a possibility and were preparing for such an outcome.
One of the speakers at this rally was Judge Hamilton R. Gamble, who would become provisional governor of Missouri after Governor Jackson was deposed during the second meeting of the (Secession) Convention in late July.
*The Missouri Republican would call this group "Constitutional Unionist." The Missouri Democrat would call this group "Conditional Secessionist."
Essential Information Number 10:
The Crittenden Compromise
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#30)
The Crittenden Compromise, introduced by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky on December 18, 1860, consisted of six constitutional amendments and four resolutions. While its aim was to resolve the secession crisis by addressing the grievances of the Southern pro-slavery factions, if successful, it would have permanently secured slavery in the U.S. Constitution, making it unconstitutional for future congresses to end slavery. The main points were:
1) Slavery would be prohibited in any U.S. territory, present or future, north of the 36° 30′ line, and recognized below the line. This was a return of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, repealed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and declared unconstitutional in 1857 by the Supreme Court, which ruled that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.
2) Congress could not abolish slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction within a slave state (example: a military post).
3) Congress could not abolish slavery in the District of Columbia as long as it existed in the adjoining states of Virginia and Maryland, nor without the consent of the District's residents.
4) Congress could not interfere with the interstate slave trade.
5) Owners of rescued fugitive slaves would receive full compensation.
6) The amendments contained in this compromise could never be changed by a future amendment, and Congress could not be authorized to interfere with slavery within any slave state.
Editor’s Note: While the Crittenden Compromise received extensive press coverage and was supported by many in Missouri and the South, it was rejected by Republicans and President-elect Lincoln as it gave the South many of the things Lincoln had campaigned against.
It was reported on January 8, that in an interview on the general subject of compromises, Lincoln said: “It was sometimes better for a man to pay a debt he did not owe, or to lose a demand which was a just one, than to go to law about it; but then, in compromising our difficulties, he would regret to see the victors put in the attitude of the vanquished, and the vanquished in the place of the victors. He would not contribute to any such compromise as that.“ See (FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#22.4)
For the full text of the Crittenden Compromise, see (FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan-Annex-8).
Essential Information Number 11:
Missouri's Secession Convention
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#35.3)
1. Jan 3: Gov. Jackson calls for a Convention in his inaugural address.
2. Jan 21: An act calling for a State Convention takes effect.
3. Feb 18: Election of Convention delegates. (Three delegates were elected from each state senate district, making 99 total.)
4. Feb 28: Convention convened at Jefferson City.
5. Feb 29: Convention shifts deliberations to St. Louis.
6. Mar 1: Convention reconvenes in St. Louis.
The Convention lasted 19 days and voted not to secede from the Union, writing:
"At present there is no adequate cause to impel Missouri to dissolve her connection with the Federal Government."
The Convention met three times in 1861.
1. Feb 28 to Mar 22
2. Jul 22 to Jul 31
3. Oct 10 to Oct 18
For a discussion of the concept of secession conventions and a review of the details of several State Secession Conventions, including Missouri, see: (FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan-Annex-23).
Essential Information Number 12:
Secession Convention
and St. Louis Newspapers
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#35.4)
In 1861, newspapers placed the names of candidates they were supporting at the top of their front page. The list of those supported by each paper was referred to as their “ticket.”
For the February 18, 1861 election for representatives to the Secession Convention, St. Louis was authorized to select 15 candidates. Many of the articles from here to the date of that election will deal with the “tickets” proposed by the Missouri Democrat, which supports the Republican Party, and the Missouri Republican, which supports the Democratic Party.
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Conditional Secession or Conditional Union?
The Missouri Republican ticket is a Conditional Union ticket; they are for the Union under certain conditions; they call their ticket the Constitutional Union Ticket. The Missouri Democrat calls the Missouri Republican Ticket a Conditional Secession Ticket.
The Missouri Democrat Ticket is the Unconditional Union Ticket, the Missouri Republican calls it a Coercion Ticket, inciting civil war by supporting the use of federal forces to prevent secession.
The battle between these two newspapers is a no-holds-barred war of words. Below are the positions of each newspaper.
Essential Information Number 13:
Peace Conventions
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Jan#56.1)
The article below refers to "the Border States Convention" at Washington. However, the generally accepted name for that convention in Washington was the Virginia "Peace Convention."
The Virginia Peace Convention opened in Washington D.C. on February 4, 1861, thirty days before the inauguration of Lincoln, and on the same day the Confederate States declared themselves a separate nation. Twenty-one states sent a total of 131 delegates; none of the new Confederate states sent delegates. Almost a month later, the conference submitted a proposal to Congress that was similar to the Crittenden Compromise, but it was rejected, so this peace convention accomplished nothing.
On April 3, 1861, the Kentucky legislature passed a bill to convene a border slave states convention “to consult on the critical condition of the country, and agree upon some plan of peaceable adjustment.” This “Border Slave States Convention” convened at Frankfort, Kentucky on May 27, 1861. On June 8, 1861, the convention issued an address containing its findings and recommendations.
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
FELLOW CITIZENS:
The delegates to a convention of the border slave states, assembled in the city of Frankfort, desire to address you in relation to the present condition of the country.
None of us have ever expected to live to see the spectacle, now exhibited in our divided land. The cry to arms resounds throughout our borders, and in a few short weeks, we have seen all over the land the marshaling of troops ready for the conflict. The pursuits of peace are neglected and abandoned, and the spirit of war has seized almost every heart until even gentle and tender woman yields to the fierce impulse and encourages the strife, and the maternal eye scarce gathers a tear as the son seizes his arms and rushes towards the field of carnage and of death.
If this warlike spirit—this terrible energy—were displayed in preparing to meet the legions of an invading enemy, our hearts would exult in the exhibition of the martial spirit of our countrymen; but, alas! the combatants are descendants of Sires who stood side by side in the day of battle to maintain the independence of our country, and in the approaching conflict, brother is to fall by the hand of a brother.
Essential Information Number 14:
The Four Political Parties of 1860
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Feb#1.05)
There were four political parties active in Missouri in 1861. Three of the parties were normally identified in the press by using the name of their November 1860 presidential candidate (Douglas, Bell, and Breckinridge). For the Republican Party (Lincoln's party), they often just referred to them as Republicans and did not focus on Lincoln. The main reason for this was that there were two wings of the Democratic Party during the presidential election of 1860. The Northern Democratic Party candidate was Stephan A. Douglas, and the Southern Democratic Party candidate was John C. Breckenridge. Three of the political groups were considered Unionist, one was pro-extension of slavery and, generally speaking, considered the secession party.
The Unionist groups were: Douglas (Democrat) — Bell (Union) — Lincoln (Republican)
Extension of slavery candidate: Breckinridge (Democrat)
1. Douglas (Democrat): The 1860 Northern Democratic Party presidential candidate was Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois. Douglas won in Missouri, receiving 35.52% of the vote. Governor Jackson campaigned as a Unionist under the banner of Douglas, knowing that was the only way he could be elected, as the voters in Missouri would not elect anyone that campaigned as a secessionist.
2. Bell: (3rd Party Union Candidate)
The 1860 Constitutional Union Party presidential candidate was John Bell, of Tennessee. Bell received 35.26% of Missouri's votes; Douglas received 35.52%, a difference of 429 votes out of 165,653. The race was surprisingly close, considering Bell’s party was a newly created 3rd party focused on maintaining the status quo and ignoring the slavery issue. The party was formed to give voters a choice between what were considered two radical candidates, Lincoln on the Northern side and Breckinridge on the Southern side. It was felt by some that the election of either Lincoln or Breckinridge would bring about civil war.
3. Breckinridge:
The 1860 Southern Democratic Party presidential candidate was John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. Breckinridge received only 18.94% of the votes in Missouri; his supporters were the members of the Missouri Legislature, attempting to carry Missouri out of the Union, but like the governor, many of them ran for office as Unionist.
4. Lincoln:
The 1860 Republican Party presidential candidate was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. Lincoln only received 10.28% of the Missouri vote, with most of his votes coming from St. Louis and rural German communities. Most Missourians outside of St. Louis were strongly anti-Republican. Except for the Missouri Democrat newspaper, the media in Missouri villainized Republicans and not only blamed them for the North-South crisis, but accused them of seeking war to free the slaves. It was a combination of the hatred of Republicans in the lightly populated Ozarks Mountain region, with very few slaves, and the closet secessionists that ran as Unionists across Missouri, that allowed Breckinridge-supporting candidates to gain a slight voting majority in the legislature, even though over 80% of Missouri’s votes went to Unionist candidates in the 1860 election. Missouri voters resoundingly reaffirmed their Union preference when not a single candidate that campaigned as a secessionist was elected as a representative to the Missouri Secession Convention on February 17, 1861.
Complicating a modern readers' ability to understand the political factions operating in Missouri in 1861 is the fact that the Missouri Republican newspaper was the Democratic Party newspaper; and that the Missouri Democrat was the Republican Party newspaper.
Essential Information Number 15:
The Military Bill
(FLP: Ser 1MD-Feb#2.1)
A few days after Governor Jackson made it clear he intended to use the power of his office to carry Missouri out of the Union, the following appeared in the Missouri Democrat:
A military bill by Monroe Parsons was also thrust upon the General Assembly the first week of the session, and it is saying but little to call it the most wicked bill which the people of Missouri and their representatives have ever been called to act upon. Every part of it converges to the center of disunion.
The Military Bill, described in the articles above and below, did not initially pass, but another version did on May 14. The mere introduction of such a bill in the first week of the session demonstrates that disunion was the objective from the beginning, though Jackson would claim actions of the central government demanded measures by the state.
After the Military Bill passed, Commander of the Department of the West General Harney, published the following in a manifesto to the people of Missouri.
This bill cannot be regarded in any other light than an indirect secession ordinance, ignoring even the forms resorted to by other states. Clearly, its most material provisions conflict with the Constitution and laws of the United States. To this extent, it is a nullity and cannot be upheld by the good citizens of Missouri.
The following appeared in the Missouri Republican on May 21, 1861:
Instead of uniting the people everywhere in a measure of defense, it contained in many of its provisions the seeds of division and discord…Even if we had an overflowing treasury, how could this law, which was never read in the Senate, and never seen by half a dozen of its members, and which was passed at midnight in secret conclave, when only some twenty senators were present, how could any party expect that it would meet with favor from those who are to be subjected to its operation?
I will not stop to ask the motive for this, but will loudly call upon the governor to lay the bill aside as unconstitutional, as the only relief from the awful responsibility of sanctioning a measure which, if persisted in, must necessarily result in a bloody contest between the State Guards and the United States troops. This being so, who would be responsible for the enormous crime which lies hardly concealed in this bill? History is not always blind, and if calamities result from this Missouri Military Bill, some names must go with it down to posterity loaded with condemnation.
For the full text of the Military Bill, see 1861 Missouri Speaks, Series I, Vol. 3, (FLP: Ser 1MD-May-Annex-2).