Glass. 
 Book 
 
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 .L. 
 
/ 
 
 THE WRONGS TO MISSOURI'S LOYAL PEOPLE. 
 
 S P E E C H 
 
 J-^ 
 
 CHAELES D. DRAKE, 
 
 BEFORE Till 
 
 MASS CONVENTION AT JEFFERSON CITY, SEPTEMBER I, 1863. 
 
 Fellow Citizens of Oie Convention: 
 
 I respond, without hesitation, to your invita- 
 tion to address you ; and as the period of our 
 session must necessarily be brief, I will claim 
 your attention no longer than may be necessary 
 for a sufficient and truthful discussion of the 
 circumstances which have led to our assembling. 
 
 Every member of this body will agree with me 
 that those circumstances are extraordinary. 
 From nearly thirty years' intimate acquaintance 
 with Missouri, I am prepared to affirm that no 
 Mass Convention of her people ever assembled 
 under circumstances so extraordinary as those 
 which surround us now. I congratulate you 
 that you have the nerve and the patriotism to 
 como from your distant homes, to show the 
 world that you are able and willing to meet like 
 men the exigency which is upon you. 
 
 We are loyal Union men, without any qualifi- 
 cation or conditions ; and we are, and are not 
 afraid to declare that we are, Eadicals. That 
 is, we are for going to the root of the infamous 
 rebellion which has distracted our land for more 
 than two years, and are for destroying that as 
 well as the rebellion. That root is tJie institution 
 of iSLAVERT. From it the rebellion sprang, by 
 it has been sustained, in it lives, and with it 
 will die. And until that root is pulled up and 
 destroyed, there is no hope of permanent peace 
 in our country. Therefore I am for pulling it 
 up, every fibre of it. And that is what I under- 
 stand it is to be a Radical. By that I stand or 
 all. The position is one which necessarily ad- 
 
 mits of no compromise. It is Country or Sla- 
 very ; and he is a traitor who will compromise 
 between them. 
 
 This, in a few words, is what I hold to be our 
 character and position here to-day. I am not 
 afraid to go before the world upon it. I should 
 despise myself, if I took any other. It follows 
 that I am for using every legitimate means ta^ 
 destroy the rebellion, and to crush down, wipe 
 out, and utterly annihilate every development, 
 form, and hue of disloyalty. I would pursue 
 disloyalty through all its infinite turnings and 
 twistings, and hunt it down, ferret it out, and 
 drive it forth, till throughout our State and our 
 land no disloyal hand should be raised, nor dis- 
 loyal tongue speak, against our glorious Union _ 
 
 It follows, further, that I uphold the Procla- 
 mation of Emancipation issued by President 
 Lincoln on the 1st of January, 1863. I believe 
 that Proclamation to have been a Constitutional 
 exercise of the war power of the Commander- 
 in-Chief of the Ai-my and Navy of the United 
 States, against public enemies. "Were they for- 
 eign enemies, no American would question his 
 rigjjit to strike at their main support: I affirm 
 his right to strike at any and every support of 
 our domestic enemies — the worse, by far, of the 
 two. And it was a righteous exercise of his 
 power. Slavery assailed the nation of which 
 he was the head, and he was bound to assail 
 Slavery in turn, even to its very death. And I 
 hold that his Proclamation did, in law, free 
 every slave in all the region it covered, on the 
 

 very day it was issued. Not one of them has 
 been lawfully held in slavery since that day; 
 nor can one of them, in my opinion, 
 ever be lawfully enslaved again. The Proela- 
 mation is irrevocable— as irrevocable as death. 
 No attempt at its revocation can ever make 
 slaves again of those it made free. I accept 
 and uphold it as the end of Slavery in the rebel- 
 lious States, and I demand its enforcement 
 there by the whole warlike power of the loyal 
 people of the nation, as the only means of re- 
 storing abiding peace to our bleeding country. 
 
 And holding it right to use every lawful 
 means to overwhelm rebellion, I rejoice that the 
 President is enrolling among our country's 
 armed hosts those whom his proclamation freed. 
 I have no squeamishness about arming the negro. 
 I am no half-breed Unionist, sensitive about 
 seeing white men fight alongside of the ''Ameri- 
 can citizen of African descent." No traitor is 
 too good to be killed by a negro, nor has any 
 traitor a right to insist on being killed by a 
 white man. If for the sake of Slavery he turns 
 traitor, let former slaves be his executioners ; 
 it is a just and fit retribution. Disaffection, if 
 not disloyalty, lurks in him who opposes the 
 arming of the negro, let him call himself what 
 he may. For my part, 1 say to the President, 
 Oo on in. this good loorTc, till the army of Macks shall 
 he large enough to hold every rebel in subjection; and 
 then rebellion is at an end for ever and ever in 
 this land. 
 
 I have been thus plain in the expression of 
 these views, because 1 believe them to be the 
 views heartily entertained by the entire body of 
 the Radical Union men of Missouri. I do not 
 believe there is one such man in our State who 
 does not hold them, and who is not determined 
 to stand by them. They spring from the deepest 
 convictions of stern duty to our country and to 
 the cause of Liberty. With him who opposes 
 them we have nothing to do but to oppose him, 
 and by all rightful means overthrow and put 
 himdown. And that, my friends, is just the work 
 which the Radicals of Missouri have before them. 
 
 To us are opposed a portion of the people of 
 Missouri, who style themselves Conservatives. 
 And who are they >: Let the plain truth bespoken. 
 They emhrace all the disloyal. Every rebel in the 
 State is with them. Every open or secret seces- 
 sionist is with them. Every guerrilla and 
 bushwhacker is with them. Every Copper- 
 head is with them. Every man who op- 
 poses the radical policy of the Govern- 
 ment against the rebellion is with them. f:very 
 man who is under bond for disloyal practices 
 or sentiments, is with them. Every sympa- 
 thizer with the rebellion is with them. Almost 
 every pro-Slavery man is with, them. And nine- 
 
 tenths of the slaveholders, I believe, are with 
 them. And along with this motley gang of open 
 enemies to, or faint-hearted friends of, the 
 Union cause, are associated just enough of real 
 Union men to save the concern from going down 
 instantly under the weight of its inherent and 
 envenomed disloyalty. Nothing keeps that 
 party alive this day but the presence of those 
 Union men in its ranks, and the concentration of 
 official patronage and influence. State and National^ 
 in, iheir hands. They are the sugar-coat to the 
 poison-pill which is sought to be admin- 
 istered to the people of Missouri. They 
 alone give character to Conservatism in 
 Missouri. They have suffered themselves to 
 be identified with that class of our population, 
 which would drag Missouri out of the Union in 
 a moment, if they could; and they are sup- 
 ported and urged on by every man in the State 
 whose hand or heart has been or is against his 
 country. 1 profoundly regret that any of them 
 should ever have been found in such company ; 
 but they are there, and must share the fate which 
 surely awaits every disloyal man, whenever 
 Missouri's loyal people can once have access to 
 the ballot-box. 
 
 Such, my fellow-citizens, is what you and I 
 know to be the position of parties in Missouri 
 this day. It is not a matter of conjecture or 
 supposition; we l-noio it. We know that 
 throughout this whole State there is not one sin- 
 gle disloyal man in the Radical ranks. We know 
 that every disloyal man in the State is a Con- 
 servative. We know, and desire the whole 
 world to know, that the struggle now going on 
 here, though ostensibly connected with 
 the subject of Emancipation, is, in re- 
 ality, between Loyalty and Disloyalty. The 
 Union cause is at stake again, and the 
 result will determine whether the destiny of 
 this great commonwealth is to remain in the 
 hands of its loyal people. For one, 1 will strug- 
 gle, against all odds, in every lawful way, and 
 to the last available moment, before I will yield 
 the control of Missouri to her traitorous inhab- 
 itants. No such disgrace and disaster shall 
 befall her, if in my power to prevent it. 
 
 As, from the moment of the outbreak of the 
 rebellion, the spirit of shameless lying has 
 characterized those engaged in it, and those 
 who are with it in heart, so now the main wea- 
 pon of the Conservatives of Missouri against 
 the Radicals is atrocious and persistent false- 
 hood. We are charged, as a body, with pur- 
 poses which we have never expressed or enter- 
 tained. A strenuous effort has been mai^, upon 
 the basis of false and wholly groundless impu- 
 tations, to build up in opposition to us a so- 
 called " Law and Order party ;" and "Law and 
 
Order meetings " have been held in some coun- 
 ties, at which the Eadical Union men have been 
 denounced in the same category with rebels and 
 bushwhackers. We have been stigmatized as 
 *'Jacobins;" as "revolutionary t'actionists;" 
 as "engaged in schemes looking to 
 revolution and violence;" as "in rebellion 
 against the Union and the Constitution;" as 
 ''attempting to overthrow the State Govern- 
 ment;" as "the party of commotion, and vio- 
 lence, and crime, and anarchy, and disregard of 
 all law: " and " men of 'all parties, who are in 
 favor of preserving the peace of the State, of 
 enforcing the laws, and protecting citizens from 
 violations of the laws," are invited to attend 
 " Law and Order meetings ;" where the " erring 
 brother" returned from " i'rice's army," the 
 bushwhacker, the secessionist, the Copperhead 
 and the "Southern sympathizer" skulk in, to 
 help men claiming loyalty pass resolutions de- 
 faming and denouncing the Eadical Union men 
 of Missouri ! It is the old game of the pursued 
 thief crying "stop thief!" There is but one 
 way to meet it, and 1 have so met it wherever I 
 have spoken in this State. 1 say here, in the 
 capitol of the State, as I have repeatedly said 
 elsewhere, that whoever, directly or by implica- 
 tion, in speech, in writing, or in print, charges 
 upon the Eadical Union party of Missouri any 
 intent of revolutionary violence or unlawful act, 
 utters an atrocious lie. I like not to use that 
 word in a public address ; but the circumstances, 
 in my opinion, demand it. The true Union 
 men of Missouri have suifered enough of outrage 
 and defamation at the hands of her disloyal 
 people. We ought not quietly to submit any 
 longer to be branded as unfaithful to our obli- 
 gations as law-abiding and patriotic citizens. 
 We are in heart and soul loyal to our country, 
 to law, to duty, to honor, and to truth: and that 
 is infinitely more than he who has been, in fact 
 or in feeling, with this hell-born rebellion, can 
 say, or in his conscience — if he has any— would 
 dare to say he is. 
 
 My friends, that there is excitement among 
 the loyal people of Missouri cannot be denied. 
 The presence here to-day of this large Mass Con- 
 vention, from every part of the State, affirms it. 
 And there is cause for excitement. The loyal 
 inhabitants of this ill-fated State have suffered 
 more than those of any other State that has ad- 
 hered to the Union. They have endured every 
 form of aggravated and unmerited wrong. Loy- 
 alty to the Constitution and the Union has 
 brought bitterness to them. Their property has 
 been wrested from them by pillaging bands of 
 traitors ; their habitations have been given to 
 the flames ; they have been murdered in cold 
 blood ; and they have been disarmed by the au- 
 
 thorities in whose support they were ready and 
 willing to do all and venture all ; thereby be- 
 coming an easier prey to the blood-thirsty 
 fiends that infest wide districts of our State. 
 Surrounded by treachery the most adroit and 
 cruel; beset by devilish marauders, whose ap- 
 pearance they know not when or where to guard 
 against; trembling by day and by night for 
 their jxissessions and their families ; worn and 
 wasted by robbery, arson, and every outrage; 
 and a]ipar»ntly given over utterly in many 
 places to the grasp of the guerrilla and the 
 bushwhacker; they are, in large portions of the 
 State, liarassed, impoverished, and overborne 
 by accumulated calamity, beyond any concep- 
 tion of those who only read the meagre reports 
 which find their way into the public journals of 
 the day. ' Is it a marvel that they are excited ? 
 Would it not be wonderful if they were not? What 
 other people ever endured so much without ex- 
 citement ? Shall men sit quietly down and with 
 indifference see themselves despoiled, beggared, 
 and driven forth as fugitives from their homes ? 
 Have we got to that point when fathers can look 
 with stoicism upon the slaying of their sons, 
 and wives upon the murder of their husbands ? 
 If we have, then has the time come when popu- 
 lar excitement should be put down, as detrimen- 
 tal to the body politic. But that point is not 
 yet reached. Our hearts are not yet callous to 
 our own miseries, or to those of others. We 
 are not able to see why such full, heaping 
 measure of wrong should be dealt out to loyal 
 people, while the disloyal eat and drink and 
 sleep and work and journey in peace and safety. 
 We do not comprehend why protection should 
 be so fully accorded, as we know it to be, to 
 men of known disloyalty, while the loyal citi- 
 zen is not only not protected, but has been re- 
 quired to forego his Constitutional right to bear 
 arms, and to surrender to the military power 
 the weapons upon which alone he eould de- 
 pend for protecting himself, his family, 
 and his property. We do not under- 
 stand why military officers who pursued the 
 miscreants of blood and plunder with an en- 
 ergy that threatened their extermination, should, 
 without a word of explanation, be relieved of 
 their commands, or mustered out of service, in 
 the midst of their career, and succeeded by men 
 under whose administration the work of spolia- 
 tion and blood is plied with renewed vigor and 
 success. We do not see why large numbers of 
 men — or indeed any — who at the onset of the re- 
 btllion were outspoken and offensive Secession- 
 ists, should be appointed to high military posi- 
 tions under the State Government, while men 
 always and unconditionally for the Union are 
 refused such positions, or thrust from them. 
 
We do not perceive why men of thorough 
 and consistent loyalty should be arrested 
 and imprisoned by the military authorities, for 
 no assigned cause, or for so small a cause as 
 questioning the wisdom and purity of Governor 
 Gamble's administration and policy; and we re- 
 sent such arrests, and ought to resent them. And 
 least of all do we comprehend why the earnest 
 and beseeching appeals of Missouri's loyal and 
 suft'ering people to the head of the nation for 
 protection, should, apparently, be intercepted 
 or neutralized, and he be made to believe that 
 they proceed from a "pestilent faction," who«e 
 aim is to "torment " him. It is because of all 
 these things that tbere is excitement among the 
 loyal people of Missouri ; and 1 say that they 
 would deserve to suffer on, if they we^e not ex- 
 cited. But it is not an excitement which 
 threatens or looks to any lawless or reckless 
 proceeding. It asks only redress for incalcula- 
 ble evils, by lawful means; and this ("onven- 
 tion is one of the means it takes to make itself 
 heard and felt in quarters where, to hear and feel 
 it, may remove or mitigate the sore trials under 
 which our people have suffei ed. God grant that 
 those in power may sive heed to the voice of 
 Missouri's loyal people, before that burden be- 
 comes intolerable ! 
 
 But not in these matters alone, bitter and 
 hard to be borne as they are, have the loyal 
 Union people of Missouri been wronged. While 
 conservative policy has left them to be pillaged 
 and murdered, it has gathered its sirength and 
 put forth its hand to wrest from them their rightful 
 control in the affairs of Missouri, and to shape 
 the fundamental law and the organic institutions 
 of our State, acoordiiig to the lehests of her disloyal 
 'people. A coalition has been formed to over- 
 throw the Radical Union party, and deliver the 
 State over to the dominion of that Conservative 
 party, which contains all the disloyalty of Mis- 
 souri. At the head of that coalition is Gover- 
 nor Gamble ; and he is sustained in it by almost 
 every Federal oflice-holder of any note in the 
 State; by a host of State officers appointed by 
 himself to positions of high impor- 
 tance, civil and military ; and by an 
 army of politicians, who are seeking 
 their own advancement, and know that from the 
 Radical Union men of Missouri they have noth- 
 ing to hope. No such combination has anywhere 
 been made against the loyal people of any loyal 
 State. It is the great feature of the day in Mis- 
 souri. It is known to every observing man in 
 the State, and it attracts the attention of the 
 country. I wish to portray its course of wrong 
 to Missouri's loyal people. I will do it plainly, 
 fairly, and thoroughly ; for I deem it of the 
 greatest moment that, in this State and through- 
 
 out the loyal States, the position of our affairs, 
 and tliat of the men who have wronged that 
 peoplfe, should be clearly understood. 1 will 
 endeavor to present a historical summary of 
 the leading facts, in such simple and connected 
 form, that no man can fail to comprehend the 
 whole matter. 
 
 The point at which I begin is the accession of 
 Governor Gamble to the Provisional Chief Magis- 
 tracy of Missouri, on the 31st of July, 1S61; 
 for from that time the course of public affairs in 
 this State has connected itself directly with the 
 circumstances of the present period. His first 
 public declaration as Governor was significant 
 of his own opinions and feelings, and of those 
 of the people he was appointed to govern. On 
 the 4th of August, ISiil, he issued a proclama- 
 tion to that people, in which, referring to his 
 appointment, he said it '■'would satisfy all that no 
 countenance would l>e afforded to any scheme or 
 any conduct calculated in any degree to interfere 
 ivith the institutiirn of Slavery existing in the State, 
 and that to the utmost extent of Executive power that 
 institution tvould he jirotected. " Concerning this 
 remarkable declaration two things are apparent : 
 first, that Governor Gamble was then, and de- 
 sired it to be known that he was, a pro-Slavery 
 man, and intended to be a pro-Slavery Governor; 
 and second, that he believed the people of 
 Missouri to be a pro-Slavery people; as, in my 
 opinion, a large majority — perhaps seven- 
 eighths— of them then were. This proclamation 
 is the first point to be borne in mind ; for it 
 assumes importance in connection with subse- 
 quent events. 
 
 The sentiments of the people of Missouri in 
 regard to the institution of Slavery underwent 
 a radical change, not many months after that 
 proclamation was issued. They came, by slow 
 but sure degrees, to understand that this re- 
 bellion had but one origin and purpose — the 
 aggrandizement of Slavery as a political power, 
 the destruction of the noble Republic inherited 
 from our fathers, and the substitution for it in 
 the South of a great and strange Empire, based 
 on Slavery, and intended for subjugation, 
 piracy, and eventual dominion over this whole 
 continent. When they saw it announced au- 
 thoritatively by the parties engaged in the work 
 of founding that empire, that they were only 
 consummating what had Ijcen in conspiracy for 
 forty years ; when they saw that for Slavery the 
 Southern aristocrats were striving to overturn 
 ttie liberties of the American people, disrupt 
 their Union, and destroy their Constitution ; 
 when they perceived that the success of this 
 unexampled and incomparable scheme of out- 
 rage, fraud, perjury, and treason, would plunge 
 this nation into perpetual war, and that as long 
 
as Missouri should be a slave State, she would 
 he one of the chief victims of that war; when, 
 1 say, all these things became manifest to 
 tlie loyal peeple of Missouri, a mighty 
 revolution in their opinions concerning Slavery 
 began, and from month to month moved on 
 with tremendous rapidity and force. Never, I 
 will venture to aflirm, was there witnessed in 
 this country so marked and swift a revolution 
 of piiblic sentiment in regard to so important 
 a matter. And it was all the more glorious, 
 because it sprang from a glowing and vital pa- 
 triotism, whicn rejoiced in any sacrifice of opin- 
 ion or interest in so holy a cause. While South- 
 ern traitors were demanding the emancipation 
 of Slavery from contact with the free institu- 
 tions of the North, the loyal people of Missouri 
 demanded her emancipation from contact with 
 that institution, which they recognized as aim- 
 ing fatal blows at all they loved in country, all 
 they cherished in memory, and all they clung to 
 in hope for themselves and their posterity. 
 
 The tendency of the public mind to the remo- 
 val of Slavery from Missouri received a decided 
 impulse in April, 18(52, in consequence of the 
 passage by Congress, upon the recommendation 
 of the President, of a resolution, declaring 
 " that the United States ought to co-operate with 
 any State which may adopt gradual abolishment 
 of Slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, 
 to bo used by such State in its discretion, to 
 compensate for the inconveniences, public and 
 private, produced by such change of system." 
 The great obstacle to Emancipation in Missouri 
 was the provision in her Constitution, prohibi- 
 ting the Legislature from passing any law " for 
 the emancipation of slaves, without the consent 
 of their owners, or without paying them, before 
 such emancipation, a full equivalent for such 
 slaves so emancipated." As such compensation 
 from our own resources was an impossibility, 
 the resolution of Congress held out the hope of 
 its coming from the National treasury, and the 
 feeling in favor of Emancipation received there- 
 from increased force and extension. 
 
 With the loyal sentiment of Missouri in this 
 transition state from decided pro-Slaveryism to 
 radical anti-Slaveryism, the State Convention 
 assembled on the 2d of June, 1862, on the call of 
 the Governor. On the 7th of that month, Judge 
 Breckinkidge introduced into that body an Or- 
 dinance proposing a plan of gradual Emanci- 
 pation, to be submitted to the people for their 
 ratification or rejection, on the first Monday of 
 August, ISiU, and supported it in a speech; at 
 the close of Avhich, on motion of Judge Hall, of 
 Randolph, the Ordinance was laid on the table, 
 by a vote of 52 to 19 ; and, to use a well-known 
 and significant expression, exultingly applied, 
 
 at the time, to the act, Emancipation was 
 " Mlled at the first pop.'''' The Convention thereby 
 pronounced itself opposed to Emancipation. 
 It was a pro-Slavery body, and of course intol- 
 erant. It would hear no more on the subject 
 than what Judge Brecktnridge had a parlia- 
 mentary right to urge, and having heard that, it 
 was prepared to consign his proposition, and 
 did consign it, to a tomb from which there 
 should be no resurrection. 
 
 Six days after this act of the Convention, on 
 the 13th of June, Governor Gamble sent a mes- 
 sage to that body, relating entirely to its action 
 on Judge Breckinridge's Ordinance. He saw 
 that that action "might be represented as rudely 
 discourteous to the President and Congress," 
 and "would, without doubt, be so misrepre- 
 sented as to excite a hostile feeling to the State, 
 among all those in authority who favor Eman- 
 cipation, and thus iniurionshj afect tlie interests 
 vf the State. ' ' The obj ect of that message, mani- 
 fest upon its face, was to tell the members 
 of the Convention how they might get out of the 
 twofold scrape they had got into, with the Na- 
 tional Government and with their own people. 
 Not a word indicated the least sympathy with 
 Emancipation; not a word took off the keen edge 
 of the pro-Slavery proclamation of August, 1861. 
 The Governor was still Missouri's pro-Slavery 
 Governor. Eighteen months of Slavery's war 
 upon the Union had, apparently, implanted in 
 his mind no sentiment against the peculiar in- 
 stitution, here or elsewhere; his sole anxiety 
 was, that there should be "no appearance of a 
 design to treat the offer of the President and 
 Congress with neglect." He suggested, and 
 most truly, that " it was not con- 
 templated by the people, when electing the 
 body, that it should ever act upon the subject of 
 Slavery in the State, and therefore such action 
 would be improper ;" a reason as valid for all 
 future time, as then. lie suggested further, 
 that "the public mind was so agitated already, 
 that the proposal of any scheme of Emancipation 
 would produce dangerous excitement;" a rea- 
 son for non-action fully as forcible in June, 1863, 
 as in June, 1862. These suggestions he accom- 
 panied with the following remarks : 
 
 " In theory. Conventions are understood to 
 possess all political power, but in actual prac- 
 tice they confine themselves to the measures 
 upon which the people at the time ot their elec- 
 tion expected them to act. When this Conven- 
 ti9n was chosen, the subject before the public 
 mind was the relations between the 
 State and the general Government. Act- 
 ing upon this subject, the Convention 
 deposed a Governor and Legislature, because 
 they were trying to disturb those rela- 
 tions ; militia ordinances were adopted, be- 
 cause a militarjr force was necessary to main- 
 tain those relations ; the ofiices of all persons 
 
who refused to take an oath of allegiance were 
 vacated, because ofiScial power in the hands of 
 disloyal persons jiiight be employed to disturb 
 such "relations ; laws were vacated, because they 
 had been passed for the purpose of bringing on 
 a collision with the general Government — in 
 fine, the action of the Convention has been 
 mainly addressed to the one subject which it 
 was elected to consider, and to those which 
 arose out of it. 
 
 "When, then, it is asked to entertain a prop- 
 osition, whieh is to effect a radical change in 
 the social organization of the State, it is well 
 warranted in declining to act upon the proposi- 
 tion, upon the ground that the people, in choos- 
 ing the Convention, never intended or imagined 
 that the body would undertake any social revo- 
 lution wholly unconnected with the relations 
 between the State and the general Government. 
 No person who understands the principles of 
 our Government would object to such action, 
 unless it be one who is willing to disregard all 
 principle to accomplish a desired end." 
 
 As I have said on former occasions, so I reit- 
 erate now, that this language embodies and 
 affirms the following five propositions : 
 
 1. That Emancipation is a social revolution. 
 
 2. That it is wholly imconnected with the re- 
 lations between the State and the general Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 5. That the people, in choosing the Conven- 
 tion, never inUnded w imagined that it would 
 undertake to act on the subject of Emancipa- 
 tion. 
 
 4. That, therefore, the Convention was well 
 warranted in declining to act upon it. 
 
 6. That whoever, understanding the princi- 
 ples of our Government, would object to the 
 Convention's so declining to act, is willing to 
 disregard all principle to accomplish a desired 
 end. 
 
 No grounds could have been assumed 
 more fatal to the propriety or expediency of any 
 action by tliat Convention, at any time, upon 
 the subject of Emancipation. We shall see, as 
 we proceed, how the Governor maintained his 
 own voluntarily-assumed position. 
 
 There is a very striking fact disclosed by the 
 Journal of the Convention in connection with 
 the paragraphs just quoted from the Governor's 
 message. The Convention, acting upon his sug- 
 gestion, proceeded to consider how it should 
 respond to the resolution of Congress. A com- 
 mittee was appointed, which reported a pream- 
 ble and resolutions. Lieutenant Governor Hall 
 offered, as a substitute for the report of the 
 committee, a preamble and a resolution, the 
 latter of which was as follows : 
 
 " Eesolmd, That while this Convention recog- 
 nizes the liberality of the Government of the 
 United States in the action referred to, yet the 
 Convention thinks it should not act upon the 
 subjectofEmancipatiou, for thefoUowing among 
 other reasons." 
 
 The resolution then copies, word for word. 
 
 the paragraphs of the Governor's message above 
 sited, except the first and last sentences. 
 On ^ the vote upon the adoption of that 
 substitute, every member who voted for it 
 declared himself emphatically as sustaining the 
 Governor's objections to any action by </<«< Con- 
 vention, at any time, on the subject of Emanci- 
 pation. And yet, one year afterward, Lieut. 
 Gov. Hall was one of the committee that reported 
 an Ordinance of Emancipation for that body to 
 pass ; and fifteen of those who voted for his res- 
 olution in June, 1862, changed front in June, 
 1863, and voted for the ordinance then passed 
 by that Convention ! 
 
 Having seemingly given a death-blow to 
 Emancipation in that body, the Convention ad- 
 journed to the 4th day of July, 1863, when, with- 
 out re-assembling, it was to stand adjourned 
 sine die. It declared its work done, and each 
 man went his way, never expecting to return. 
 But the door was left open for the re-assembling 
 of the body, upon the call of the Governor. One 
 man held the power to reinstate at any moment 
 the rule of that Convention; and we shall see 
 how he exercised it. 
 
 Five months after the Convention's action 
 upon Judge Breckinridge's proposition, an 
 election was held for members of the General 
 Assembly. They were months of steady and 
 rapid progress in the popular mind in favor of 
 Emancipation. Every day the loyal people of 
 Missouri grew more radical in sentiment 
 against Slavery, their country's enemy. Mis- 
 souri's Emancipation army was "marching on." 
 The election resulted in the choice of a decided 
 majority of Emancipationists in each House; 
 but unfortunately, mainly through the machina- 
 tions of Federal office-holders, high in position in 
 ovr State, differences of opinion as to plans of 
 Emancipation were created. The Legislature 
 met on the 29th of December, 1862, and on the 
 following day received the Governor's message. 
 To the surprise of many who remembered his 
 proclamation of August, 1861, and his message 
 to the Convention in June, 1862, he declared 
 himself in favor of Emancipation, and recom- 
 mended action by the Legislature in 
 relation to it. But he felt the em- 
 barrassment produced by the Constitutional 
 limitation upon the power of the Legislature, 
 before referred to. As it was impossible for the 
 State, unaided, to pay any such equivalent for 
 the slaves emancipated as that provision re- 
 quired, the Governor recommended that an act 
 should be passed, providing that the children 
 of slave women, born thereafter, should be born 
 free, and should remain in the custody and un- 
 der the control of the owner of their mothers 
 until attaining a certain age; which plan, he 
 
considered, would require no compensation to 
 be paid to the slaveholder but for " tlie dimin- 
 ished value of the female slaws thus rendered inca- 
 pable of learing slaves.'''' And such an act, so ut- 
 utterly impotent to remove Slavery from our 
 soil,— for, standing by itself, it would never 
 have secured freedom to one-tenth of the chil- 
 dren born after its passage,— he intimated 
 might be made to take effect, upon provision be- 
 ing made by Congress for the small amount of 
 compensation required ! 
 
 This was gravely proposed by Governor Gam- 
 ble as a plan of Emancipation ; proposed as an 
 "effectual mode of extinguishing the desire of 
 the rebel leaders to have this State within the 
 pretended Confederacy ;'' proposed as a means 
 of " encouraging immigration from the free 
 States!" It would have been about equal in its 
 effects to dropping a homeopathic pill into the 
 proboscis of a sick elephant. I refer to it, be- 
 cause it is a fact connected with the wrong done 
 to the loyal people of Missouri, which is to be 
 exposed. 
 
 The Legislature sat from the 2ltth of December, 
 1862, to the 23d of March, ISrtS, and then ad- 
 journed over to the K'th of November next, hav- 
 ing done nothing to advance the cause of Eman- 
 cipation. On the ISth of March, the Senate, by 
 a vote of 17 to 15, passed a Concurrent Eesolu- 
 tion, requesting the Governor to call the Con- 
 vention together at an early period, for the 
 purpose of taking into consideration the subject 
 of Emancipation ; every Conservative voting 
 for it, and, aided by two Eadicals, passing it. 
 iVo attempt was ever made to talce up this resolution 
 ill the House, nor could any such attempt have 
 been successful. On the same day, the Senate 
 passed a bill for the election of a new Conven- 
 tion, provided the old Convention did not, be- 
 fore the succeeding first of July, adopt a scheme 
 of Emancipation. Two attempts were made to 
 get this bill up in the House; but it required a 
 two-thirds vote to suspend the rules ; and each 
 time theeffort failed by a single vote. And with 
 both resolution and bill thus pending in 
 the House, and open for action when the Legis- 
 lature should re-convene in November, the 
 adjournment took place. But let it not be sup- 
 posed that the effort in the House to get the bill 
 lip, indicated any desire among the Emancipa- 
 tionists there to pass it in the shape in which it 
 came from the Senate. On the contrary, it was 
 perfectly understood that if it had been got up, 
 the provision referring to the old Convention 
 would have been certainly struck out. 
 
 The facts which 1 have thus stated in detail are 
 all necessary to a correct understanding of the 
 case. Let us now examine their bearings upon 
 
 the main point — the wrong done to the loyal 
 people of Missouri. 
 
 I have placed before you Governor Gamble's 
 message to the Convention in June, 1862, and 
 his message to the Legislature in the following 
 December ; and how does the matter stand ? 
 "Why, thus. Ill his judgment, at tlie former pe- 
 riod, the Convention had no business to act 
 upon Emancipation at all, because the people, 
 in choosing it, never intended or imagined 
 it would undertake to act upon that 
 that subject ; and therefore the Convention 
 was well warranted in killing Judge 
 Breckinridge's Ordinance ; and no one would 
 find fault with it for so doing, unless he was 
 ivilli)ig to disregard all principle. So much for the 
 Convention. Then, as to the Legislature, he 
 finds that it is hampered by a Constitutional 
 provision, which precluded any action on its 
 part, except to declare after-born children of 
 slave mothers to be born free ; and that action 
 was suggested to take effect only when Congress 
 should provide the means for paying the owners 
 of the mothers for the injury resulting to them 
 from making the mothers incapable of breeding 
 any more slaves. Here, then, Avas a Governor 
 declaring himself in favor of Emancipation, and 
 arguing in favor of it to a Legislature that was 
 in favor of it, but almost powerless to do any- 
 thing for it, which Legislature represented a 
 people that were overwhelmingly in favor of it: 
 what was the course he should have taken ? Can 
 any right-minded man hesitate in declaring 
 that, if the Governor was earnestly an Emanci- 
 pationist, he should and would have pointed the 
 Legislature to some way by which the popular 
 will might be carried into effect ? As matters 
 then stood he found the way blocked ; why did 
 he ignore the only way that lay wide open — a 
 direct appeal to the people, in the election of a new 
 Convention? 
 
 This is no idle question. Every man knows 
 that he can often judge another as well by what 
 he does not, as by what he does. If a man is 
 drowning, and you do not throw a rope to him 
 when you have one, because you have tried to 
 save him by your hand and failed, would not 
 all the world say, and say justly, that you were 
 indifferent to his fate, or wanted him to drown? 
 And so, when Governor Gamble recommended 
 Emancipation to the Legislature which was 
 powerless, and also held that the Convention 
 ought not to act upon the subject, because it was 
 not elected for any such purpose, and at the 
 same time said not one word in favor of, or in 
 allusion to, that other course which, if pursued, 
 would have secured Emancipation, and secured 
 it as the people desired it, and so settled the 
 matter forever ; I demand, and have a right to 
 
demand, why he preserved that silence ? Will 
 it be said it was not his province ? He is re- 
 quired by the Constitution of the State to " re- 
 commend to their consideration such measures 
 as he may deem necessary and expedient." Will 
 it be said it was not proper for him to suggest 
 that particular mode of action ? Why not ? He 
 could suggest to the Convention excuses and 
 arguments to sustain their action on Judge 
 Breckinridge's Ordinance; and he could suggest 
 Emancipation to the General Assembly, and 
 argue in favor of it ; why not suggest and sup- 
 port the only means of obtaining Emancipation 
 in such way as to satisfy the people ? Will it be 
 said that he could not have known that a re- 
 commendation from him on that point would 
 have helped the measure? He had no right, for 
 that reason, to withhold it, any more than to 
 refuse to recommend any other measure, because 
 he did'nt know whether it would be adopted. 
 But nothing is more certain, than that, if he had 
 advocated a new ConcenUon,an act providin<i for it 
 wmild have lee?h passed. But here came in a bug- 
 bear, that was paraded, during the whole ses- 
 sion of the Legislature, to defeat the bill for a 
 new Convention, viz : that if a new Convention 
 should be called, there might arise a conflict be- 
 tween it and the old Convention. But that was 
 impossible, unless Governor Gamble, after 
 the new Convention was authorized, should 
 call the old one together again; for 
 it never could meet again, except upon 
 his call. And so it was perfectly in 
 his power to have procured a new Convention, 
 and also to have prevented the re-assembling of 
 the old one. Why did he not so do? I cannot say 
 upon his authority, for he has never told me. or, 
 so far as I know, told the world. I am forced 
 to conclusions upon the facts as they are known 
 to the public. If my conclusions are unjust to 
 Governor Gamble, I am sorry for it; I do not 
 nfek them. I say, citizens of Missouri, that I 
 can see no other reason for his utter silence in 
 regard to a new Convention, than that he did 
 not intend that the people should have any 
 further opportunity to say or do anything what- 
 ever, practically, on the subject of Emancipa- 
 tion. In other words, he determined, if possible, 
 to wrest the whole matter out of their Jiands, and 
 force Emancipation upon them through the old Con- 
 vention, regardless of their wishes, and in defi- 
 ance of their sacred right to shape their own 
 fundamental law and their own do- 
 mestic institutions. Thi.s is the only conclu- 
 sion 1 can arrive at, and, before God, I believe 
 it to be a right one. 
 
 That it was Governor Gamble's purpose so to use 
 the old Convention, is manifest from subsequent 
 events. The Legislature adjourned on the 23d 
 
 of March, 1868, and on the 15th of April he issued 
 his call for the Convention to meet on the 15th 
 of June, to " consult and act upon the subjectof 
 Ei^ancipation of slaves, and such other matters 
 as may be connected with the peace and pros- 
 perity of the State." In his judgment, it was 
 " of the highest importMice to the interest of the 
 State that some scheme of Emancipation should 
 be adopted." 
 
 My friends, looking at this act of the Gover- 
 nor in the light of his previous declarations, 
 and of the then condition of things in the State, 
 I cannot but regard it as one of the most extra- 
 ordinary exercises of Executive power that 
 have ever fallen under my observation ; and as 
 indefensible as it was extraordinary. Why, 
 look at it. Only ten months and two days before 
 the date of that call, he had solemnly declared 
 to the Convention, that the people, in choosing 
 that body, never intended or— mark the word — 
 imagined that it would undertake to act on the 
 subject of Emancipation; and now he calls 
 them to do that very thing! He had told 
 the Convention, moreover, that it was 
 justified in killing an Ordinance of Emancipa- 
 tion in the way it did, and yet he calls it together 
 to pass such an Ordinance. He had, with a severity 
 of expression unusual for him, declared, in 
 effect, that no man of principle would have that 
 Convention act on that subject ; and yet he con- 
 venes it for that very purpose ! What does this 
 mean ? Was it the same man speaking in June, 
 1862, in condemnation of any action by that 
 Convention upon that subject, who, in April, 
 1868, called them to act upon it ? Yes, it was 
 the same Governor Gamble in body, but unfor- 
 tunately not in mind. A change, a wondrous 
 change, had come over his opinions in that brief 
 time. He no longer saw that it was wrong for 
 that Convention to take Emancipation in hand 
 and act upon it, but contrariwise saw it was 
 right ; though the grounds xipon which he "based his 
 previous opinion remaiiwd precisely the same. He 
 no longer held that any man who wanted it so 
 to act was an unprincipled man; for he wanted 
 that very thing. He saw no more that Emanci- 
 pation was a social revolution, wholly uncon- 
 nected with the relations between the State 
 and the general Government, which the people, 
 in choosing that Convention, never dreamed it 
 would undertake. And, above all, he forgot 
 that for such a body, so elected, to assume to 
 act upon such a subject, was a grievous wrong 
 to a people who were at that very time repre- 
 sented by another set of men, in their General 
 Assembly ; who had been elected twenty-one 
 months after the Convention, and actually had 
 pending before them propositions looking to 
 a settlement of the whole matter by a new 
 
Convention, to be elected for that express end. 
 It is due to Governor Gamble, and to the 
 cause of truth and fair discussion, that 1 should 
 take time and space to present whatever grounds 
 I find anywhere taken by him in defense of his 
 recall of that Convention, as it were, from the 
 brink ot its grave. He has twice expressed 
 himself in relation to that matter ; first, in his 
 message to the Convention, at the opening of the 
 late session ; and secondly , in a speech he made 
 in the Convention on the 27th of June. In his 
 message he used the following language : 
 
 "The importance of the subject, [Emancipa- 
 tion,] in its relation to all the interests of the 
 State, demanded, in myjudgment, very speedy 
 action by a body capable oi finally disposing of 
 it, by the adoption of some wise and justscheme 
 of Emancipation. The Senate passed a joint 
 resolution requesting me to call the Convention 
 together, and also a bill for the election of dele- 
 gates to a new Convention, provided your body 
 should not, before the first day of July next, 
 adopt a scheme of Emancipation, Although 
 neither of these measures was acted upon in the 
 House of Kepresentatives, yet the friends of 
 Emancipation in the House exhibited the great- 
 est earnestness in endeavoring to have the bill 
 which came from the Senate acted upon by the 
 House, and were only foiled by the application 
 of stringent parliamentary rules. This action 
 in the Assembly gave strength to my own con- 
 viction, that you should be called together, 
 rather than wait until the Assembly should 
 again convene in November next, and then ini- 
 tiate measures of Emancipation, which might 
 require some time before they could have eifect." 
 
 In his speech in the Convention he thus ex- 
 pressed himself : 
 
 " This Convention is called in this city that 
 there should be Emancipation— fS/ia;! there shall 
 le Emancipation. 
 
 "It is said that this is in conflict with the 
 communication I made to this body last session. 
 What is that communication in its general 
 scope ? I say that an answer is demanded to 
 the oflferof the General Government. The pre- 
 sent position of the question here is such that 
 you cannot act upon it ; and why ? Because 
 you have laid it upon the table, which is a final 
 disposition of the subject. I state reasons 
 which you might assign as reasons for the course 
 you adopted. 
 
 " The suggestions ofiPered were made for the 
 benefit of the Convention, and to make a cour- 
 teous answer to the President and to Congress." 
 
 In these two extracts we have all that the 
 Governor has said, so far as I know, in defense 
 of his calling that Convention to act on the sub- 
 ject of Emancipation. The singular vapidness of 
 the latter will attract attention. It gives no 
 answer to the charge of inconsistency, takes 
 back nothing, explains nothing. His justifica- 
 tion, if any, is to be found in the passage quoted 
 from his message to the Convention ; and let us 
 examine that. 
 
 He says he called the Convention together, be- 
 cause, first, in his judgment, "very speedy 
 action" was demanded; secorul, because the 
 
 Senate had, by a majority of two votes, passed a 
 resolution requesting him to do so; third, be- 
 cause the Senate had passed a bill for the elec- 
 tion of a new Convention, provided the old one 
 did not, before the first of July, 1S63, adopt a 
 scheme of Emancipation ; and fourth, because 
 the friends of Emancipation in^the House exhib- 
 ited the greatest earnestness in endeavoring to 
 have that bill acted upon by the House. 
 
 My friends, I confess to a feeling of sadness 
 and humiliation at such an exhibition on the 
 part of one so high in station, for whom, for 
 more than a quarter of a century, I had enter- 
 tained the highest respect. Never before, prob- 
 ably, did a high public ofiicer in this country 
 more expose himself to criticism and 
 condemnation, than did Governor Gam- 
 ble in that assignment of reasons for 
 that act. The utter insufiBciency, the absolute 
 puerility of such a defense, must be apparent 
 to the most limited comprehension. Nay, more 
 and worse, does it not bear the plainest marks 
 of insincerity ? Why was " very speedy action " 
 necessary? What circumstances forbade that 
 Emancipation should be postponed until the 
 people could act upon it through a new Conven- 
 tion ? He states none, nor can^any man desig- 
 nate any. But if they existed when he issued 
 his call on the 15th of April, they must have ex- 
 isted before the adjournment of the Legislature 
 on the 23d of March : why, if there was such ur- 
 gency, did he not communicate it to that 
 body, and let it provide for the exigency ? The 
 old Convention was elected twenty-eight days, 
 and assembled thirty-eight days, after the 
 passage of the act authorizing it; what 
 was to prevent a like promptness in the election 
 and assembling of a new Convention ? Had the 
 Legislature passed an act to call a new Conven- 
 tion, it might have met, passed an Ordinance 
 of Emancipation, and adjourned, before 
 the day he fixed for the old Convention to 
 assemble; and so the "very speedy action " 
 would have been had, sooner than it was had 
 at the hands of the body which assembled in 
 obedience to his sole will. As to the reasons 
 based on the proceedings in the two branches of 
 the General Assembly, they are not worthy of 
 argument or notice. To the whole batch I sim- 
 ply oppose his own declaration, in 1S62, " that 
 the people in choosing the Con'vention never intended 
 or imagined that the tody would undertake any 
 social revolution wholly unconnected with the rela- 
 tions between the /State and the general Govern- 
 ment ; " and his still more emphatic announce- 
 ment, in the same paragraph, that ''^ no person 
 tvho understands the principles of our Government 
 ivould object to such action [as that upon Judge Brech- 
 inridge''s Ordinance,'] unless it le one who is willing 
 
10 
 
 TO DiSBEOABD ALL PRINCIPLE to accoiyipUsli, a de- 
 sired end.'''' Let Governor Gamble reconGile 
 himself with himself, if he can. If he can es- 
 cape his own denunciation, it is more than I 
 could, were I in his position. 
 
 But not alone on the grounds so stated by 
 Governor Gamble was it a wrong to the loyal 
 people of Missouri to summon that Convention 
 to the great work of Emancipation. Even if 
 those grounds had not existed, there were others 
 which made it offensive and injurious to the 
 people for that body to handle that great sub- 
 ject. Elected" in February, 1861, it was, in no 
 respect, except in the persons of the eleven 
 members elected in May and June, ISGS, to fill 
 vacancies, an authentic exponent of the public 
 sentiment of Missouri when it assembled to 
 make its final record. The cunstituency of 1S63 
 was, ill law and in fact, wholly different from the 
 constituency of 1861. The Convention itself, in 
 June, 1862, had prescribed new conditions for 
 the exercise of the elective franchise, requiridg 
 the taking of a solemn and searching oath of 
 allegiance, and expurgation from complicity in 
 the rebellion after the I7th of December, 1861, 
 as a pre-requisite to the right of voting. Every 
 man who would not take that oath was banished 
 from the polls, was disfranchised as a voter, 
 was not one of the people whose will was to be 
 considered. The control of the State had passed, 
 by fundamental constitutional enactments, into 
 the hands of its loyal people, or those who 
 would stand that test of their loyalty. That 
 Convention, therefore, was no embodiment or 
 representative of the will of the rightful constitu- 
 ency of 1863, but of a former and a different 
 constituency; a large proportion of which was 
 then in the armies of the rebellion, or pursuing 
 the bloody work of the bushwhacker, or sulk- 
 ing at home in self-imposed abstinence from the 
 right of suffrage, because it dared not appeal to 
 God to witness its freedom from the stain of 
 treason, or the sincerity of its allegiance to the 
 noblest Government He ever vouchsafed to man. 
 When, therefore, the Governor convened 
 that body to perform the glorious work 
 of Emancipation, he convened a body 
 which, whatever its legal power, had no more 
 moral right to do that work, without submitting 
 its action to the present constituency, that is, 
 the loyal people of Missouri, than the Legisla- 
 ture of Maine or Oregon would have had. 
 
 Not only so, but more. It was a body which 
 had shown itself, a year before, opposed to the 
 consideration even of the subject of Emancipa- 
 tion, and it has never signified that its feelings 
 had changed on that point. True, it ordained 
 what it termed Emancipation ; but not because 
 it desired or favored that great measure; but 
 
 because it was resolved to prevent its accom- 
 plishment by, and according to the desire of, the 
 loy^ people of the State. No man lives who 
 dares affirm that a majority of that Convention 
 were for Emancipation on principle, from con- 
 viction, or in feeling. It was essentially a pro- 
 Slavery body. Of the fifty-one members who 
 voted for the ordinance passed, forty were 
 slaveholders; a few of whom should be honored 
 for their advocacy of the cause of Freedom for 
 its own sake ; all the rest were but playing a, 
 fart. And it was a body, the control of which 
 was in the hands of men whose past acts there 
 gave evident token of disloyalty. Eighteen were 
 there, who voted in July, 1861, against the deposition^ 
 of Governor Jaclcson; and sixteen of them — all 
 who were present at the time, and more than 
 enough to have changed the result in each case 
 — voted, in 1863, against an election of a Gover- 
 nor and other State officers by the people, and 
 for the exemption of slave property from taxa- 
 tion ; and eight of them— more than enough to 
 have changed the result — against submitting the 
 ordinance of Emancipation to the people for 
 ratification. Twenty-one were there, who voted, 
 in 1861, against turning out the traitorous Legis- 
 lature of that year. Sixteen were there, who 
 voted against the abrogation by the Convention 
 of the treasonable laws enacted by that 
 Legislature. Twenty-two were there, who 
 voted against the test-oath ordinance 
 of June 10, 1862, intended to exclude trai- 
 tors from the polls. Sixteen were there, who 
 had voted against allowing our brave soldiers 
 to vote in their camps beyond the limits of the 
 State. The efficient control, in fact, was in the 
 hands of those who had in such ways signalized 
 their disloyalty; aided by seventeen, who were 
 bound to the Gamble dynasty by offices of trust 
 and profit received from it. And this was the 
 body which, as Colonel Doniphan said at Lib- 
 erty, after its adjournment, was convened by 
 Governor Gamble, on the request of " certain 
 wealthy slaveholders residing in different parts of 
 the State." For what purpose? To oi'dain 
 Emancipation according tothe will of the State's 
 loyal people ? No ; but that ''^something should he 
 done to save slave property from utter waste and spo- 
 liation, and give to slaveholders a Irief oppoi-tunity 
 to maTce the best disposition in thiir power of their 
 slaves'.''"' 
 
 From such a body, convened on such a prin- 
 ciple, controlled by such influences, and work- 
 ing to such ends, what could be expected, other 
 than has been realized ? Called ostensibly to 
 destroy Slavery, it labored disloyally for its 
 preservation from the early doom which the 
 loyalty of Missouri, if it could have spoken, 
 would have awarded it, and postponed Eman- 
 
11 
 
 cipation, nominally, until the 4th of July, 1870, 
 but in fact for a quarter of a century longer.* 
 While there were those who desired and labored 
 for Emancipation for its own sake, and for the 
 sake of Missouri and the Union, the potential 
 influence was, at heart, against Emancipation 
 on any grounds, and equally against every rad- 
 ical measure against Slavery anywhere. Few 
 there yielded their pro-Slavery views in obedi- 
 ence to the anti-Slavery sentiments of their peo- 
 ple ; but there were numbers there who knew 
 that they utterly misrepresented the popular 
 will in the districts whence they came. Nothing 
 concerning the body was more true or more ap- 
 parent, than that, pretending to favor Emanci- 
 pation, it was resolved to postpone it to the last 
 possible moment, and to yield it on the least 
 possible injurious terms to the slaveholder. 
 And even that was done with the open avowal 
 by some, that before the period fixed for the 
 emancipation of the negro from slavery, and his 
 transmission to a condition of servitude, the 
 
 •Having, in a speech at St. Louis, on the 9th of July 
 last, discussed the terms of the Ordinance pakscd by 
 the Convention, it is sufficient here to present the Or- 
 dinance itself, which is as follows : 
 
 AN ORDINANCE to provide for certain amend- 
 ments to the Constitution, and for Emancipation of 
 Slaves. 
 
 Be it ordained by the people of the Slate of Missouri 
 in Convention assembled : 
 
 Sec. 1. The first and second clauses of the 26th sec- 
 tion of the third article of the Constitution are hereby 
 abrogated. 
 
 Sec. 2. That slavery and involuntary servitude, except 
 for the punishment of crime, shall cease to exist in 
 Missouri, on the fourth day of July, 1870; and all slaves 
 within the Stale, at that day, are hereby declared to be 
 tree; Provided, hoxoever, that all persons emancipated 
 by this ordinance shall remain under the control, and be 
 .subject to the authority of their late owners, represen- 
 tatives and assigns, as servants, durinp: the following 
 
 period, to-wit : those over fortv ■■'• >'' ■-:% for and 
 
 during their lives; those und;-, of age, 
 
 until they arrive at the age of t n .s; and 
 
 those of all other ages, until tii. ; > ot July, 
 
 1876. The persons, or their legal ipprcseiit:i lives, who, 
 up to the moment of emancipation, were the owners of 
 the slaves thereby freed, shall, during the period for 
 which the services of such freed men are reserved to 
 them, have the same authority and control over the said 
 freed men, for the purpose of securing the possession 
 and services of the same, that are now held absolutely 
 by the master in respect of his slave : Provided, how- 
 ever, that after the said fourth day of July, 1870, no 
 person, so held to service, .shall be sold to a non-resi- 
 dent of, or removed from, the State of Missouri, by the 
 authority of his late owner, or his legal representa- 
 tives. 
 
 SEC. 3. That all slaves hereafter brought into this 
 State, and not now belonging to citizens of this State, 
 shall thereupon be free. 
 
 Sec. jt All slaves removed by consent of their own- 
 ers to any seceded State, after the passage by such State 
 of an act or ordinance of secession, and hereafter 
 brought into this State, by their owners, shall there- 
 upon be free. 
 
 Sec. 5. The CJeneral Assembly shall have no power to 
 pass laws to emancipate slaves, without the consent of 
 their owners. 
 
 Sec. 6. After the passage of this ordinance, no slaves 
 in this State shall be subject to State, county or muni- 
 cipaltaxes. 
 
 people would elect three Legislatures ; justifying the 
 inference that, before that period should arrive, 
 the work of the Convention might be repealed. 
 Of Emancipation obtained at the hands of such a 
 body, in the form it was pleased to grant,— pro- 
 Slavery Emancipation, if such a solecism is allow- 
 able,— Governor Gamble was the chief engineer ; 
 showing himself still, to my mind, to be, as he was 
 in 1861, Missouri's pro-Slavery Governor. True, 
 the date he at one time proposed for Slavery to 
 cease, nominally, in Missouri, was not that 
 finally fixed ; but even in the same breath that 
 he expressed himself as desiring the 4th of 
 July, 1867, he announced with remarkable ac- 
 commodativeness, "I am willing to receive any 
 action that, in your judgment, is best." But 
 some action he was resolved should be had, 
 then and there, and he staked his official posi- 
 tion as Governor upon it. In his speech to the 
 Convention, on the 27th of June, this paragraph 
 occurs: 
 
 " If, after having exercised my best judgment 
 upon this subject, 1 have called this Convention 
 together for the purpose of action, and it should 
 separate with the expression of a contrary 
 opinion, or without adopting any scheme of 
 Emancipation, I would not feel myself at liberty 
 to continue in the exercise of 'the Executive 
 function. I would feel, as a Minister in Eng- 
 land, when a proposition of his is voted down 
 in the Commons, that it is a denial of the cor- 
 rectness of his judgmentas to the proper policy 
 of the State, and he resigns at once; so I would 
 not feel at liberty to continue in the Executive 
 office, if the Convention did not pass some 
 scheme of Emancipation ; because it would be 
 a judgment adverse to what I think should be 
 the policy of the State." 
 
 And the pro-Slavery Convention, the balance 
 of power in which was held by men whose past 
 acts there proclaim them disloyal at heart, 
 bowed to the Governor's demand for '^some 
 scheme of Emancipation," because his continu- 
 ance in olBce was necessary to them and their 
 plans, and the price of it was any scheme of 
 Emancipation they might choose to adopt! 
 Easy terms ! facile Governor ! pliant Conven- 
 tion ! and all that "something should be done 
 to save slave property from utter waste and 
 spoliation, and give to slaveholders a brief op- 
 portunity to make the best disposition in their 
 power of their slaves !" 
 
 Had Governor Gamble been half as solicitous 
 for the people's approval of his administration, 
 as he was for the Convention's— half as fearful of 
 a popular "denial of the correctnessof his judg- 
 ment as to the proper policy of the State," as he 
 was of such a denial by the Convention, he would 
 have been a wiser man and a better Governor. 
 He would then have known that the loyal people 
 of Missouri long ago abandoned all hope of 
 him as a defender and supporter of true, uncom- 
 promising loyalty in our distressed and ravaged 
 
12 
 
 state; and that since what he deemed "the 
 proper policy of the State " has been inaugura- 
 ted by him, there is not a disloyal man or looman 
 in, all Missouri that is not Ms hacJcer. Truly, "the 
 laborer is worthy of his hire," and the Gover- 
 nor has received his. He enjoys position, pow- 
 er, influence, but at what a terrible price ! But 
 all his other mispolicies are of transient mo- 
 ment, compared with that upon which he put his 
 hazard in that Convention. Almost the life- 
 breath of Missouri hung upon action there. 
 His influence shaped that action, not for the cause 
 of Emancipation and the Union, — one and the 
 same in Missouri— but for Slavery, the Union's 
 enemy, and for slaveholders, almost all its ene- 
 mies, too. He lent the weight of his age and 
 office, his name and his personal character, to a 
 scheme for the support of Slavery, and the over- 
 throw of the great loyal party in Missouri, and 
 in that Convention he won, but lost all with 
 loyal Missourians. To a man hastening on to 
 threescore and ten and the grave, what earthly 
 gain can overbalance such a loss? 
 
 I have thus, my friends, endeavored to place 
 before you the circumstances of the wrongs suf- 
 fered, by the loyal people of Missouri through 
 the policy of Governor Gamble, and the acts of 
 the dead Convention, which he — the only man 
 on earth that could do it— called to life again. 
 In all American histoi'y there is no parallel to 
 ■ it, except in seme of those Southern States, 
 where secession and rebellion were forced upon 
 the people by the aristocrats of Slavery. Thank 
 God! however, there is virtue enough left in 
 the loyal people of Missouri to raise their 
 voice against the attempt to trample 
 upon their most sacred rights. They raise it 
 here to-day ; not in revolutionary shouts, not in 
 sedition, not in disregard of law, not in der- 
 ogation of the duties of true citizenship, not in 
 any unlawful or unauthorized way; but with 
 the high and holy purpose that despotism shall 
 be forced to recoil before the moral power of an 
 aroused people. We are here to speak, to j udge, 
 and to do what becomes freemen, in a manner 
 suited to freemen. The cry of the arch-traitor 
 was, " All we ask is to he let alt/neP^ and the pro- 
 Slavery emancipationists of the defunct Con- 
 vention shout the same cry. But they are not 
 to be let alone. They are to be made to feel that 
 they cannot commit treason against Popular 
 Sovereignty, and be let alone. They are to learn 
 that there is a People, to whom they are account- 
 able, and upon whose necks they cannot put 
 their feet with impunity. They are to 
 be taught that they cannot snatch the 
 work of Missouri's regeneration out of 
 the hands of her loyal men, and 
 then sing them to sleep. They are to under- 
 
 stand that their work is r^ected by the people, 
 and they, too. They ask us to accept their or- 
 din^ce as a finality: we do accept it as a final- 
 ity — of them! But, conceived, as it was, in 
 wrong to the people ; planned, as it was, in the 
 interest of slavery ; brought forth, as it was, by 
 a body which was so conscious of its wrong, 
 that it refused to let the people pass upon it, 
 avowing through their leaders that the people 
 would reject ii : and upheld, as it is, by every 
 rebel, secessionist, bushwhacker, and Copper- 
 head in the State; we, loyal men of Missouri, 
 who love our country more than Slavery— who 
 have borne patiently all that has befallen us, for 
 the sake of the Union — who have consecrated 
 our all to the maintenance of that Union against 
 all enemies — and who are determined, come 
 what may, to rebuke, denounce, and overthrow 
 disloyalty, whatever form or guise it may as- 
 sume — ive REJECT that Ordinance as a finality of 
 THE QUESTION. We, and our brethren in loyalty 
 in Missouri, are able to manage the af- 
 fairs of Missouri, and we will do it. We 
 ask no interference or help from traito'rs or their 
 friends, in otfice or out. We will bide our time, 
 as loyal men should, looking for the day of de- 
 liverance. It will surely come. This is the 
 day of the ofiice-holders and the politicians, the 
 rebels and their sympathizers, the pro-Slavery 
 men and their courtiers ; the day of the People 
 will come, and with it confusion, dismay, and 
 defeat to all who have dared to take part in the 
 attempt of that Convention to dominate Missouri 
 in the interest of Slavery. Let it not be said, as 
 Mr. Henderson is reported to have said, that the 
 Ordinance is the best that could be procured 
 under the circumstances! Who made the circum- 
 stances ? Who but he and those who acted with 
 him ? And shall they make the circumstances, 
 and then plead them in their own extenuation ? 
 Let them stand aside, and the people will make 
 other circumstances, from which something bet- 
 ter will come forth, of measures and of men. 
 
 Let us not, my friends, lose sight of the great 
 and vital truth, that not only is this a struggle 
 for Popular Sovereignty, but for loyal supremacy 
 in Misscmn. Hi that view no man can compute 
 its importance to us as a people. If we sleep 
 now, all is lost. The loyal men of Missouri are 
 her rightful sovereigns. If true to themselves 
 and to the great cause which in the providence 
 of God is committed to their keeping, all will 
 be well. Missouri loyalty has become an hon- 
 ored name in the land. It imports all of daunt- 
 less bravery, stern resolution, and heroic forti- 
 tude, that could illustrate the character and 
 glorify the history of any people. Let us be 
 true to our record and our fame, through to the 
 end. If we have no country, we are wanderers; 
 
13 
 
 if we have no Government, we are a prey to ty- 
 rants; if we have no Union, we have 
 neither country nor Government. All 
 lives or dies with the Union. Let our 
 souls cling to it, our fortunes sustain it, our 
 hands uphold it, and, if need be, our blood flow 
 for it. For nearly three years we have had to 
 defend it. Let us defend it thrice three more, if 
 such be the will of God ; defend it against the 
 traitor in arms and the j traitor in heart; 
 against the open and the secret foe ; against the 
 wily politician, the cunning plotter, theunscru 
 pulous schemer, though he wrap himself in the 
 bright folds of the Stars and Stripes ; against 
 perfldy, treachery, and disloyalty in every form, 
 everywhere, always, to the glorious end that 
 awaits us, if we are true. This our work is 
 not in the South— it is here, in Missouri. 
 We are beset on every side by the armed rebel, 
 the prowling bushwhacker, the Southern sym- 
 pathizer, the devotee of Slavery, all, openly or 
 covertly, the Union's enemies. And they are 
 ours, too. They are striving for the mastery in 
 Missouri. The calling of that Convention to or- 
 dain Emancipation was a part of their game. 
 The next move will be to secure a Legislature 
 that will repeal the test-oath ordinance, which 
 
 excludes them from the polls ; and then will come 
 the reign of disloyalty, the repeal of Emancipa- 
 tion, the triumph of Slavery, the hunting down 
 and driving out of Union men— all, all will 
 come. Meet the issue here and now. Proclaim 
 that Loyalty shall govern Missouri. Demand of 
 the General Assembly a law authorizing the 
 election of a new Convention, wherein the peo- 
 ple, not politicians and office-holders, shall 
 speak. Demand that the people be permitted to 
 elect their own rulers. Demand Emancipation, 
 immediate, uncanditional, final. Demand the per- 
 petual disfranchisement of every man who has 
 taken part, here or elsewhere, in this damnable 
 rebellion. Enforce your demand by every lawful 
 agency, device, and influence, with energy and 
 fidelity, with firm confidence and steady perseve- 
 rance ; and there is no power on earth that can 
 resist you. Justice and right are with you ; every 
 loyal heart in the land is with you ; the great 
 and precious principles of free government are 
 with you ; the mighty People are with you; and, 
 in the not distant future, victory will be with 
 you, and defeat and oblivion with all in Mis- 
 souri who oppose the sacred cause of Popular 
 Sovereignty and the Union. [Immense cheer- 
 ing-]