Lanterna Rally

Author: Missouri Convention

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-07-17

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9781331587941

Excerpt from Journal of the Missouri State Convention: Held in Jefferson City, June, 1862 There being a quorum present, the Convention proceeded to business; when Mr. Rowland offered the following resolution, which was adopted: Resolved, That Elder Thomas M. Allen be and is hereby appointed Chaplain of this Convention during its present session. Mr. Brown offered the following resolution, which was adopted: Resolved, That the Secretary of this Convention furnish each member thereof with a copy of the late census of the State of Missouri. The President laid before the Convention the following Message from The Governor. Gentlemen of the Convention: You have again been called together because there is no other body in existence that can adopt the measures which the present condition of the State demands. In order to a proper understanding of our condition, and to a judicious exercise of the powers with which the Convention is clothed, it may be profitable to glance rapidly at the events which have occurred within the past year. After the adjournment on the 22d day of March, 1861, and after you had solemnly expressed the judgment of the people of the State that there was no sufficient cause for disturbing the relations existing between the State and the United States, there was manifested on the part of those exercising the executive and legislative powers of the State a persistent purpose to dissolve our connection with the General Government, and attach us to what is called the Southern Confederacy. This purpose was exhibited in acts tending to a military collision between the State and General Government, and finally produced the battle of Boonville on the 18th day of June last. From that time the Governor fled before the military authority of the United States, charged as a citizen of the United States with treason against bis Government: other high executive officers and many of the members of the Legislature being implicated in the same charge of treason, in like manner fled, and abandoned their offices. Thus it happened that when you again assembled, in July last, you found the State Government in ruins, with no magistracy in a condition to exercise the powers which were conferred upon them by the Constitution, in order to maintain the peace of the State and the security of the people. It was among the wise orderings of a kind Providence that the Convention should, at such a crisis, be in existence, and capable of meeting the emergency. The alternative was presented to you of allowing the State Government to remain in ruins, with anarchy universally prevailing, with no power to preserve order, except as it might be exercised by a soldiery chiefly from other States, or attempting to rear again the Government of the State, that the reign of law might be re-established. You chose the latter, and organized the Provisional Government. Tour power to do so cannot be successfully questioned. The necessity for your action will be admitted by every person who understands what was then the condition of the State, and the wisdom of your action would seem to be established by the improvement that has since taken place in our condition. If we look back to the time of establishing the Provisional Government, we will see such a state of affairs as might well have justified a feeling of despondency as to the restoration of peace and order. Civil war was fully inaugurated; the popular mind was greatly inflamed; disregard of law universally reigned 5 there was no military force to enforce law and preserve order there were no arms belonging to the State to put into the hands of a military force if we had had one; there was no money in the treasury with which to purchase arms or subsist soldiers there was no State credit upon which to raise money; and, moreover, a very large majority of all the public offices of the State were in the hands of persons hos.