USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 92
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"Fully realizing all of this, as their report candidly shows, Mr. Clover and his com- mittee also knew that no lawyer could be trusted to depart from this fundamental prin- ciple, who was not schooled or pledged in advance to overthrow it. Hence they were determined to reorganize the judiciary, as they called it, by putting into the courts men who could be depended upon to approve the action of the convention, at all cost, and in spite of all principle. That is what the committee meant when it spoke of 'harmonizing the government.'"
The ousting ordinance had easy going in the convention. It was passed after some debate. Isidor Bush tried to put through an amendment by which the governor would be authorized to vacate any of the 1,000 offices when it was proven to him that the holder was disloyal. He obtained only four votes for his proposition. He tried another amendment which provided that no member of the convention should be eligible to any one of the offices to be vacated. That suggestion received only five votes. The ordinance was carried by a vote of forty-three to five.
Supreme Court Judges Removed by Force.
The application of the ousting ordinance reached its revolutionary climax when the judges of the supreme court were removed from the bench by force
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and taken before a police justice. This was done with the street full of soldiers to suppress any riotous demonstration. Governor Fletcher, acting under the ordinance, appointed David Wagner and Walter L. Lovelace to take the places of William V. N. Bay and John D. S. Dryden. Mr. Skinker's account of the proceedings and description of the scenes constitutes a very valuable contribution to the history of Missouri:
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"On the 13th of June, Messrs. Wagner and Lovelace met and made an order requiring Andrew W. Mead, then clerk of the supreme court, to surrender the records of the court to their clerk, Mr. Bowman. Mr. Mead declined to comply, and immediately applied to the circuit court for an injunction against Wagner, Lovelace and their associates to pre- vent them from meddling with the records of the court. Circuit Judge Moodey, an original republican, was of the opinion that the ousting ordinance was void, and accordingly issued the injunction. He had already decided the identical question in the case of Alfred C. Bernoudy, whose office of recorder of deeds fell within the same ordinance, and was claimed by Mr. Conrad, an appointee of Governor Fletcher. On the next day, June 14th, the gov- ernor issued an order to Gen. David C. Coleman of the state militia, to be served by him upon Judges Bay and 'Dryden, warning them that they were usurpers and that he would deal with them summarily if they failed to vacate. The general went to the court house in St. Louis, found Judges Bay and Dryden holding court, and presented this order. They declined to yield to the governor's threat, declaring that he had no authority of law for interrupting them in the discharge of their duties. They claimed that, as they had been elected pursuant to the constitution and laws of the state, they had a right to remain in office until their terms expired. They denied that the convention had power to pass the ousting ordinance, because it was not one of the matters named as a subject of legislation in the act of the legislature calling the convention. They denied its validity because it had not been submitted to a vote of the people. They insisted that it was in effect an abolish- ment, as far as it went, of the old constitution, without the consent of the people; that it was the business of the courts to pass on the constitutionality of laws, and not of the governor, that it therefore belonged to the old court, and not to the appointees of the gov- ernor, constituting the new court, to decide the question; else the whole theory of liberty based on a constitutional judiciary was at an end. The argument of Messrs. Bay and Dryden was undoubtedly strong in point of law, but in practice it was weak because it had no bayonets to back it.
The Show of Force.
"After the refusal of the judges to submit to the governor's order, General Coleman withdrew, but shortly returned with another order from the governor, again declaring Bay and Dryden to be usurpers, directing Coleman to put the new appointees in possession of the supreme court room, with all the records, seals, furniture, books and papers of the court, and also directing him to use such force as he might deem necessary, and to arrest all persons who might oppose him. The judges refused to recognize the authority of this order also, and again protested against any interruption of the business of the court. General Coleman then informed them that as an officer he must obey the orders of his superior, and asked them to consider themselves removed by force. They declined this. He then proceeded to lay his hands upon them and asked that they should consider this an arrest. This was also declined, and he was told that they would only yield to the presence and command of a force which they could not successfully resist. Coleman then called in a detachment of police who were held in readiness, and at his order the judges were taken from their seats by the police and were escorted as prisoners to the office of Recorder Wolff, a police justice. A complaint was there lodged against them as having disturbed the peace by interfering with the supreme court. Fletcher, Wagner, Lovelace, Holmes and Bowman were named as witnesses. The case was set for trial next morning, but nobody appeared to prosecute, and so the complaint was dismissed.
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Bayonets in the Street.
"After the judges were removed from the court room the police remained in and about the room for several hours. A military force also was stationed outside the court house, consisting of the 48th Regiment of Missouri Infantry, some 600 or 700 men. These were posted in Chestnut street, from Tenth street eastward, and were under the command of our genial friend, Col. Wells H. Blodgett, then a young warrior, but now and for many years past known to us all as the bland, wise and efficient general counsel of the Wabash railroad company.
"It also appears from the Republican of June 13th and 15th that a company of the Seventh Regiment of Enrolled Militia was called out and stationed at their armory on Walnut street on the 12th, and that Company A of the Third Ward Militia relieved the other company after two days' service. It would seem that the authorities either expected forcible opposition to their measures or were determined to forestall and prevent opposi- tion. The Democrat of June 15th mentioned that a large military force was held in readiness 'in case of an outbreak.'
"Judge Dryden promptly sued Governor Fletcher for $50,000 damages. His attorneys were Thomas T. Gantt and Samuel T. Glover. These had been among the staunchest and promptest supporters of the Union from the beginning. But they had not kept pace with the growth of radical sentiment, and so they had been sent to the back seat, next to the out-and-out rebels. As might have been expected with such lawyers for his counsel, the petition in Judge Dryden's suit was a model of good pleading. But the cards were stacked ; the judges before whom the case was to come owed their positions to the very ordinance whose validity the petition attacked. The case lingered for a while in court and was then dismissed.
"The radicals had the military power under their control, and they had used it- with the skill of experts, as they thought; with the brutality of bandits, as their adver- saries thought."
Lincoln and Blair Still in Accord.
As early as 1864 there was talk of the reconstruction measures when the was war over. Some were advocating that the freedmen be given the ballot and be armed in large numbers that the franchise might be secured to them. In his address to the House on the 25th of February, 1864, Mr. Blair referred to these propositions. "Can any American citizen find in his heart to inaugurate such a contest ?" Mr. Blair asked. And then he outlined the position of the President :
"I prefer Mr. Lincoln's humane, wise, and benevolent policy to secure the peace and happiness of both races; and until that can be accomplished, and while both races are be- ing prepared for this great change, I shall repose in perfect confidence in the promise of the President given in his last message, in which he proposes to remit the control of the freedmen to the restored states, promising to support any provisions which may be adopted by such state government in relation to the freed people of such state which shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement with their present condition as a labor- ing, landless and homeless class."
Restoration, not Reconstruction.
What were Mr. Lincoln's views respecting the future of the freedmen? What was his plan of reconstruction? Was Frank Blair as accurate in his state- ment of Mr. Lincoln's policy in those directions as he was in his forecast of the purposes of the radicals to defeat the renomination? In the collection of Lincoln papers, possessed by William K. Bixby of St. Louis, is the original letter of the President upon the restoration of state government in Arkansas. It was ad-
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dressed to General Steele, at Little Rock. It was written in the winter of 1864, not far distant from the time Frank Blair outlined the President's policy toward the states which had seceded. Residents of Arkansas petitioned for authority to hold an election and to set up a state government which would be recognized at Washington. Mr. Lincoln, in his own hand, wrote to General Steele, in charge of the military division which included Arkansas. He gave explicit instructions. He stipulated that the new state government must come into existence with the full recognition of the principle embraced in what afterwards became the thir- - teenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. That there might be no misunderstanding Mr. Lincoln copied into his letter the language of the condition upon which the new state government was to be recognized. The let- ter illustrated the earnest desire of Mr. Lincoln to rehabilitate state govern- ments in the Confederacy. Thus, more than twelve months before the final surrender, the President laid the foundation for restoration of civil authority in Arkansas. Restoration was the word, not reconstruction. The letter con- cluded :
. ""You will please order an election immediately and perform the other parts assigned you with necessary incidentals, all according to the foregoing."
Lincoln's Plan for the South's Return.
In his own words, written by himself, the President expressed his purpose to make the way for the Confederate states to get back into the Union simple and expeditious.
The thirteenth amendment submission bill did not pass the Senate until the 8th of April, 1864. It did not obtain the necessary two-thirds in the House until the next session of Congress. It was ratified by thirty-one states and proclaimed in force in December, 1865. And yet nearly two years before, Mr. Lincoln incorporated the language with his own hand as the principal condition of the creation of a new state government for Arkansas. The language made no stipu- lation as to negro suffrage. It only required that Arkansas organize with a pro- vision against slavery in these words :
"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except in the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, but the general assembly may make such provision for the freed-people as shall rec- ognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent, as a temporary arrangement, with their present condition as a laboring, landless and homeless class."
This was Mr. Lincoln's policy of state restoration. The other conditions im- posed upon the southern states, of which negro suffrage was chief, came after the death of the President.
Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C., Jan. 20, 1864.
Major General Steele :
Sundry citizens of the State of Arkansas petition me that an election may be held in that state; that it be assumed at said election, and thenceforward, that the constitution and laws of the state, as before the rebellion, are in full force, excepting that the constitu- tion is so modified as to declare that "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi- tude, except in the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted ;
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but the general assembly may make such provision for the freed-people as shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent, as a temporary arrangement, with their present condition as a laboring, land- less, and homeless class ;" ever also except that all now existing laws in relation to slaves are inoperative and void; that said election be held on the twenty-eighth day of March next at all the usual voting places of the state, or all such as voters may attend for that purpose ; that the voters attending at each place, at eight o'clock in the morning of said day, may choose judges and clerks of election for that place; that all persons qualified by said constitution and laws, and taking the oath prescribed in the President's proclamation of December the 8th, 1863, either before or at the election, and none others, may be voters provided that persons having the qualifications aforesaid, and being in the volunteer mili- tary service of the United States, may vote once wherever they may be at voting places ; that each set of judges and clerks may make return directly to you, on or before the eleventh day of April next; that in all other respects said election may be conducted ac- cording to said modified constitution, and laws; that, on receipt of said returns, you count said votes, and that, if the number shall reach, or exceed, five thousand four hundred and six, you canvass said votes and ascertain who shall thereby appear to have been elected governor; and that on the eighteenth day of April next, the person so appearing to have been elected, and appearing before you at Little Rock, to have, by you, administered to him an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and said modified constitution of the State of Arkansas, and actually taking said oath, be by you declared qualified, and be enjoined to immediately enter upon the duties of the office of governor of said state; and that you thereupon declare the constitution of the State of Arkansas to have been modified and assumed as aforesaid, by the action of the people as aforesaid.
You will please order an election immediately, and perform the other parts assigned · you, with necessary incidentals, all according to the foregoing.
Yours truly, A. LINCOLN.
One of Lincoln's Longest Letters.
The original of this letter is entirely in the handwriting of Mr. Lincoln. Painstaking is not the word that applies to Mr. Lincoln's writing. The pen or pencil moved over the page easily, naturally, readily. That is apparent from the style of writing. Even stronger evidence is found in the volume of written matter which Mr. Lincoln turned out. From the beginning of his career as a lawyer down through the busiest days in the White House, Mr. Lincoln wrote and wrote. There are in existence letters and papers of his penmanship in greater number, probably than any other President wrote. The letters number thousands. Many of them bear the evidence that they were not answers and need not have been written, and would not have been written by one to whom writing was irksome, or in any sense a task. Mr. Lincoln liked to write so well that he seldom dictated.
In the extensive and varied collection of Lincoln letters and manuscripts owned by Mr. Bixby are many interesting revelations of this strong penmanship habit of Mr. Lincoln. Whether in letter, or law paper or state document, the composition was simple and condensed. But this did not mean that Mr. Lincoln wished to get through as quickly as possible. It indicated the concise habit of mind. There are few letters of Mr. Lincoln which exceed a page. The longest writing in the Bixby collection is the letter to General Steele setting forth the complete plan of restoration of civil government for Arkansas. It is of nearly four pages and written on one side of the paper. The date is significant, taken
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in connection with Blair's speech in Congress. The President dated his letter the 24th of January. Blair spoke on the 24th of February.
Lincoln's Farewell Message to Missourians.
Not two months before his death, fifty-one days before the surrender of Lee, President Lincoln sent to Missouri what was to be his farewell message. The letter was dated the latter part of February, 1865. The Missouri constitutional convention had abolished slavery. The delegates were preparing that ill-advised proscriptive, short-lived organic act, with its test oaths which were to create turmoil for a generation in the state, which passed into history as the Drake constitution. Mr. Lincoln wrote, entreating Governor Fletcher to get together the contending factions and to harmonize the people irrespective of what they had "thought, said, or done about the war or about anything else." He even suggested a plan of detail by which he believed this might be accomplished. The Hon. Benjamin B. Cahoon, Sr., of Fredericktown, lifelong student of Lincoln who stopped and sympathized with him as he lay wounded after Gettys- burg, said of this farewell message to Missouri :
"In no document of Lincoln's is his kindness and humanity better exhibited. It can be classed with his first and second inaugural addresses and his Gettys- burg oration."
The Plea to Get Together.
A fitting conclusion to the close relationship of Lincoln and Missouri is this letter of the President to Governor Fletcher :
Executive Mansion, Washington, February 20, 1865.
His Excellency, Governor Fletcher :
. It seems that there is now no organized military force of the enemy in Missouri, and yet that destruction of property and life is rampant everywhere. Is not the cure for this within easy reach of the people themselves? It cannot be but that every man, not naturally a robber or cutthroat, would gladly put an end to this state of things. A large majority in every locality must feel alike upon this subject; and if so they only need to reach an understanding one with another. Each leaving all others alone solves the problem; and surely each would do this but for his apprehension that others will not leave him alone. Cannot this mischievous distrust be removed? Let neighborhood meetings be everywhere called and held of all entertaining a sincere purpose for mutual security in the future, whatever they may heretofore have thought, said, or done about the war or about any- thing else. Let all such meet, and, waiving all else, pledge each to cease harassing others, and to make common cause against whoever persists in making, aiding, or encouraging further disturbance. The practical means they will best know how to adopt and apply. At such meetings old friendships will cross the memory, and honor and Christian charity will come in to help. Please consider whether it may not be well to suggest this to the now afflicted people of Missouri.
Yours Truly, A. LINCOLN.
CHAPTER XXVI
MISSOURI AND THE CONFEDERACY
Secrets of State-The Unpublished Memoirs of Thomas C. Reynolds-Missouri "A Sov- creign, Free and Independent Republic"-Democratic Differences at Jefferson City-The Lieutenant-Governor's Animus-Price's Hesitation to Take Command-The Secret Plan of Campaign-Reynolds Starts for Richmond-The Harney-Price Agreement-Major Cabell Commissioned by Governor Jackson-The First Interview with Jefferson Davis- Refusal to Send an Army to Missouri-Price's Call for 50,000 Men-McElroy's Analysis of Price's Leadership-A Great Name to Conjure With-Admission of Missouri into the Confederacy-The Meeting 'at Neosho-First Congressional Delegation-The Movement against Davis-A Proposed Northwest Confederacy-Price's Disclaimer-The Alleged Quarrel with Davis-Shelby's Promotion-Quantrell and Lawrence-Recollections of a Participant in the Attack-The Palmyra Affair-An Account Written at the Time- Jefferson Davis' Demand for the Surrender of McNeil-Execution of Ten Federal Offi- cers Threatened-Gen. Curtis' Reply-Narrow Escape of General Cockrell-A Letter from John B. Clark-The Days of Rapid Reconciliation-Shelby and the United States Marshalship-Frost and Davis on the Confederate Policy.
The acts of President Lincoln having been indorsed by Congress and the people of the northern states, the war thus commenced by him has been made the act of the government and nation over which he ruled; therefore, by the acts of the people and government of the United States, the political connec- tion heretofore existing between said states and the people and government of Missouri is and ought to- be totally dissolved; and the State of Missouri, as a sovereign, free and independent republic, has full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliance, establish commerce, and to do all other acts which independent states may of right do .- Proclamation of Claiborne F. Jackson, August, 1861.
In midsummer of 1861 the addresses and proclamations to the people of Mis- souri came in rapid succession. The convention which, on the 30th of July, set up a provisional state government issued an address. About the same time Lieutenant-Governor Reynolds issued at New Madrid a proclamation in which he said: "I return to the state to accompany in my official capacity one of the armies which the warrior, whose genius now presides over one-half of the Union, has prepared to advance against the common foe."
He said that the authority of Missouri as a sovereign and independent state would be exercised with a view to "her speedy regular union with her southern sisters." He announced that a Confederate army under command of General Pillow had entered Missouri "to aid in expelling the enemies from the state."
Immediately following the proclamation of Lieutenant-Governor Reynolds, Brigadier-General Jefferson Thompson issued a proclamation, also "to the peo- ple of Missouri." The picturesque personality among the brigadiers of the Mis- souri State Guard was Jeff Thompson. He was called the "Missouri swamp fox." His division of the state was the southeast corner. The fox was a writer
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of poetry and of proclamations. At the same time he had courage and did some good fighting. He is said to have been "a tall, lank, wiry man, at least six feet high, about thirty-five years old, with a long sharp face and a prominent nose, blue eyes and a mane of yellow hair which he combed back behind his ears. His uniform was a white, soft hat with a feather, a short coat or jacket, short trousers and high boots. On all occasions the swamp fox wore a white-handled bowie- knife stuck through his belt at the middle of his back."
The proclamation of "the swamp fox" appeared on the Ist of August. About the same time Provisional Governor Gamble sent out from Jefferson City a proclamation notifying citizens that the so-called "military law" passed by the legislature a few weeks previously had been abrogated, the troops disbanded and the commissions to officers annulled. The proclamation further warned Con- federate troops to depart at once from the state.
Two days later Governor Claiborne Jackson returned from Richmond to the southern part of the state and issued a proclamation declaring Missouri · independent of the United States, "a sovereign, free and independent republic."
The Memoir of Thomas C. Reynolds.
In what he called a "Memoir," Thomas C. Reynolds wrote certain "secrets of state" in the relations of Missouri to the Confederacy. The manuscript of this Memoir was found among the papers of Governor Reynolds after his death. It passed into the possession of his nephew, George Savage, of Baltimore, and was sent to the Missouri Historical Society in 1898 "for preservation."
John McElroy, the writer of "The Struggle for Missouri," said: "Next to Governor Jackson-surpassing him in intellectual acuteness and fertile energy -was Lieutenant-Governor Thomas C. Reynolds, then in his 40th year, a short full-bodied man, with jet-black hair and eyes shaded with gold-rimmed glasses. He boasted of being born of Virginia parents in South Carolina. He was a man of more than ordinary ability, and had accomplishments quite unusual in that day. He spoke French, German and Spanish fluently, wrote profusely and with considerable force, and prided himself on being a diplomat. He had seen some service as secretary of legation and charge d'affaires at Madrid. He had been elected as a Douglas democrat, but was an outspoken secessionist, and as he was ex-officio president of the senate, he had much power in forming committees and shaping legislation."
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