The Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet

by George Q. Cannon

The General says:

Circumstances in my judgment of sufficient urgency, render it necessary that the Commanding General of this Department should assume the administrative powers of the state. Its disorganized condition, the helplessness of its civil authority, the total insecurity of life, and the devastation of property by hands of murderers and marauders, who infest nearly every county in the state, and avail themselves of the public misfortunes and the vicinity of a hostile force to gratify private and neighborhood vengeance, and who find an enemy wherever they find plunder,—finally demand the severest measures to repress the daily increasing crimes and outrages, which are driving off the inhabitants and ruining the state. In this condition, the public safety and the success of our arms require unity of purpose: without let or hindrance, to the prompt administration of affairs.

In order, therefore, to suppress disorders, to maintain as far as now practicable the public peace, and to give security and protection to the persons and property of loyal citizens, I do hereby extend, and declare established, martial law throughout the state of Missouri. The lines of the army of occupation in this state are for the present declared to extend from Leavenworth, by way of the posts of Jefferson City, Rolla and Ironton, to Cape Girardeau, on the Mississippi River.

All persons who shall be taken with arms in their hands within these lines shall be tried by court martial, and if found guilty, will be shot.

Upon the subject of the slaves, in the same proclamation, the General says:

The property, real and personal, of all persons in the state of Missouri who shall take up arms against the United States, and who shall be directly proven to have taken active part with their enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men.

And in enforcement of his proclamation to set the negroes free, he issued deeds of manumission, of one of which we are able to present a copy:

Deed of manumission.—Whereas, T. L. S., of the city and county of St. Louis, Missouri, has been taking active part with the enemies of the United States in the present insurrectionary movement against the government of the United States, Now, therefore, I, John Charles Fremont, Major-General, commanding the Western Department of the Army of the United States, by authority of law, and the power vested in me, as such Commanding-General, declare Frank Lewis, heretofore "held to service" or labor, by said T. L. S. to be free, and forever discharged from the bonds of servitude; giving him full right and authority to have, use and control his own labor or service as to him may seem proper, without any accountability whatever to said T. L. S., or any one to claim by, through or under him. And this Deed of Manumission shall be respected and treated by all persons and in all courts of justice, as the full and complete evidence of the freedom of said Frank Lewis.

In testimony whereof this act is done at St. Louis, Missouri, this 1st day of September, 1861, as is evidenced by the departmental seal hereto affixed by my order.

(Signed), JOHN C. FREMONT.

Horace Greeley, in his American Conflict, speaks of "Missouri, betrayed by Jackson" (the governor). Referring to the spectacle of anarchy and treason exhibited by the seceding states, Greeley reaches the culmination with Missouri and uses the following words:

We are now to contemplate more directly the spectacle of a state plunged into secession and civil war, not in obedience to, but in defiance of, the action of her convention and the express will of her people—not, even, by any direct act of her legislature, but by the will of her executive alone. * * * The state school fund, the money provided to pay the July interest on the heavy state debt, and all other available means, amounting in the aggregate to over three millions of dollars, were appropriated to military uses, and placed at the disposal of [Governor] Jackson, under the pretense of arming the state against any emergency. By another act the governor was invested with despotic power—even verbal opposition to his assumptions of authority being constituted treason; while every citizen liable to military duty was declared subject to draft into active service at Jackson's will, and an oath of obedience to the state executive exacted.

To support him in his treasonable exercise of power, among the men chosen by Governor Jackson was John B. Clark, the man whom Boggs had selected as a willing tool and whom Jackson now found pliant to his purpose. Another of the mob officers, Sterling Price, was now made by Jackson, Major-General of the state forces.

Poor Missouri atoned with rivers of blood and tears for her sin against herself in permitting the executive to usurp unlawful authority. The precedent of Boggs' exercise of power was handed down. In the day of the persecution of the Saints, a court had decided that belief in the Bible was treason against the government. The idea had moved with terrible momentum; for here we find in 1861 that, "even verbal opposition to the governor's assumption of authority was constituted treason."