But the rumblings of the bloody conflict were not heard alone in the black war-clouds that hung threateningly over the Gulf States and the national capital, but at last directly over the streets along which we daily walked.

Succeeding the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln there was a period of silence more painful than actual battle. To us who were straining our eyes toward Washington, to see what the President, of whom we expected so much, was doing; who, intent, were listening that we might hear from his lips words of cheer and wisdom, he seemed to be paralyzed. We saw nothing. We heard nothing. Perhaps he was vainly hoping that those already in rebellion against the general government would yield to his eloquent appeal at the close of his famous inaugural. “I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” But he could not, by any appeal however reasonable and urgent, persuade men in the Cotton States. It was too late. He could not extinguish a conflagration by pouring oil upon it. Perhaps, however, he himself had no hope of peace, but was noiselessly preparing for the inevitable conflict. But whatever was the cause of these days of silence, they were days of sorest trial to the loyal of our city.

During all this time the secessionists were active; active everywhere south of Mason and Dixon’s line; active in St. Louis. For the sake of peace in our city, loyal men still withheld from the public gaze the Stars and Stripes, but just at this time, when the Unionists were greatly depressed, when the tension of mind and heart was so great that it seemed that the addition of another grain would be unendurable, a rebel flag, attached to a wire, was hung out over Sixth Street near one of the central avenues of the city. The war-cloud was now right over our heads. From its black belly a thunderbolt might fall at any moment. I saw the whole street under that defiant, revolutionary flag packed with angry men. They had flocked together without collusion, from a spontaneous and common impulse. They were a unit in their determination to tear down that symbol of revolt and destroy it. My whole soul was knit in sympathy with that pulsating, heaving, throbbing throng all aflame with patriotic passion. But there soon appeared, mounted on a barrel, at the side of the street, a citizen, southern-born, and highly respected by all. He spoke from a full heart earnest words to his friends and neighbors. The din of voices gradually died away. The speaker was master of the situation. He assured that excited, indignant multitude that he was in full tide of sympathy with them, that he too ardently longed to tear down that insulting banner, but in eloquent, impassioned words he entreated them to bear patiently the stinging indignity offered to a loyal city, and not needlessly to precipitate mortal combat between those who had been for years neighbors and friends. He assured them that the secession flag would soon be taken down by the authority and arm of the government, the star-spangled banner would be vindicated and would float in honor and triumph over our streets. The quieted but resentful crowd by degrees melted away and the stars and bars, oh, the shame of it! was left there for a few days to flutter undisturbed in the breeze. It however did a good work. Every loyal man that saw it, determined as never before to stand for, and, if need be, to fight for the integrity of the Union. So that over-hanging, growling, threatening cloud did not hurl its bloody bolt among us. We were, in spite of it, mercifully still at peace.

CHAPTER IV
THE BOOMERANG CONVENTION[[7]]

Missouri could not escape the dreaded, impending conflict. She carried the elements of it within her own bosom. Union and disunion forces angrily faced each other throughout all her borders. They jostled each other in the streets, marts and society of St. Louis. But amid these strong cross-currents of opinion, she remained securely anchored to the Union. She was, to be sure, somewhat battered and broken, but was surprisingly kept from the disaster of disunionism, that overtook most of her sister slave States. It is my object in this chapter to show that this great State, probably contrary to the expectation of a majority of her inhabitants, was early in 1861, through the very machinery devised to take her out of the Union, kept from that destructive folly.

When a Southern State contemplated seceding from the Union, first of all, through an act of its legislature, it provided for the creation of a sovereign Convention. The delegates to this Convention were duly elected by the people. At the appointed time they assembled, organized for business, and took up the question of secession, which they had been chosen to examine and decide. If they passed an ordinance of secession, it was believed that by such action the relations of the State to the Union were utterly and irrevocably severed, unless the convention determined of its own motion, or was required by the legislative act that called it into being, to submit the ordinance to the people to be ratified or rejected by their suffrages. For example, in Texas and Virginia the secession ordinances were ratified by popular vote.

In Missouri the secession Governor, re-enforced by a secession legislature, early in 1861, began to devise measures to take the State out of the Union. He followed in the wake of the Cotton States. The legislature, in full sympathy with him, passed an act which provided for the calling of a State Convention. In a “Whereas,” which precedes the sections of this act, it announced in fair words its “opinion,” that “The condition of public affairs demands that a Convention of the people be called to take such action as the interest and welfare of the State may require.” Then the act specifies the time and the conditions of the election of the members of the contemplated Convention, and specifically designates the subject that the Convention was expected to consider, viz.: “The then existing relations between the government of the United States, the people and governments of the different States, and the government and people of the State of Missouri, and to adopt such measures for vindicating the sovereignty of the State, and the protection of its institutions as shall appear to them to be demanded.” But this act contained one section of vital importance. It provided that any act of the Convention, changing or dissolving the political relations of Missouri “to the government of the United States,” should not be deemed valid until ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of the State. However, when this act became a law, neither the Governor nor the legislature seemed to have the slightest doubt that the people of the State would ratify by a decided majority an ordinance of secession; happily, no occasion ever arose for testing that question.

Nor was the confidence entertained by the Governor and the legislature unfounded. They had every reason to believe that the same voters who had elected them, when appealed to, would elect a Convention that would favor their project of secession, and that an ordinance of secession submitted to them would be triumphantly ratified. But

“The best laid schemes o’ mice and men

Gang aft agley.”