Aug. 5, 1861. |
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| M. Jeff. Thompson. |
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military aid, and the annexation of Missouri to the Confederacy, had just returned, and from New Madrid he also issued a proclamation.
It was in the form of a provisional declaration of the independence of the State, in which he gave reasons which, he said, “justified” a separation from the Union.
These “reasons” consisted of the usual misrepresentations concerning the National Government, in forms already familiar to the reader, and were followed by a formal declaration that Missouri was “a sovereign, free, and independent republic.”
On the 20th of the same month, the Confederate Congress at Richmond passed an act to “aid the State of Missouri in repelling invasion by the United States, and to authorize the admission of said State as a member of the Confederate States of America.”
Jefferson Davis was authorized to “muster into the service of the Confederate States” such Missouri troops as might volunteer to serve in the Confederate Army; the officers to be commissioned by Davis,
who was also empowered to appoint all field officers for the same.
Missouri was to be admitted into the Confederacy on an equal footing with the other States, when the Constitution of the “Confederate States” should be “adopted and ratified by the properly and legally constituted authorities of said State;” in other words, when the disloyal fugitive Governor, Jackson, and his friends, and not the people of Missouri, should so adopt and ratify that unholy league.
By the same act the government of Missouri, of which Jackson was recognized as the chief magistrate, was declared to be “the legally elected and constituted government of the people and State of Missouri.”
1 Measures were speedily adopted for the consummation of the alliance, and, during a greater portion of the war, men claiming to represent the people of Missouri occupied seats in the Confederate Congress at Richmond.2
At this critical juncture of public affairs in Missouri, John C. Fremont, who had been brought prominently before the American people in 1856, as
1 See Acts and Resolutions of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, Third Session,. No. 225.
2 By proclamation, in September, Jackson called a session of the disloyal members of the General Assembly of Missouri, at Neosho, on the 21st of October. In his message to that body, on the 28th of October, he recommended, 1st, the passage of an ordinance of secession; 2d, of an “act of provisional union with the Confederate States ;” 3d, the appointment of “three commissioners to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States ;” 4th, the passage of a law empowering the Governor to cause an election to be held for Senators and Representatives. to the “Confederate States Congress” as soon as practicable after Missouri should become a member of the league; and, 5th, the passage of an act empowering the Governor to issue bonds of the State of Missouri. The pliant instruments of the Governor responded cheerfully to his recommendations. An Ordinance of Secession was passed the same day (October 28th, 1861), and an “Act to provide for the defense of the State of Missouri” was adopted on theist of November. It authorized the issue of what were termed “Defense bonds,” to the amount of $10,000,000, all of which, of the denomination of $5 and upwards, should bear interest at the rate of ten per cent. per annum. They were to be issued in denominations not less than $1, and not greater than $500, payable in three, five, and seven years. They were made a legal tender for all dues. Such was the currency offered to the people of Missouri as members of the Confederacy. See Journals of the Senate, &c., noticed at the close of note 1., page 464, volume I.
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