institution." He had not long before been mixed up in the proceedings that compelled Elijah P. Lovejoy to leave Missouri for Alton, Illinois, where he was murdered by a pro-slavery mob. Gamble was an able and ambitious man.
The Conservatives, likewise, had the backing of the Federal Administration—a statement that to a good many people nowadays will be surprising. There were reasons why such should be the case. Judge Bates, of Missouri, who was Attorney-General in Lincoln's Cabinet, had long been Gamble's law partner and most intimate friend. He never was more than nominally a Republican. Another member of the Cabinet was Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, who had been a resident of Missouri, and was a brother of General Francis P. Blair, Jr., of St. Louis. General Blair had been the leader of the Missouri emancipationists, but had turned against them. For his face-about there were, at least, two intelligible reasons. One was that in the quarrel between him and Frémont the most of his former followers had sided with Frémont. That was enough to sour him against them. The other was a very natural desire to be solid with the administration at Washington, which, as elsewhere shown, was not then actively Anti-Slavery. It did not want the question of slavery agitated, especially in the border slave States.
The Blairs were a clan as well as a family. The quarrel of one was the quarrel of all, and the Missouri Radicals had no more effective antagonist than the old Washington editor and politician, Francis P. Blair, Sr., the family's head, who was so intimate
with the President that it was understood he could at any time enter the White House by the kitchen door.
The writer was once a member of a delegation of Missouri "Charcoals" that went to Washington to see the President. An hour was set for the interview, and we were promptly at the door of the President's chamber, where we were kept waiting for a considerable time. At last the door opened, but before we could enter, out stepped a little old man who tripped away very lightly for one of his years. That little old man was Francis P. Blair, Sr., and we knew that we had been forestalled. The President received us politely and patiently listened to what we had to say, but our mission was fruitless.
The Radicals of Missouri sent deputation after deputation to the White House, and got nothing they wanted. The Conservatives never sent a deputation, and got all they wanted. They had advocates at the President's elbows all the time.
With both State and Federal administrations against them, the Missouri Charcoals may be regarded as foolhardy in persisting in the fight they made for the deliverance of their State from slavery. They did persist, however, and with such success in propagating their views that Governor Gamble and the other Conservative leaders decided that heroic measures to hold them in check were necessary. He undertook to cut the ground from under their feet. The old convention that had killed emancipation "at the first pop," or as much of it as was in existence, was called together by the Governor, who appealed to it to take such action as would
quiet agitation on the slavery question. Accordingly, it proceeded to enact what was called an emancipation ordinance. The trouble with it was that it emancipated nobody. It provided for the liberation of part of the slaves at a distant future day, allowing the rest to remain as they were. The Radicals simply laughed at the measure. They pronounced it a snare and a fraud, and went right on with their work for unconditional freedom, and the slave-owners continued to hold their human property the same as before.
The Conservatives, however, had not exhausted their resources. They sought to secure the military as well as the civil control. On the assurance that he could maintain peace and order, Governor Gamble was given authority by the President to recruit an army of State troops, which, although equipped and paid out of the national treasury, he was to officer and direct. The organization was entrusted to General John M. Scofield, a resident of Missouri, and one of the Governor's friends.
The political advantage to the Conservatives of exercising military control at such a time is obvious enough. But at first there was an obstruction in the person of General Samuel R. Curtis, the Federal commander of the district, who was not a man to waive his superior prerogative at a time when martial law prevailed, and who was, besides, openly in sympathy with the Radicals. They got not only protection from him, but about all the patronage he had to give. Pretty soon it was discovered that active efforts for the removal of Curtis were in progress. Charges of irregularities—afterwards shown