USA > Missouri > A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the state into the union, Volume III > Part 27
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The conference in 1815 appointed Philip Davis for the New Madrid circuit, Jesse Haile for the Cape Girardeau circuit, Thomas Wright for the Saline circuit, William Stevenson for Bellevue, Ben. Proctor for Coldwater, and Jacob Whitesides for the Boonslick country. In 1816 the Missouri conference was first organized at Shiloh Meeting House near Belleville, Illinois. This conference consisted of Saline circuit, the Cape Girardeau circuit, the New Madrid circuit, and the St. Francois circuit. Truly a small begin- ning. Bishop Roberts presided and Jno. Scripps acted as secretary. Samuel H: Thompson who had traveled in Missouri in the previous year was appointed the Presiding Elder. He was a native of West-
11 McFerrin says he "belongs to a preaching family."- History of Meth- odism in Tennessee, vol. 2, p. 335.
12 History of Methodism in Tennessee, vol. 2, P. 339.
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moreland county, Pennsylvania; joined the Methodist church in Kentucky in 1807; became a preacher in 1809; married February, 1816; and after his marriage settled near Lebanon, Illinois." For the New Madrid circuit, Rev. Rucker Tanner was appointed by this conference. He was a native of New Madrid and in early youth was noted as a reckless character. His complexion was dark and swarthy, and it is related of him that while he and his brother, not more religious than himself, were in New Orleans without money, he allowed his brother to sell him as a slave. After obtaining the money his brother left him to his fate. With a great deal of difficulty he secured his freedom, and, penniless, started to walk home. On his way he stopped at the house of a local Methodist preacher, with whom he lived for some time. While there he experienced the change of heart that caused him to enter the ministry. At this conference John C. Harbison and Josiah Patter- son were received in full fellowship. Jos. Piggott was appointed for the Boonslick circuit, John Schrader for Coldwater, John Scripps for Saline, Jno. Harbison for Cape Girardeau, and Thos. Wright for New Madrid. In 1817 Rev. Thomas Wright was appointed to serve the Saline circuit; and for the new St. Francois circuit, Rev. Joseph Piggott and the Rev. Rucker Tanner were appointed. It is to be noted that St. Louis then had no Methodist church and it is said that two young Irishmen, W. and J. Finney by name were the only Methodists residing there. BISHOP MC KENDREE But Sparks writes in 1812, that although St. Louis had "no place of worship" except the Catholic church, that the "Methodists once in a while" held services, so that likely the Finneys were not the only Methodists there. In 1818 Bishop Mc- Kendree preached a Methodist sermon in the town. Rev. Thomas Wright in 1818 again filled the Saline circuit, John Scripps was ap- pointed for the Cape Girardeau circuit, and John McFarland the St. Francois circuit. The activity of these early Methodist preachers must have been very great, because according to Peck, the only preaching heard in the scattered settlements in the hills of Jefferson and Washington counties was by Methodists.74
The first conference west of the Mississippi it seems was held in
" Reynolds' Pioneer History of Illinois, p. 223.
74 Life of Peck, p. 100.
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1818 at Mt. Zion church in the Murphy settlement. Bishop Mc- Kendree was present at this conference, and probably either in going or returning from this conference he stopped at St. Louis and · preached there. John Scripps acted as secretary at the conference, and Rev. Jesse Walker was appointed Presiding Elder. The Meth- odist circuits now covered a large part of the present state.
The second conference of the Methodist church west of the Mississippi met at Mc- Kendree chapel in 1819. According to Mr. Cunningham four conferences were held at McKendree chapel, one by Bishop George, two by Bishop Roberts and one by Bishop Soule. At this conference John McFarland was appointed to fill the Saline circuit, and Joseph Piggott the Bellevue circuit, which had been newly organized, but Rev. Piggott BISHOP GEORGE also seems to have preached in St. Louis in that year.73 Philip Davis was appointed to the St. Francois circuit; Samuel Glaize the Cape Girardeau circuit, and William Townsend the New Madrid circuit.
In 1820 Rev. Thomas Wright was appointed Presiding Elder and John Harris filled the Saline and Bellevue circuits, Samuel Bassett the St. Francois circuit; Isaac Brookfield, Spring river, a new circuit; W. W. Redman, White river, a new circuit; Philip Davis, Cape Girardeau, and Jesse Haile, New Madrid.
In 1817 the first Methodist religious service was held in Boonville in Cooper county, and in the following year Justinian Williams organized a church there.76 In 1818 Rev. W. R. Jones was preacher and Jesse Walker Presiding Elder of that locality. In 1819 Jesse Haile was Presiding Elder. According to the Rev. J. H. Ledbetter the new circuit of Methodist church north of the Missouri river, called the Boonslick circuit was formed in 1815, and he says Rev. Joseph Piggott was appointed pastor of the Methodist church of "Howard county," although this could not well be so because Howard
7% It is said that he was present when Charless was assaulted by McHenry and was unable to prevent the rencontre. Peck records of him that while traveling on one of his missionary tours through the Barrens of Perry county he came near freezing to death on an extremely cold night, without food for himself or his horse.
" History of Howard and Cooper counties, p. 818.
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county was not organized until the following year. Among others. Parker Williams and John Scripps preached throughout the Boons- lick country at an early date.
In 1821, at the time Missouri was admitted into the Union, Thomas Wright was again Presiding Elder and Rev. Thomas Davis was appointed for the Cape Girardeau circuit, Philip Davis for the Saline circuit, John Cord for the St. Francois circuit, Abram Epler for Spring river circuit, and Washington Orr for the New Madrid circuit.
I have thus shown, in barest outline, the history of the organiza- tion and work of the Protestant churches in Missouri, prior to the organization of the state government. It is a mere outline, because the beneficent and moral influences these Protestant church organi- zations exercised, and their devout ministers, I can only conjecture. Their work, great as it was, and infinite in its effect, has almost perished from the recollection of men. It was unchronicled and unheralded at the time. The good and zealous men who labored and toiled in that wild, rough, uncultivated, benighted, dispiriting and disheartening spiritual vineyard have never, will never, receive the meed of praise they deserve, but the seed they freely scattered in the wilderness did not fall on sterile ground. And although many fell in the struggle unnoticed, their names unrecorded, unknown heroes on the divine field of battle, their work has not perished; it is their enduring monument. In this work, the Methodist system of circuit preaching, Peck well says was the "most economical and successful mode of supplying the destitute and strengthening and building up the feeble churches that has ever been tried. It is truly the apostolic mode; and if the finger of Divine Providence ever pointed out a method adapted to the circumstances of new and sparsely-settled districts, it is itinerating or circuit missions." 77
17 Life of Peck, p. 124.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Rapid Growth of Population - Memorial to erect Territory into State - Pro- posed Boundaries - Memorial Presented to Congress - Referred to a Select Committee - The Slavery Question - Parties Divide on Sectional Lines for the first Time in Congress - The Tallmadge Amendment Adopted by the House - Fails in the Senate - Fifteenth Congress ad- journs without Admitting Missouri - Sixteenth Congress meets - The Admission of Missouri Coupled with that of Maine - The Missouri Com- promise - Excitement Produced by the Congressional Debates - Passage of the Enabling Act creates Great Joy - Members of the Constitutional Convention Elected - A Pro-Slavery Body - Constitutional Convention Meets at St. Louis - Constitution Adopted after a Short Session - Pol- itical Preaching Abhorred at the Time - Some Provisions of the Constitu- tion - Biographical Sketches of some of the Members of the Convention - McNair Elected First Governor - William H. Ashley Elected First Lieutenant-Governor - State Officers Appointed by McNair - Barton and Benton Elected United States Senators - Struggle of Benton to be Elected - Arms of the State - Meaning of the Arms of the State Ex- plained - Opposition to the Admission Renewed by the Anti-Slavery Party - Clay's Compromise - The State adopts the Declaratory Law Required by Congress - Proclamation of Monroe admitting Missouri dated August 10, 1821 - The Grand Destiny of the State.
After the close of the war of 1812 the flood of emigration into the territory rose higher and higher. As if by magic the wilderness be- came tenanted. In every locality the rude log cabins of the pioneers were reared, farms opened, new settlements founded, the germs of future cities laid. Where a few years before only wandering savages had lived in barbarous fashion, a civilized society and civilized order were established, educational institutions planted and enlightened and revealed religion cemented the social fabric. With this rapid growth of population the desire of the people for a separate and independent state government became almost universal. This feeling found expression in a memorial to Congress which was circulated in the territory in 1817 and in which the petitioners pray that the territory within certain limits be erected into a state. In January, 1818, this memorial was presented to Congress by Hon. John Scott, the delegate from the territory. In this memorial the petitioners set forth why the new state should be organized as follows:
"Memorial of the Citizens of Missouri Territory .- To the Hon- orable, the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled :- The petition of the undersigned inhabitants of the Territory of Missouri respectfully
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
showeth: That your petitioners live within that part of the Terri- tory of Missouri which lies between the latitudes of 36 degrees and 30 minutes and 40 degrees north, and between the Mississippi river to the east and the Osage boundary to the west. They pray that they may be admitted into the Union of the states within these limits.
"They conceive that their numbers entitle them to the benefits and to the rank of a state government. Taking the progressive increase during former years as the basis of the calculation they estimate their present numbers at 40,000 souls. Tennessee, Ohio and the Mis- sissippi state were admitted with smaller numbers, and the treaty of cession guarantees this great privilege to your petitioners as soon as it can be granted under the principles of the Federal Constitution. They have passed eight years in the first grade of territorial govern- ment, five in the second; they have evinced their attachment to the honor and integrity of the Union during the late war and they with deference urge their right to become a member of the great republic. They forbear to dilate upon the evils of the territorial government but will barely name among the grievances of this condition:
"I. That they have no vote in your honorable body and yet are subject to the indirect taxation imposed by you.
" 2. That the veto of the territorial executive is absolute upon the acts of the territorial legislature.
"3. That the Superior Court is constructed on principles unheard of in any other system of jurisprudence, having primary cognizance of almost every controversy, civil and criminal, and subject to cor- rection by no other tribunal.
"4. That the powers of the territorial legislature are limited to the passage of laws of a local nature owing to the paramount au- thority of Congress to legislate upon the same subject."
And after describing the boundaries of the proposed new state the memorialists say that the boundaries as solicited will include all the country to the north and west to which the Indian title has been extinguished, also the body of the population, that the Missouri river will run through the center of the state, that the boundaries are adapted to the country, that "the woodland districts are found to- wards the great rivers; the interior is composed of vast ridges and naked and sterile plains stretching to the Shining mountains." And that the country north and south of the Missouri is necessary to each other, the former possessing a rich soil destitute of minerals, the latter abounding in mines of lead and iron and thinly sprinkled with
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MEMORIAL
spots of ground fit for cultivation. In conclusion the memoralists say that they "hope that their voice may have some weight in the division of their country and in the formation of their state boundaries; and that statesmen ignorant of its localities may not undertake to cut out their territory with fanciful divisions which may look hand- some on paper but must be ruinous in effect."
This petition was signed by Jacob Pettit, Isaac W. Jameson, Sam S. Williams, Robt. C. Bruffey, Justinian Williams, William Paul, W. Brown, William H. Ashley, Hyder A. Ball, Israel M'Gready, Thomas Turner, Lewis Morrison, John Jordans, Terrence High, Ben Anthony, Samuel P. Browne, George M'Gehan, A. E. Partenay, Samuel Windes, Joseph Pain, Gabriel Barrow, Th. H. Ficklin, Jn. Fouquier VanPreters, W. N. Wilkinson, Absalom Eaton, James. Bruffey, David Adkins, John McCormick, Andrew Henry, Louis Robert, Felix Redding, H. Lane, Pascal Mallart, Stephen Dugan, William Johnson, Benjn. Horine, John Wall, Louis Vallé, Benoit Vallé, John Vallé, Jr., B. D. Bowmer, John Rice Jones, John Davis, Charles Davis, Alex. Craighead, Robt. T. Browne, Bernard Coleman, John Polite, Jno. H. Weber, Thos. M. Daugherty, Jeremiah Key, Wm. B. Wafford, Louis Lasource, William Bradshaw, James Hop- kins, A. Scott, J. Chadbourne, Th. Bequette, Sml. C. Harkins, William Brown, John Portell, Samuel Swearingen, James Donnell, William Henderson, Jason Frizzel, Anthony Sharp, Francois Genereau. Nearly all at the time citizens of Washington county.1
This memorial was referred to a select committee composed of the delegate from the territory, John Scott; Mr. Robertson, of Ken- tucky; Mr. Poindexter, of Mississippi; Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana; Mr. Livermore, of New Hampshire; Mr. Mills, of Massachusetts and Mr. Baldwin, of Pennsylvania. But no report was made by this committee during this session of Congress. In December, 1818, the territorial legislature of Missouri, however, took up this subject and also adopted a memorial praying for the establishment of a state government, supplementing the original petition, but asking for more extended boundaries than those set out in the petition presented. On February 13th, 1819, as chairman of the committee on the
1 It is certain that other similar petitions were signed by residents of the other counties of the territory, and that all these petitions so signed constituted the memorial which Delegate Scott presented. But these petitions from the other counties have either been lost or are misplaced. Only a few years ago Repre- sentative Bartholdt accidently discovered this petition in the basement of the Capitol at Washington, and had it sent to the MSS. division of the Library of Congress, where it has been framed and thus is permanently preserved.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
"Memorial from Missouri" Scott reported a bill to "authorize the people in that (Missouri) territory to form a constitution and state government on an equal footing with the other states." To this bill Mr. Tallmadge (of New York) offered an amendment making it a condition precedent to the admission "that the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude shall be prohibited, except for the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been fully con- victed; and that all children born within the state after the admission thereof, shall be free at the age of twenty-five years." This amend- ment was extremely objectionable to the people of Missouri. It gave rise to a great debate, Clay, Pinckney, Randolph, Lowndes, Holmes of Massachusetts and others opposing the proposition, and Rufus King of New York, Otis of Massachusetts, Dana of Connecti- cut and Sergeant and Hemphill of Pennsylvania favoring restriction. "Ostensibly, it was a protest in the interest of morality against the evil of slavery, and an effort to legislate it out of a territory where it lawfully existed, but in reality it was as Rufus King admitted, a strug- gle for political power, and it did not differ from that which had taken place in 1803, when the treaty for the purchase of Louisiana was under consideration, except in being aligned upon a different issue." 2 For the first time in the history of the Union parties divided on geo- graphical lines. Words threatening a dissolution of the Union, and civil war, were uttered in Congress in this debate. The discussion continued with unremitting violence, north to south, during the win- ter, with increasing bitterness, but finally the bill with Tallmadge's amendment passed the House by a vote of 97 to 56, and was sent to the Senate for concurrence. The Senate struck out the Tallmadge amendment, restricting slavery and providing for gradual emanci- pation; and the House, refusing to concur with the action of the Senate, the bill providing for the admission of Missouri as a state was of course lost. This debate created intense excitement throughout the country, and after the adjournment of the Fifteenth Congress became an inflammatory subject of controversy and seemed to shake the Union to its center.
When the Sixteenth Congress met in December, 1819, the ques- tion came up again. But Maine now also asked for admission into the Union, and although the House showed plainly that it was not prepared to recede from its position in favor of abolishing slavery in Missouri, the Senate was enabled to exercise a pressure upon the " Carr's Missouri, p. 138.
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TALLMADGE AMENDMENT
House by resorting to the device of coupling with the admission of Maine also the admission of Missouri, and insisting that the two new states must come in together, that Missouri must be admitted with- out condition as to slavery or Maine would not be admitted. After a heated and acrimonious debate in both houses the result was a dead- lock, and the appointment of a committee of conference. Finally a series of measures usually called the "Missouri Compromise" were adopted, by which the provisions of the ordinance of 1786 were extended to "all that tract of country ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, and which lies north of 36 de- grees 30 minutes north latitude, except only such part thereof as is included within the limits of the state contemplated by the Act."' By the terms of this agreement "which it may be well to observe was understood and not expressed, the clause prohibiting slavery" was stricken from the Act authorizing the people of Missouri to form a state government. The Act as passed just before adjournment of the Sixteenth Congress, March 3, 1820, left the people of Missouri nominally free to organize the state with or without slavery, but with- out any express guarantee as to admission into the Union.
This enabling Act provided that each county should be repre- sented in the constitutional convention according to the number of its inhabitants, the convention to consist in the aggregate of forty-one members. But now it was discovered that the attempt made by the northern representatives to regulate the domestic affairs of the terri- tory had most injuriously affected the cause of the anti-slavery party, and alienated not a few of those who agreed, in principle, with the northern anti-slavery men. The debates of Congress had been fol- lowed by the people of the territory with intense interest, and lines were sharply drawn between those favoring slavery and the compara- tively small number favoring the restriction of slavery in the new state. The attempt to deprive the people of the new state of the right to determine the question for themselves, says Carr, "was looked upon as a high-handed effort at usurpation, and such was the oppo- sition it provoked within the state that owing to this and to other causes no one whose views upon the slavery question were in the least doubtful stood any chance of election."" "The question " said Mr. Charless, the editor of the "Missouri Gazette," "was not whether . slavery shall or shall not be prohibited * * * but whether we shall
' 16th Cong., Ist Session, vol. I, p. 428.
Carr's History of Missouri, p. 151.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
· meanly abandon our rights and suffer any earthly power to dictate the terms of our constitution," and Charless was a pronounced anti-slav- ery man and candidate for the convention pledged to restrict slavery.
The excitement these congressional debates produced in the ter- ritory was intense. This was evidenced in various ways. Thus the Grand Jury of St. Charles county resolved that the attempts "to restrict us in the free exercise of rights in the formation of the constitution and form of state government for ourselves is an uncon- stitutional and unwarrantable usurpation of power over our inalien- able rights and privileges as a free people." This report was by Judge Tucker transmitted to President Monroe, "as the constitu- tional organ through which it may best reach those to whom the redress of grievances therein complained of properly belongs." The Grand Jury of Jefferson county expressed the same views. So great was the feeling in the territory on this subject while the de- bate was in progress in Congress that Mr. Scott received a remon- strance from a religious assembly - the Baptist Association of Mt. Zion, Howard county - to present to Congress their protest against the interference of Congress with the contemplated constitution and against any restriction on the rights of property. In Franklin, Humphrey Smith was mobbed because he asked the suggestive ques- tion how a member of the Methodist church could hold negroes in slavery, and in addition was afterward indicted by a Howard county Grand Jury for provoking a mob.
When the first news reached St. Louis that the enabling Act for the admission of Missouri without restriction had become a law the town was illuminated in honor of the event. The first news of the passage of the Act was brought to Jackson by Thomas Hempstead, who passed through the town on his way to St. Louis on March 21st. In Franklin, in honor of the event, a splendid dinner was given on April roth, at the hotel of Captain Means, to celebrate "our late triumph over eastern policy and eastern artifice."
At this time the total population of Missouri was 70,618, of which 11,234 were slaves, the largest slave-owning county being St. Louis with 1,603, Howard with 1,409 and Cape Girardeau with 1,082 slaves.
In the election for delegates to the constitutional convention the lines were sharply drawn between the restrictionists of slavery and pro-slavery men. Political preaching then was not received with favor or indulgence, and Rev. John Mason Peck having been charged with referring to the slavery question in his sermons, vehemently denied
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it as "a willful and malignant falsehood," and in a letter says, "what- ever my private sentiments on the subject of slavery itself or the policy or expediency of its limitation, I have too much regard for the cause of religion, the interests of the country, and my own public and pri- vate character, to preach on slavery or on any other subject of party politics."
The election for members of the constitutional convention was held on the first Monday and two succeeding days of May, 1820, and both parties selected their most influential members to form a ticket to be presented to the people, but the restrictionists were in a hopeless minority and only strong pro-slavery men were elected. The dele- gates selected to the constitutional convention from Cape Girardeau county were Stephen Byrd, James Evans, Richard S. Thomas, Alexander Buckner and Joseph McFerron; from Cooper county, Robert P. Clark, Robert Wallace and William Lillard; from Frank- lin county, Joseph G. Heath; from Howard county, Nicholas S. Burckhart, Duff Green, John Ray, Jonathan S. Findlay and Ben- jamin H. Reeves; from Jefferson county, Samuel Hammond; from Lincoln county, Malcolm Henry; from Montgomery county, Jona- than Ramsay and James Talbott; from Madison county, Nathaniel Cook; from New Madrid county, Robert D. Dawson and Christopher G. Houts; from Pike county, Stephen Cleaver; from St. Charles county, Hiram H. Baber, Benjamin Emmons and Nathan Boone; from Ste. Genevieve county, R. F. Brown, H. Dodge, John D. Cook and John Scott; from St. Louis county, David Barton, Edward Bates, Alexander McNair, William Rector, John C. Sullivan, Pierre Chouteau, Jr., Bernard Pratte and Thomas F. Riddick; from Wash- ington county, John Rice Jones, Samuel Perry and John Hutchings, and from Wayne county, Elijah Bettis. All the delegates were natives of slave-holding states except McNair and Perry who were natives of Pennsylvania, Emmons, a native of New York, McFer- ron who was an Irishman, and Jones a native of Wales.
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