The newcomers were skilled men in their departments of civilized activities—far above the average of the Americans. They were good physicians, fine musicians, finished painters, excellent actors and skillful mechanics, and each began the intelligent exercise of his vocation, to the great advantage of the community, which was, however, shocked at many of the ways of the newcomers, particularly their devoting Sunday to all manner of merrymaking. Still more shocking was their attitude toward the Slavery question. Even those Americans who were opposed to Slavery had a respect approaching awe of the "Sacred Institution." It had always been in the country; it was protected by a network of laws, and so feared that it could only be discussed with the greatest formality and circumspection. The radical Germans had absolutely none of this feeling. In their scheme of humanity all Slavery was so horrible that there could be no reason for its longer continuance, and it ought to be put to an end in the most summary manner. The epithet "Abolitionists," from which most Americans shrank as from an insult, had no terrors for them. It frankly described their mental attitude, and they gloried in it as they did in being Free Thinkers. They had not rebelled against timeworn traditions and superstitions in Germany to become slaves to something worse in this.
Vigorous growths as they were, they readily took root in the new soil, became naturalized as fast as they could, and entered into the life of the country which they had elected for their homes. They joined the Republican Party from admiration of its Free Soil principles, and in the election of 1860 cast 17,028 votes for Abraham Lincoln.
Such were the strangely differing elements which were fermenting together in the formation of the great Commonwealth during those turbulent days from 1850 to 1860, and which were to be fused into unexpected combinations in the fierce heat of civil war. The same fermentation—minus the modifying influences of the radical Germans—was going on in all the States of the South except South Carolina, where the Middle Class hardly existed. Everywhere the Middle Class was strongly attached to the Union, and averse to Secession. Everywhere the Slaveowners, a small minority, but of extraordinary ability and influence, were actively preaching dissatisfaction with the Union, bitterly complaining of wrongs suffered at the hands of the North, and untiring in their machinations to win over or crush the leaders of those favorable to the Union. Everywhere they had the "White Trash" solidly behind them to vote as they wished, and to harry and persecute the Union men. As machinery for malevolence the "White Trash" myrmidons could not be surpassed. Criminal instincts inherited from their villain forefathers made them ready and capable of anything from maiming a Union man's stock and burning his stacks to shooting him down from ambush. They had personal feeling to animate them in this, for their depredations upon the hogs and crops of their thriftier neighbors had brought them into lifelong collisions with the Middle Class, while they had but little opportunity for resentment against the owners of the large plantations. In every State in the South the story was the same, of the Middle Class Union men being harassed at the command of the Slaveowners by the "White Trash" hounds. They had been sent into Kansas to drive out the Free State immigrants there and secure the territory for Slavery, but though backed up by the power of the Administration, they had been signally defeated by the numerically inferior but bolder and hardier immigrants from the North.
Force rules this world; it always has; it always will. Not merely physical force, but that incomparably higher type—intellectual force—Power of Will. It seemed that in nearly all the States of the South the Slaveowners by sheer audacity and force of will succeeded in dominating the great majority which favored the Union, and by one device or another committing them hopelessly to the rebellion. This was notably the case in Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, where the majority repeatedly expressed itself in favor of the Union, but was dragooned into Secession.
In Missouri, however, the Secessionists encountered leaders with will and courage superior to their own. Many of these were Slaveowners themselves, and nearly all of them were of Southern birth. Head and shoulders above these, standing up among them like Saul among the Sons of Israel, was Frank P. Blair, then in the full powers of perfect manhood. He was 42 years old, tall and sinewy in body, blue-eyed and sandy-haired. He came of the best Virginia and Kentucky stock, and had long been a resident and slaveowner in Missouri. As a boy he had served in the ranks in the Mexican War, had an adventurous career on the Pacific Coast, had gone back to Missouri to achieve prominence at the bar, and as early as 1848 had come to the front as the unflinching advocate of Emancipation and the conversion of Missouri into a Free State. Against his perfect panoply of courage and resource all the lances of the Slaveowners were hurled in vain. Their violence recoiled before him, their orators were no match for him upon the stump, and their leaders not his equal in party management. In 1852 he was elected to the Missouri Legislature as a Free Soiler, was re-elected in 1854, and in 1856 to Congress. His value to the Union was immeasurable, for he was a leader around whom the Union men could rally with the utmost confidence that he would never weaken, never resort to devious ways, and never blunder. As a Southerner of the best ancestry, he was not open to the charge of being a "Yankee Abolitionist," which had so much effect upon the Southern people of his State.
