Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[462] made conscious of the fact at the beginning of the session, not only from conversation with the members, but from the reception given to a communication, written and verbal, from Luther J. Glenn, an accredited “Commissioner” from Georgia, and who was allowed to address the Convention on the subject of his mission on the first day of its session in St. Louis.

March 4, 1861.

In his written communication and in his speech he strongly urged Missouri to join the “Southern Confederacy.” ¹ The atmosphere of St. Louis, in and out of the Convention, was not congenial to such seditious sentiments. The population of that city was made up largely of New Englanders and Germans, who were loyal, while immigrants from the Slave-labor States, and especially from Virginia, composed the great body of the secessionists. The spectators in the Convention greeted Glenn's remarks with hisses and hootings; and subsequently the Convention itself, through a committee to which the “Commissioner's” communication was referred, assured him that his views were not acceptable to that body, whose proceedings throughout were characterized by great dignity, and acts and expressions that gave-cheerfulness to the loyal men of the country.

The Committee of the Convention on Federal Relations, through its chairman, H. R. Gamble, reported at length, on the 9th of March, in a manner to assure the country of the loyalty of the Convention. In that report the great topics of the hour were temperately discussed. It was declared that “the people of the Southern States” had a right to complain “of the incessant abuse poured upon their institutions by the press, the pulpit, and many of the people of the North;” and then enumerated some of the alleged “.aggressions on the rights of the South,” so commonly found at that time in the newspapers of the Slave-labor States, and the speeches of politicians. Yet it was declared truly, that “heretofore there has been no complaint against the action of the Federal Government in any of its departments, as designed to violate the rights of the Southern States.” The Slavery question was reviewed, and the possession of the Government by “a sectional party, avowing opposition to the admission of Slavery into the Territories of the United States,” was “deeply regretted,” because it threatened dangerous sectional strife; but, after all, the Committee thought that the history of the country taught that there was not much to be feared from political parties in power. The value of the Union to Missouri was pointed out, with forcible illustrations; and the report closed with seven resolutions, which declared that there was then no adequate cause to impel Missouri to leave the Union, and that she would labor for its security; that