Missouri suffered severely in the war, but not through important campaigns or great battles. Persistent secession conspiracy, the Kansas episodes of border strife, and secret orders of Confederate agents from Arkansas instigating unlawful warfare, made Missouri a hotbed of guerrilla uprisings and of relentless neighborhood feuds, in which armed partizan conflict often degenerated into shocking barbarity, and the pretense of war into the malicious execution of private vengeance. President Lincoln drew a vivid picture of the chronic disorders in Missouri in reply to complaints demanding the removal of General Schofield from local military command:
"We are in civil war. In such cases there always is a main question; but in this case that question is a perplexing compound—Union and slavery. It thus becomes a question not of two sides merely, but of at least four sides, even among those who are for the Union, saying nothing of those who are against it. Thus, those who are for the Union with, but not without, slavery—those for it without, but not with—those for it with or without, but prefer it with—and those for it with or without, but prefer it without. Among these again is a subdivision of those who are for gradual but not for immediate, and those who are for immediate, but not for gradual extinction of slavery. It is easy to conceive that all these shades of opinion, and even more, may be sincerely entertained by honest and truthful men. Yet, all being for the Union, by reason of these differences each will prefer a different way of sustaining the Union. At once sincerity is questioned, and motives are assailed. Actual war coming, blood grows hot, and blood is spilled. Thought is forced from old channels into confusion. Deception breeds and thrives. Confidence dies and universal suspicion reigns. Each man feels an impulse to kill his neighbor, lest he be first killed by him. Revenge and retaliation follow. And all this, as before said, may be among honest men only. But this is not all. Every foul bird comes abroad and every dirty reptile rises up. These add crime to confusion. Strong measures deemed indispensable, but harsh at best, such men make worse by maladministration. Murders for old grudges, and murders for pelf, proceed under any cloak that will best cover for the occasion. These causes amply account for what has occurred in Missouri, without ascribing it to the weakness or wickedness of any general. The newspaper files, those chroniclers of current events, will show that the evils now complained of were quite as prevalent under Frémont, Hunter, Halleck, and Curtis, as under Schofield.... I do not feel justified to enter upon the broad field you present in regard to the political differences between radicals and conservatives. From time to time I have done and said what appeared to me proper to do and say. The public knows it all. It obliges nobody to follow me, and I trust it obliges me to follow nobody. The radicals and conservatives each agree with me in some things and disagree in others. I could wish both to agree with me in all things; for then they would agree with each other, and would be too strong for any foe from any quarter. They, however, choose to do otherwise, and I do not question their right. I, too, shall do what seems to be my duty. I hold whoever commands in Missouri, or elsewhere, responsible to me, and not to either radicals or conservatives. It is my duty to hear all; but at last I must, within my sphere, judge what to do and what to forbear."
It is some consolation to history, that out of this blood and travail grew the political regeneration of the State. Slavery and emancipation never gave each other a moment's truce. The issue was raised to an acute stage by Frémont's proclamation in August, 1861. Though that ill-advised measure was revoked by President Lincoln, the friction and irritation of war kept it alive, and in the following year a member of the Missouri State convention offered a bill to accept and apply President Lincoln's plan of compensated abolishment. Further effort was made in this direction in Congress, where in January, 1863, the House passed a bill appropriating ten million dollars, and in February, the Senate another bill appropriating fifteen million dollars to aid compensated abolishment in Missouri. But the stubborn opposition of three pro-slavery Missouri members of the House prevented action on the latter bill or any compromise.
The question, however, continually grew among the people of Missouri, and made such advance that parties, accepting the main point as already practically decided at length only divided upon the mode of procedure The conservatives wanted the work to be done by the old State convention, the radicals desired to submit it to a new convention fresh from the people. Legislative agreement having failed, the provisional governor called the old State convention together. The convention leaders who controlled that body inquired of the President whether he would sustain their action. To this he made answer in a letter to Schofield dated June 22, 1863:
"Your despatch, asking in substance whether, in case Missouri shall adopt gradual emancipation, the general government will protect slave-owners in that species of property during the short time it shall be permitted by the State to exist within it, has been received. Desirous as I am that emancipation shall be adopted by Missouri, and believing as I do that gradual can be made better than immediate for both black and white, except when military necessity changes the case, my impulse is to say that such protection would be given. I cannot know exactly what shape an act of emancipation may take. If the period from the initiation to the final end should be comparatively short, and the act should prevent persons being sold during that period into more lasting slavery, the whole would be easier. I do not wish to pledge the general government to the affirmative support of even temporary slavery beyond what can be fairly claimed under the Constitution. I suppose, however, this is not desired, but that it is desired for the military force of the United States, while in Missouri, to not be used in subverting the temporarily reserved legal rights in slaves during the progress of emancipation. This I would desire also."
Proceeding with its work, the old State convention, which had hitherto made a most honorable record, neglected a great opportunity. It indeed adopted an ordinance of gradual emancipation on July 1, 1863, but of such an uncertain and dilatory character, that public opinion in the State promptly rejected it. By the death of the provisional governor on January 31, 1864, the conservative party of Missouri lost its most trusted leader, and thereafter the radicals succeeded to the political power of the State. At the presidential election of 1864, that party chose a new State convention, which met in St. Louis on January 6, 1865, and on the sixth day of its session (January 11) formally adopted an ordinance of immediate emancipation.
Maryland, like Missouri, had no need of reconstruction. Except for the Baltimore riot and the arrest of her secession legislature during the first year of the war, her State government continued its regular functions. But a strong popular undercurrent of virulent secession sympathy among a considerable minority of her inhabitants was only held in check by the military power of the Union, and for two years emancipation found no favor in the public opinion of the State. Her representatives, like those of most other border States, coldly refused President Lincoln's earnest plea to accept compensated abolishment; and a bill in Congress to give Maryland ten million dollars for that object was at once blighted by the declaration of one of her leading representatives that Maryland did not ask for it. Nevertheless, the subject could no more be ignored there than in other States; and after the President's emancipation proclamation an emancipation party developed itself in Maryland.
There was no longer any evading the practical issue, when, by the President's direction, the Secretary of War issued a military order, early in October, 1863, regulating the raising of colored troops in certain border States, which decreed that slaves might be enlisted without consent of their owners, but provided compensation in such cases. At the November election of that year the emancipation party of Maryland elected its ticket by an overwhelming majority, and a legislature that enacted laws under which a State convention was chosen to amend the constitution. Of the delegates elected on April 6, 1864, sixty-one were emancipationists, and only thirty-five opposed.
After two months' debate this convention by nearly two thirds adopted an article:
"That hereafter in this State there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except in punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; and all persons held to service or labor as slaves are hereby declared free."