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

[463] the people of Missouri were devotedly attached to the institutions of the country, and earnestly desired a fair and amicable adjustment of all difficulties; that the Crittenden Compromise was a proper basis for such adjustment; that a convention of the States, to propose amendments to the Constitution, would be useful in restoring peace and quiet to the country; that an attempt to “coerce the submission of the seceding States, or the employment of military force by the seceding States to assail the Government of the United States,” would inevitably lead to civil war; and earnestly entreated the Government and the conspirators to “withhold and stay the arm of military power,” and on no pretense whatever bring upon the nation the horrors of such war.

On the 19th of March the report of the Committee was considered, and substantially adopted. An amendment was agreed to, recommending the withdrawal of the National troops “from the forts within the borders of the seceded States, where there is danger of collision between the State and Federal troops.” So the Convention declared that the State of Missouri would stand by the Government on certain conditions; and after appointing delegates to the Border State Convention,¹ and giving power

March 21, 1861.

to a committee to call another session whenever it might seem necessary,² the Convention adjourned to the third Monday in December.

The Legislature of Missouri was in session simultaneously with the Convention. Governor Jackson could not mold the action of the latter to his views, so he labored assiduously to that end with the former. He determined to give to the secessionists control of the city of St. Louis, the focus of the Union power of the State, and the chief place of the depository of the National arms within its borders. He succeeded in procuring an Act for the establishment of a metropolitan police in that city, under five commissioners to be appointed by the Governor.³ This was an important step in the way of his intended usurpation; and he had such assurances from leading politicians throughout the State of their power to suppress the patriotic action of the people, that when the President's call for troops reached him he gave the insolent answer already recorded.⁴ The Missouri Republicans a newspaper in St. Louis, which was regarded as the exponent of the disloyal sentiments of the State, raised the standard of revolt on the following day

April 16, 1861.

by saying, editorially, “Nobody expected any other response from him. They may not approve of the early course of the Southern States, but they denounce and defy the action of Mr. Lincoln in proposing to call out seventy-five thousand men for the purpose of coercing the seceded States of the Union. Whatever else may happen, he gets no men from the Border States to carry on such a war.”