Discontent political and military upheaval were nothing new to Missourians. Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War the state was the center of controversy for many years. Ever her birth was troubled. The request for statehood evoked nationwide controversy over the slavery issue and threatened to tear the country apart. The enabling legislation quietly went to the House of Representatives committee for consideration February of 1819. While the bill was under deliberation, first term Congressman James Tallmadge, Jr. attached an amendment to the bill with the purpose of gradually reducing eliminating slavery in Missouri. Tallamdge’s plan, which may have eventually provided a blueprint to end slavery throughout the United States, banned the transfer of additional slaves into the new state and proclaimed that the children of the current slave population would become free when they reached the age of twenty-five. The proposal ignited a fire storm of protest from many Congressmen, while others praised it as an important and far-seeing innovation.

Most Missourians viewed Tallamdge’s proposal unfavorably. The early French and Spanish settlers had introduced slavery into the territory, and by 1820 slavery was embedded in the state’s economy. Many Missourians viewed the Tallamdge Amendment as simply “Yankee meddling” in their affairs. Anti-slavery groups in the North gathered to secure the passage of Tallmadge’s measure. Throughout the South, counter demonstrations and meeting denounced Northern attempts to shackle the spread of their “peculiar institution.” Southerners understood that if the Northern population continued to grow, Southern political clout within Congress would diminish. They also understood the implications of losing control of the Federal Senate if Missouri entered the Union as a free state. Maintaining a balance of power in the Senate, where each state wielded two votes, would allow Southern politicians to counter anti-slavery policies.

When Congress reconvened in December of 1819, Missouri’s application for statehood dominated the session. Although Tallmadge was defeated in his bid for reelection, his colleague, John W. Taylor, reintroduced the controversial amendment. The measure snarled the legislative process in both houses of Congress. During the impasse a northern district of Massachusetts(Maine(applied for statehood. There was now an opportunity to play Maine against Missouri by allowing the former to enter the Union as a free state, and the latter a slave holding entity, thereby maintaining the balance of power in the Senate. The Speaker of the House, Kentuckian Henry Clay, together with Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois, fashioned an old fashioned compromise to grant both territories statehood under those conditions. A key provision of what became known as the Missouri Compromise involved a dividing line drawn at 36(30(, along the southern boundary of Missouri. Anxious to avoid serious conflict, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise by an overwhelming majority. The crisis involving slavery forced antagonists in Congress and the nation to compromise over the problem of black servitude, but, Missouri, a state born out of controversy, faced a divided future.

For thirty years, the Missouri Compromise remained in effect. Missouri’s geographic location, however, propelled the state into the national spotlight yet again during the middle of the turbulent 1850’s. Once again the overriding issue was slavery. The expansion of black chattel into the Nebraska Territory (in what eventually became the state of Kansas) brought the issue to the forefront of public attention. A second politically negotiated settlement known as the Compromise of 1850 failed to solve the nation’s problems. The violence in Kansas and Missouri that followed the passage of the agreement presented the country with a glimpse of the approaching war that would soon engulf the nation.

The controversy began in earnest when the Nebraska territory, on Missouri’s western border, was divided into two sections. The division was part of the compromise over the route of the transcontinental railroad. Without gaining something in return, Southerners refused to assist Stephen A. Douglas, Chairman of the Committee on Territories, in realizing his dream of building a railroad across the midwest. Southerners demanded the abrogation of that section of the Missouri Compromise that forbade slavery north of latitude 36(30, thereby allowing the extension of slavery in the newly created Kansas territory. Douglas, in response, crafted the controversial Kansas Nebraska Act. The new law called for a repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the introduction of popular sovereignty into American politics. A reluctant Congress passed the bill and President Franklin Pierce signed the legislation into law in May of 1854. The politicians seemed oblivious to the future hardships the new law would create. Indeed, the Kansas-Nebraska Act cast the border territories into a period of terrifying period of confusion and violence.

Stephen Douglas’ Popular Sovereignty allowed the citizens of the territory to decide the slavery issue by voting to accept or reject the institution in a general election. Douglas and other politicians failed to understand how he issue’s emotional impact would play to those clinging to the fringes of the political spectrum. Exterior meddling by several factions involved turned a basic exercise in democracy into a heated controversy with the potential for bloodshed. As a result, Kansas and Missouri became the first battleground over the extension of slavery.

Although Kansas went to the polls in 1855 to decide the future of slavery in their new territory, the election results failed to reflect the wishes of the voters. This was largely because slaveholders from the western counties of Missouri crossed the border and voted illegally. As a result, the proslavery block in Kansas was provided with a “victory” that lit a fuse on a powder keg that had been simmering for some years.

Violence erupted between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions. Missourians responded to the bloodshed by crossing the border to assist the beleaguered pro-slavery contingent. Their raids into Kansas included the sacking of Lawrence, the center of the anti-slavery coalition. The continued violence forced both governors to muster their state militias to patrol the border. It was hoped the presence of armed militia units would dissuade the roaming guerillas from striking. By 1858, however a period of relative calm was restored to the frontier. The deep-seated animosities and blood feuds continued to bubble just beneath the surface. The violence of the 1850s remained vivid in everyone’s memory as the region looked to the turn of the decade.

Despite the growing disorder on Missouri’s western border, the remainder of the state continued to grow and prosper. Eastern Missouri continued to develop business ties to the growing Northern economy, while the western half of the state remained sparsely settled and agriculturally based. The population around St. Louis steadily became more cosmopolitan and diverse. Before long residents, with predominately Southern roots from Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky, found themselves in the minority. During the 1850s these families comprised Missouri’s political and economies elite. As the decade wore on, waves immigrants from both across the country and the Atlantic Ocean arrived. Their presence challenged the preeminent position of Missouri’s older and more established Southern families. Tensions increased throughout the state.

By the middle of the decade the traditional Southern power base in Missouri was crumbling, even though the changing situation remained hidden to many observers. New settlers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds rushed to enjoy the economic prosperity in the eastern portion of the state. The newcomers settled by the thousands in the St. Louis area and Missouri River’s fertile valleys. The most recent wave of settlers came from Germany, fleeing the Revolution of 1848 and the consequences that swam in it wake. They remained so strongly committed to the failed revolt that they still identified themselves as “forty-eighters.” Missouri politics slowly but steadily became more diverse, as quarrelsome factions fought for control of business and society.

In many ways the presidential election of 1860 characterized the changes underway in Missouri. Just a few months prior to the election Missourians sent Claiborne Fox Jackson to the governor’s mansion in Jefferson City. The charismatic Jackson, a Kentuckian by birth, moved to his adopted state at the age of twenty. After immersing himself in a variety of business endeavors, he was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives and thereafter the state senate. The years following the Mexican War found the young politician ardently championing the extension of slavery into new territories. His rise to the top of state politics arose during the turmoil of the 1850s, which conveniently tossed Jackson up as a consensus candidate for governor in 1860. The schism in the national Democratic Party that year, however, caused him great anguish. Although he was politically closer to John C. Breckenridge’s wing of the party, he remained loyal to the Stephan A. Douglas faction(but only to insure his own election to the state house. As a result, he openly campaigned across the state in favor of saving the Union, successfully painting himself as a pro-Union politician. Behind the scenes Jackson remained in close contact with Southern politicians and planned to utilize these connections if and when the opportunity arose to pull his state out of the Union. Jackson, according to one of his aides, “[was] the most conspicuous leader of this movement.” Southerner by birth, he was “a true son of the South, warmly attached to the land that had given him birth, and to her people, who were his own kindred.” Missouri’s new Governor quietly let it be known in his circle of close friends that he hoped Missouri would do her duty when the time came and stand by her Southern heritage.

Once elected he spoke his mind at his inauguration, publicly proclaiming that Missouri would join and assist any states if the North attempted military action to restrain secession. Thomas L. Snead, a chronicler of the early months of the Civil War in Missouri and a friend of the governor’s, described Jackson as “tall, erect and dignified; a vigorous thinker, and a fluent and forcible speaker, always interesting, often eloquent, with positive opinions on all public questions, and the courage to express and uphold them.” His physical appearance(with his hair swept to one side and a thick beard that gave him a biblical countenance(radiated confidence. But Jackson’s failure to accurately represent his core political beliefs to the general populace exacerbated the level of discontent within the state.

The gubernatorial election was not the only political debate raging in Missouri in the autumn of 1860. The national presidential election included four candidates on the state-wide ballot. Vice-president John C. Breckenridge represented Southern Democrats, while John Bell of Tennessee headed a new political entity called the Constitutional Union Party. Neighboring Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois represented the Northern Democratic Party, and remained extremely popular in Missouri. The Republican Party, participating in only its second election, ran a virtual unknown at the head of the ticket: Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln. The four candidates represented a cross section of political opinions.

The most vocal Missouri citizens involved in the campaign consisted of a small faction of pro-Lincoln and anti-slavery German immigrants. Lincoln’s supporters organized, marched and gave exuberant speeches on their candidate’s behalf. They managed to carry the areas where the Germans dominated the population base. Outside of the German sphere of influence, however, seventy percent of Missourians voted for Douglas or Bell. When the final results were posted, Douglas gained the largest plurality of Missouri’s votes. His margin in a badly splintered victory was narrow, 58,801 votes to bell’s 58,372. Breckenridge managed 31,317 votes, while Lincoln ran a distant fourth with 17,028 votes.

The results of the vote demonstrated that Missourians as a whole wished to steer a moderate course through the nation’s growing sectional strife. The positions espoused by Douglas and Bell appealed to the state’s citizens, who desired to avoid radical solutions to the state’s(and the country’s(problems. Many viewed Douglas as the only candidate that could heal the widening national rift. While the “Little Giant”, as Douglas was popularly known, was Missouri’s choice to head the Union Lincoln carried the more populous Northern states and gained an anemic electoral victory. His success, which galvanized the opinions of radical elements in Missouri and across much of the South, initiated a call for secession from the Union.

The majority of Missourians were appalled by the Southern demand for the destruction of the country. The state’s geographical location in the middle of the nation, coupled with its diverse citizenry, political and otherwise, classified it as a border state. A string of states from Delaware to Missouri separated the squabbling factions. Inevitably, the divided loyalties in these areas turned into early political and eventually military battlegrounds. If Missouri joined the South and added her start to the Confederate flag, her proximity to the major Northern city of Chicago would force the North to position thousands of troops west of the Mississippi River. If the state fell under Union control, it would provide a solid anchor for the Federal western flank and a convenient invasion route into the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy.

By this time a collage of mixed feelings and bad blood had spread across the state. Throughout Missouri Unionists’ counties lay next to areas of pro-Southern sympathy. Within many counties there were islands of divided sentiment. Some towns displayed the starts and stripes while other, a few miles distant, flew only the state flag(a sign of Southern loyalty. This fragmentation created a difficult situation for politicians attempting to lead state and the military authorities charged with maintaining order within its borders. Not all of the residents had declared their loyalty by late 1860. Many remained neutral and hoped to avoid the coming turmoil. It would not be long before virtually everyone’s lives would be touched by the chaos and bloodshed about to be visited upon Missouri’s rolling prairies.

Like the nation itself, the main issue dividing Missouri was slavery. By 1860, the state’s peculiar institution was no longer the potent economic force it had once been, although it retained a strong psychological hold on the citizenry. The largest pockets of black labor were concentrated primarily in the counties along the Missouri River, from Jefferson City west to the frontier settlement of Kansas City. The local citizens referred to this area as “Little Dixie” because of the Southern background of the residents and its agricultural base. Slavery in Little Dixie provided a much-needed labor force in a region perpetually beset by labor shortages. Governor Jackson’ political base of support was centered in these counties. The eastern portion of the state, contrarily, with its expanding population enjoyed a plentiful workforce. Immigrants supplied the rapidly growing manufacturing and shipping industries with steady workers. Missouri diversified economy became leas reliant of slavery and agriculture, which in turn added to the growing debate within the state.

With the election of a Republican president and an emerging controversy over slavery, Governor Jackson decided to call a special state convention over secession. Missouians elected 99 delegates to convene in the Cole County court house, located approximately in the center of the state. The delegates, who found the meeting room cramped and unsuitable for their needs, accepted the offer of the Mercantile Library and its spacious facilities and moved the convention to St. Louis. This proved helpful to the pro-Union men in the delegation the scene of the meeting shifted away from Little Dixie into a more neutral pro-Union environment. In retrospect, the Union men need not have feared meeting elsewhere, for Missouri citizens selected primarily Unionists from their congressional districts to attend the meeting. Missourians hoped to remain more objective in the debate over slavery and secession than conventions meeting in the deep Southern states. Economic survival for the majority of Missouri’s population, after all, did not depend on the continuance of slavery. Transcripts of the meeting reveal that the convention attendees participated in heated debates on the slavery problem. In the end the delegates voted to remain in the Union.

The decision was a blow to those who hoped Missouri would join other Southern states that seceded from the Union after Lincoln’s election. The momentum for secession, if any existed was temporarily stalled.

This is the conclusion to the prologue and chapter one of The Battle of Carthage: Border War in Southwest Missouri. If you want to find how a clash of armies in Missouri was the first fighting in the Civil War please go to HOW TO ORDER to receive an autographed book directly from the author.