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The 4th of January, 1861, was an unfortunate day for
Missouri.
On that day
Claiborne F. Jackson, an unscrupulous politician, and a conspirator against the
Republic, was inaugurated Governor of the
State.
In his message to the Legislature, he insisted that
Missouri should stand by its sister Slave-labor States in whatever course they might pursue at that crisis.
He recommended the calling of a State Convention to consider “Federal relations;” and on the 16th,
the Legislature responded by authorizing one, decreeing, however, that its action on the subject of secession should be submitted to the vote of the people.
The election resulted in the choice of a large majority of Union delegates
by a heavy majority of the popular vote.
They assembled at
Jefferson City on the 28th of February.
Their proceedings will be considered hereafter.
Adjoining
Missouri on the south, and lying between it and
Louisiana, is
Arkansas, a rapidly growing Cotton-producing State.
The people were mostly of the planting class, and were generally attached to the
Union; and it was only by a rigorous system of terrorism that they were finally placed in an attitude of rebellion.
An emissary of treason, named
Hubbard, was sent into
Arkansas at the middle of December, by the
Alabama conspirators.
He was permitted to address the State Legislature
assembled at
Little Rock, when he assured them that
Alabama would soon secede, whether other States did or did not, and advised
Arkansas to do the same.
Ten days afterward there was an immense assemblage of the people at,
Van Buren, on the
Arkansas River, in the extreme western part of the
State.
They resolved, on that occasion, that separate State action would be unwise, and that co-operation was desirable.
It was evident, from many tests, that nine-tenths of the people were averse to the application of secession as a remedy for alleged evils.
On the 16th, the Legislature of
Arkansas provided for the submission of the question of a State Convention to the people, and if they should decide to have one, the
Governor was directed to appoint a day for the election of delegates.
A majority of twelve thousand voted in favor of a convention.
An election was held, when, out of about forty thousand votes, there was a popular majority of about six thousand for Union delegates.
How that Convention was managed by the conspirators, and the people were cheated, will be considered hereafter.
We have now observed the revolutionary movements in the Slave-labor States down to the so-called secession of seven of them;
their preparations for a General Convention, at the beginning of February, to form a confederacy; and the construction of machinery, in the form of State conventions, for sweeping most of the other Slave-labor States into the vortex of revolution.
Let us see what, in the mean time, was done in the matter in the Free-labor States, beginning with
New England.
