Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 2.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Nine days after this letter to the President of the Arkansas Convention, he wrote another, addressed to J. W. Tucker, Esq., the editor of a secession newspaper 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 assuming every responsibility to do it with all possible despatch.”

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 balance. 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 have 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 Governor 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 exasperation through the State, the capture of Camp Jackson, 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-Governor, in which he declares that in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia his efforts have been 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 avowedly engaged in travelling through States which he must regard while Missouri continues 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 occasion 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 officers 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 extraordinary taxation, and to be absolutely subject to the orders of the Governor, to act aginst all opposers, 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 provisions of these several acts, which are most extraordinary 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 Legislative and Executive Departments has produced evils and dangers of vast magnitude, and your delegates in Convention have addressed themselves to the important and delicate duty of attempting to free the State from these evils.

The high executive officers have fled from the Government and from the State, leaving us without the officers to discharge the ordinary necessary executive functions. But, more than this, they are actually engaged in carrying on a war with the State, supported by troops from States in the Southern Confederacy.; so that the State, while earnestly desirous to keep out of the war, has become the scene of conflict without any action of the people assuming such