Missouri Constitutional Convention (1861-63)

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The Missouri Constitutional Convention (1861-63) was a constitutional convention in the American Civil War that decided that Missouri stay in the Union and also evicted the elected governor to create a provisional government during the war.

Confederates from the original convention were to hold their own meeting at declare the state had joined the Confederate States of America.

1 Background
2 First Session
3 Second Session
4 Third Session
5 Fourth Session
6 Fifth Session
7 Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1865
8 References

[edit] Background

Missouri has had four constitutions^[1]:

1820 (when the state entered the Union)
1865 (at the conclusion of the Civil War)
1875 (at the end of Reconstruction)
1945 (in the wake of the toppling of the Pendergast Machine).

According to Missouri law, the state constitution can only be totally rewritten via a Constitutional Convention. Since secession would have involved a new constitution, the special convention rather than the Missouri General Assembly was to decide the issue.

Missouri's official policy going into the convention was of neutrality with Missouri staying in the Union but not committing men, money or supplies to either side. The policy was first proposed in 1860 by outgoing governor Robert Marcellus Stewart (who was eventually favor the Union) and affirmed by incoming governor Claiborne Fox Jackson (who was to eventually favor the Confederates).

Those who favored staying in the Union with the provision that status quo of slavery would continue were called "Conditional Union Men." Those who favored the Union regardless of whether slavery would be abolished were called "Unconditional Union Men."

The Missouri Legislature on January 17 passed a bill calling for the convention which was to be comprised of three members of each state senate district who were to be elected in a February 18 election. Charles H. Hardin introduced an amendment that passed 17-15 that required that any vote of secession would also require a majority vote of the state's qualified voters.^[2]

[edit] First Session

The first session of the Convention was decide in a 98-1 vote to stay in the Union.

The convention met on February 28, 1861, in Jefferson City, Missouri and elected ex-governor Sterling Price to chair it. The convention consisted of 99 members -- 82 of whom were born in slave states including 53 from Virginia and Kentucky.^[3]

The convention adjourned and reassembled in St. Louis, Missouri on March 4.

Hamilton Rowan Gamble was named chairman of the Federal relations committee which recommended:

The position of Missouri in relation to the adjacent States which would continue in the Union, would necessarily expose her, if she became a member of a new confederacy, to utter destruction whenever any rupture might take place between the different republics. In a military aspect, secession and connection with a Southern confederacy is annihilation for Missouri. The true position for her to assume is that of a State whose interests are bound up in the maintenance of the Union, and whose kind feelings and strong sympathies are with the people of the Southern States with whom they are connected by ties of friendship and blood.

On March 21 the convention voted 98-1 against Secession noting:^[4]

no adequate cause [existed] to impel Missouri to dissolve her connections with the Federal Union.

[edit] Second Session

The concept of Missouri neturality came into immediate test after the war began almost after the firing on Fort Sumter. Eight days after the start of the war, a pro-Confederate mob in Liberty, Missouri seized the Liberty Arsenal on April 20. This in turn was followed by the St. Louis Massacre when troops under Union General Nathaniel Lyon fired into a crowd while escorting a a captured state militia he thought was going to seize the St. Louis Arsenal. The Missouri General Assembly then had voted to create the Missouri State Guard under Sterling Price's leadership. When negotiations between Lyon and elected governor Claiborne Fox Jackson broke down, Lyon began a pursuit of Jackson and Price across the state to evict the elected government.

On June 14 Lyon captured Jefferson City and a new session of the convention was called on July 22 (although 20 of the original members were now in retreat with Fox and Price). Robert Wilson (Missouri) who had been vice chairman of the original convention was named chairman of the convention.^[5]

The convention then declared the state's top offices vacant and then named new provisional officers including:

Governor - Hamilton Rowan Gamble
Lt. Governor - Willard P. Hall
Secretary of State - Mordecai Oliver
Treasurer - George A. Bingham

The convention then declared all offices of the Missouri General Assembly vacant and an election was to be called on November.^[6]

The convention adjourned on July 31.

[edit] Third Session

The Confederates were to enjoy success defeating the pursuing Union army on August 10 in the Battle of Wilson's Creek and Price began an offensive to retake Missouri with its northernmost victory in the Battle of Lexington I on September 20. Governor Jackson called his own Constitutional Convention with the members that had followed him and they met on October 21 in Neosho, Missouri called Neosho Convention. They were to vote to secede.

On October 10, the convention met for the third time in St. Louis. They abolished more state offices, cut the salaries of state employees by 20 percent and extended the date of the next election to August 1862 and created provisions for a state militia, and created loyalty oath requirement for state officials.

[edit] Fourth Session

After the Battle of Pea Ridge on March 7-8, 1862 effectively eliminated immediate Confederate designs on the state, the convention held its fourth convention this time in Jefferson City in June 1862. The Convention then extended its loyalty oath to voters, teachers, attorneys, bank officers and preachers. This ensured strong Union votes in the elections. Abraham Lincoln who received 10 percent of the vote in the United States presidential election, 1860 was to receive 70 percent of the vote in the United States presidential election, 1864.

Following the Fremont Emancipation which had been rescinded, the convention attempted to abolish slavery in the state but was unsuccessful.

[edit] Fifth Session

After Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in revolting states but not slave states still in the Union, final session of the convention met in June 1863 with a goal of eliminating slavery in the state. The problem was the constitution had a provision that freeing of slaves required compensation and permission of the owners. The state did not have the money for this. The convention passed an ordinance for the gradual release of slaves through July 4, 1870.

[edit] Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1865

The plan to gradually release slaves infuriated Radical Republicans who were to take their grievances to Lincoln. Gramble offered to resign but the Convention refused and was to die in office in January 1864.

The Radicals were to oppose Lincoln in the presidential election for not acting decisively against Missouri. In 1864 the Radical Republicans elected Thomas Clement Fletcher governor of Missouri and an entirely constitutional convention was convened on January 6, 1865 consisting of two thirds Radical Republicans. On January 11, 1865 the new convention in a 60 to 4 vote abolished slavery in the state with no compensation for owners. The convention was to go on and write a new constitution for the state. A month later the convention approved the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which freed the slaves.