CHAPTER VII

MANUMISSION, COLONIZATION, AND EMANCIPATION

The power of the master to manumit his slave was recognized from colonial days.¹ Although Missouri was in the throes of slavery agitation many times, and although the free negro was as little favored there as elsewhere, yet the privilege of granting freedom under a set legal form was never denied, despite the fact that attempts were made to abridge it.² Nevertheless the power to manumit a slave appears to have been considered a privilege rather than a right, as its exercise was thought dangerous to society. On one occasion the state supreme court declared that “that power [manumission] could only be exercised by the consent of the sovereignty . . . the whole community being alike interested.”³

The effect of Christian baptism upon the status of the slave had been settled by the older slave States long before the Missouri country came under the dominion of the United

States.⁴ Emancipation was not a consequence of this religious rite, hence the subject needed no discussion in Missouri. Emancipation by testament was possible, and the Code of 1804 gave the form of procedure by which a slave could be liberated by will or other instrument in writing. When this was under seal of the district court of the Territory and was attested by two witnesses, the document made the slaves as free “as if they had been particularly named and freed by this act.” To prevent fraud the freedman could be seized to satisfy his owner’s debts contracted before his liberation. To prevent the free negro becoming a burden to society the slave manumitted must be “sound in mind and body,” not over forty years of age or under twenty-one if a male, or eighteen if a female. The late owner’s property could be attached if his former slave was incapable of self-support. Should an executor neglect to obtain the necessary papers for the one manumitted he was liable to a thirty-dollar fine. A negro without the papers proving his freedom was to be held by a justice until they could be obtained. If he could not pay his taxes, he was to be hired out.⁵

The constitution of 1820 gave the legislature power to pass laws permitting the freeing of the slave but “saving

the rights of creditors.”⁶ The later slave codes followed the form of 1804 in substance, adding that “such emancipation shall have the effect to discharge the slave from the performance of any contract entered into during servitude, and shall make such slave as fully and perfectly free, as if such slave had been born free.”⁷ Of course this would not give the freedman the legal status of the white but simply that of the despised free negro who could not be educated,⁸ who had no standing in court save when a negro was on trial,⁹ and who was usually treated with indignity.¹⁰

In 1836 the law was somewhat loosely interpreted, it being held that “when any person owns a slave, and is desirous to set him free . . . the same can be done by a deed or instrument in writing . . . acknowledged before a justice of the peace . . . without any reference whatever to that part of the act which requires a deed under seal to be attested by two witnesses,” as the latter was needed only when immediate emancipation was in view.¹¹ Some years later it was stated that the mere promise of the late owner was not sufficient, but that the legal document was necessary,¹² while in 1856 it was held that a will regularly drawn, though not probated, was a valid act of manumission even if inefficacious as a

will.¹³ In the very rigid case of Redmond v. Murry et at., wherein a slave held his master’s receipt for most of his purchase price, it was plainly enunciated that this contract of manumission, being “a mere intention or promise by the master, not consummated in the manner pointed out by law, however solemn such promise may have been made, can confer no power or capacity on the slave to have It enforced.”¹⁴

By 1863 the Civil War had so changed the fortunes of the slave power that in a decision of that year Judge Bay declared that an act or will providing freedom might be presumed from such acts of the master as afforded a sufficient ground for the presumption.¹⁵

This form of manumission took effect either immediately, or at the death of the owner, or within a stated period. In one instance a negress was to be hired out for a term of four years after the master’s death, and a child she bore within that time was sold to pay certain debts and expenses of the estate.¹⁶ Another negress was to serve for ten years and then be free. A child she bore within those years was also held to be a slave.¹⁷

Although not encouraging manumission, Missouri seems to have given the slave ample opportunity to sue for freedom. As early as 1807 the territorial government passed quite a comprehensive procedure permitting “any person held in slavery to petition the general court of common pleas, praying that such person may be permitted to sue as a poor person.” Under this legal fiction a slave could have full opportunity to fight for his freedom. The court was to assign counsel for the petitioner, allow him reasonable liberty to attend his counsel, and see that he was not subjected to any severity by his owner for bringing the suit. If the court feared a violation of this provision, the slave could be taken by habeas corpus and hired out, the earnings of such hire to go to the party winning the suit. The jury was to be instructed

that the “weight of evidence lies with the petitioner [the slave],” and jurors were to have regard not only to the written evidence of the claim to freedom, but also to such other proofs either at law or equity as the very right and justice of the case might require. Either party might appeal the case to the general court.¹⁸ In practice as well as in the word of the law the court was liberal toward the suing slave. Instances can be found in which the court ordered that the slave be protected while the case was pending and be given freedom to communicate with his attorney.¹⁹

An act very similar to the above was passed in 1824. It provided that “such actions shall be conducted in other respects in the same manner as the like actions in other cases.”²⁰ A law still more liberal was passed in 1835 which, being reenacted in the later revisions, became the working statute about which a multitude of cases were argued down to the time of the Civil War. The circuit courts were substituted for the old territorial district court as the body before which the manumissions were recorded.²¹

The classical Missouri suit for freedom Is of course the case of Dred Scott, the story of which has been often told.²² An account which well shows the struggle experienced by some negroes in suing for their liberty is that of Lucy Delaney. The story is undoubtedly told with bias. She states that her mother and three other colored children were kidnapped from Illinois and taken to Missouri, where they were sold into slavery. Later Lucy’s mother married a slave of Major Taylor Berry of Franklin County. Before entering a fatal duel the latter “arranged his affairs and made his will, leaving his negroes to his wife during her life time and at her death they were to be free.” Nevertheless Lucy’s father was sold south. Her mother later brought suit and gained her own freedom. On September 8, 1842, the mother started proceedings to obtain Lucy’s freedom from her old master’s daughter. The court required this lady’s husband to give bond for two thousand dollars as a guarantee that he would not remove Lucy from the State while the case was pending. The guarantor then had her placed in jail, lest, as he said, “her mother or some of her crew might run her off, just to make me pay the two thousand dollars; and I would like to see her lawyer or any other man in jail that would take up a . . . nigger case like that” Lucy was kept in jail for seventeen months. As the mother when suing for her own freedom had not mentioned her children, the defence endeavored to prove that they were not hers. At this point Edward Bates took up the matter,

and after much difficulty obtained the girl’s freedom.²³ This was perhaps an exceptional case, but it shows what the negro might be forced to undergo, even when he appealed to the courts.

As was learned above, the burden of proof lay with the plaintiff, who was further at a disadvantage in that “color raised the presumption of slavery.”²⁴ The court, however, declared that the legislature in framing the law endeavored to put fairly the question of freedom between the parties.²⁵ Just before the Civil War the court held further that “if a negro sues for his freedom he must make out his case by proof like any other plaintiff, but the law does not couple the right to sue with ungenerous conditions; and he may prove such facts as are pertinent to the issue, and may invoke such presumption as the law derives from particular facts.”²⁶ It was held that the claimant of a slave could not enter court “and disprove the matter [in the petition], and thereby prevent the institution of a suit,” as this would result in “every object of the law” being defeated. It would also be equivalent to a master’s bringing suit against his slave, a procedure which could not be allowed without statutory provision.²⁷ The plaintiff had to sue in person, another not being competent to do it for him, since he was a slave “as long as he acquiesced in his condition.”²⁸ On the other hand, the slave had the common-law privilege of having excluded as testimony any admission he might ever have made that he was rightfully a slave.²⁹ Property in slaves did not lapse through the statute of limitations. A master might permit an infant to remain with its free

mother, and when grown up it might even work and return its wages to the mother, but it continued to be a slave.³⁰

A great deal of litigation arose relative to the Ordinance of 1787. Settlers moving from the eastward to Missouri often took up land in Illinois as they passed through the State, then at some later time moved on to Missouri with their slaves. From this situation there resulted a long series of cases culminating in the Dred Scott case of 1852. As there was no Missouri law to apply to this class of cases, the court interpreted the ordinance as it appeared to intend and as the Illinois court construed it. Governor St. Clair wrote President Washington, June 11, 1794, that “the anti-slavery clause of this Ordinance did not go to the emancipation of the slaves they [the people of the Territory] were in possession of and had obtained under the laws by which they had formerly been governed, but was intended simply to prevent the introduction of others. In this construction I hope the intentions of Congress have not been misunderstood, and the apprehensions of the people were quieted by it.”³¹ The Illinois constitution of 1818 allowed indentures of negroes for terms of years, permitting those bound under previous laws to be held till their terms had expired. The children subsequently born to these were to be free at twenty-one if males and at eighteen if females.³² The courts of Illinois

for years permitted long-term indentures which were virtual slavery.³³

The Missouri interpretation of the Ordinance of 1787 was in principle consistent until overturned by the Dred Scott opinion. In 1827 a negro child who had been born in Illinois after 1787 was declared to be free.³⁴ The following year it was held that the ordinance was “intended as a fundamental law, for those who may choose to live under it, rather than as a penal statute to be construed by the letter against those who may wish to pass their slaves through the country.” A permanent residence was therefore held to work emancipation, as the court further declared that “any sort of residence contrived or permitted by the legal owner . . . in order to defeat or avoid the ordinance, and thereby introduce slavery de facto, would doubtless entitle a slave to freedom.”³⁵ The court perhaps based this rendering on the constitution of Illinois of 1818 which read: “No person bound to labor in any other State shall be hired to labor in this State, except within the tract reserved for the saltworks near Shawneetoun; nor even at that place for a longer period than one year at any one time; nor shall it be allowed after the year 1825. Any violation of this article shall effect the emancipation of such person from his obligation to service.”³⁶ In 1830 a case was decided which definitely laid down the principle that a slave might be hired out in Illinois for at least two years without working his freedom, but that if the owner intended to reside in Illinois and so resided with his slaves they would

become free.³⁷ These decisions were used as precedents, and this idea of the Ordinance of 1787 was held until overturned in 1852.³⁸ A case very similar to that of Dr, Emerson and his man Dred Scott was already on record. An army officer named Walker in 1836 actually forfeited his slave by virtue of the ordinance by taking her as a servant into the Northwest Territory for a number of years.³⁹

Consequently, when the Dred Scott cue was taken to the Missouri supreme court on a writ of error from the St. Louis district court, the whole mass of preceding decisions was swept away. The court held that “the voluntary removal of a slave by his master to a State, Territory, or country in which slavery is prohibited, with a view to reside there, does not entitle the slave to sue for his freedom, in the courts of this State.”⁴⁰ After 1852 this principle was followed to the letter.⁴¹

This view of the court aroused immediate indignation. Missouri had been liberal toward the slave seeking release from unlawful bondage. Senator Benton always took great pride in this fact, and claimed that negroes preferred to be tried in Missouri and Kentucky rather than in the free States north of the Ohio.⁴² Senator Breese of Illinois admitted in 1848 that “in all his observation and experience . . . he had discovered that the courts of the slave States had been much more liberal in their adjudications upon the question of slavery than the free States. The courts of one of them (Illinois) has uniformly decided cases against the right of freedom claimed by persons held in bondage under a modified form of servitude recognized by its old constitution. In precisely similar cases the courts of Kentucky and Missouri . . . decided in favor of the rights of freedom.”⁴³

The abandonment of this liberal policy was clearly recognized at the time. The Missouri chief justice in his minority opinion said, “I regard the question as conclusively settled by repeated adjudications of this court.”⁴⁴ In 1856 justices Curtis and McLean of the Federal Supreme Court enlarged upon this complete reversal of precedent by the Missouri court in their individual opinions.⁴⁵ The majority of the Missouri court admitted that precedent was against them, but claimed that a higher law demanded that abolition be

rebuked and the institution of slavery, in the State be conserved. “Cases of this sort are not strangers in our courts,” reads their opinion. “Persons have been frequently here adjudged to be entitled to their freedom, on the ground that their masters held them in slavery in Territories or States in which that institution is prohibited . . . on the ground it would seem, that it was the duty of the courts of this State to carry into effect the constitution and laws of other States and Territories regardless of the rights, the policy, or the institutions of the people of this State . . . times are not as they were when the former decisions on the subject were made. Since then, not only individuals but States have been possessed with a dark and fell spirit in relation to slavery, whose gratification is sought in the pursuit of measures whose inevitable consequence must be the overthrow and destruction of our government. Under such circumstances, it does not behove the State of Missouri to show the least countenance to any measures which might gratify this spirit.”⁴⁶

To this open acknowledgment of the influence of the political heat of the time on the decision there is the following answer from Chief Justice Gamble: “There is nothing with me in the law relating to slavery which distinguishes it from the law on any other subject, or allows any more accommodation to the temporary public excitements which are gathered about it.”⁴⁷ The Missouri court decided the Dred Scott case in 1852. Benton had fought for and lost his reelection to the United States Senate in 1849-51. Party feeling was extremely bitter, and the slavery issue divided Democrats and Whigs alike. The court recognized this “dark and fell spirit in relation to slavery.” To such political forces one must look for the inspiration of the then novel decision in Scott against Emerson.

Two motives entered into the act of liberating a slave,—financial consideration, and sentiment. In many cases pure sentiment was the moving force. Often it was mere barter

in which the slave or his friends or relatives bought his freedom. This resulted in many free negroes temporarily owning slaves—parents their children, a husband his wife—between the time of purchase and the date of manumission.⁴⁸ In many cases the elements of sentiment and cash both entered,⁴⁹ while the force of sentiment alone undoubtedly moved other emancipators.⁵⁰ Colored mistresses are known to have been freed by their owners, a familiar case being that of J. Clamorgan who in 1809 manumitted two such negresses who were mothers of his children.⁵¹ Many slaves were freed by will. Some of these were required to reimburse the heirs of the estate for their loss by such manumission, while a few were allowed to pay for their freedom in installments.⁵²

Accounts are on record of most heroic and pathetic sacrifices on the part of relatives to liberate slaves. That of George Kibby of St. Louis and his wife Susan is very instructive. In 1853 Kibby entered into a contract with Henry C. Hart and his wife Elizabeth L. Hart to purchase their negress named Susan, whom he wished to marry. The price was to be eight hundred dollars. The contract is devoid of all sentiment and is as coolly commercial as though merchandise was the subject under consideration. Kibby had but two hundred dollars to pay down. He was to pay the remainder in three yearly installments, and upon the fulfilment of the contract Susan was to receive her freedom. In the meantime Kibby was to take possession of Susan under the following conditions: “Provided however said Kibby shall furnish such security as may be required by the proper authorities, to such bond as may be required for completing such emancipation, so as to absolve . . . Hart and wife from all liability for the future support and maintainance of said Susan and her increase. This obligation to be null and void on the part of said Hart and wife, if said Kibby shall fail for the period of one month, after the same shall become due and payable, to pay to said Hart and wife said sums of money as hereinbefore specified, or the annual thereon, and in the event of such failure, all of the sum or sums of money whether principal or interest, which may have been paid by the said Kibby shall be forfeited, and said Kibby shall restore to said Hart and wife said negro girl Susan and such child or children as she may then have, such payments being hereby set off against the hire of said Susan, who is this day delivered into the possession of said Kibby. And said Kibby hereby binds himself to pay said sums of money as hereinbefore specified, and is not to be absolved therefrom on the death of said Susan, or any other contingency or plea whatever. He also binds himself to keep at his own expense a satisfactory policy of insurance on the life of said

Susan, for the portion of her price remaining unpaid, payable to T. J. Brent trustee for Mrs. E. L. Hart, and that said Susan shall be kept and remain in this County, until the full and complete execution of this contract.”

Attached to the back of this contract are the receipts for the installments. The first reads thus: “Received of George Kibby one mule of the value of sixty five dollars on within contract Feb. 1st, 1894, H. C. Hart” The fifth and last payment was made on December 3, 1855—two years lacking six days following the date of the contract. Accompanying the contract is the deed of manumission of Susan, likewise dated December 3.⁵³ Thus Kibby fulfilled his bargain in less than the time allowed him.

Cases can be found where slaves directly purchased their own freedom. One deed reads as follows: “For and in consideration of the sum of five hundred dollars, I have this day bargained and confirmed my right title interest and claim in and to a certain Negro Slave named Jackson . . . the said Sale being made unto Jackson himself with the intent . . . that the said slave shall henceforth be a free man.”⁵⁴ As to the nature of the transaction, most deeds of manumission were mere quit-claim contracts, while others seem to have been a guarantee of the grantor. The following was evidently such: “I Benjamin J. Vancourt . . . for a good and valuable consideration have emancipated . . . My Slave Dolly Maria . . . She . . . being entitled as against me and my heirs, . . . and against all persons whomsoever claiming by through or under me to all the rights privileges & immunities belonging to Free persons of color.”⁵⁵ This

provision, however, may have been a mere precaution to prevent the heirs from causing the slave in question future trouble.

At times the General Assembly by special act manumitted negroes. Two slaves were thus freed by the legislature in February, 1843, one in Jefferson and the other in Callaway County. In both cases the bill was “read the first time, rule suspended, read the second time, considered as engrossed, read the third time and passed.” There seems to have been no opposition to these acts. “Sundry citizens of Callaway county” even petitioned in the one case in favor of the negroes under consideration.⁵⁶

The actual number of slaves passing over into the class of free negroes can be learned with accuracy in so far as the circuit court records are complete, as all deeds of manumission were granted by these courts.⁵⁷ The census returns give little aid in calculating totals, as the free negroes are not always listed in the returns. The free black also went from one county to another, and so the increase per county is difficult to find. The two motives leading to manumission—sentiment and money—are so inextricably merged that it is doubtful whether the conclusions drawn from such figures would throw much light on the sentiment of the State relative to the subject of emancipation.

The number of slaves given their freedom from year to year was not great except in St. Louis. For the ten years between January 1, 1851, and January 1, 1861, but a single slave was freed in the Howard County circuit court.⁵⁸ In

the adjoining county of Boone but eight were liberated in these same ten years,⁵⁹ while to the southwest in Henry County only two were manumitted.⁶⁰ In the prosperous southwest Missouri county of Greene not a single slave was given freedom in the circuit court in the sixteen years preceding the Civil War—1845 to 1861.⁶¹ The old Mississippi River county of Cape Girardeau in the southeastern part of the State witnessed no manumissions in the years 1837, 1844, 1850, and 1851; there were four in 1858, and none in 1859.⁶²

In St. Louis County there was an entirely different situation. From the early days slaves were steadily and increasingly liberated. In 1830 four were manumitted, in 1831 three, in 1832 twelve, and in 1833 three.⁶³ Even in the years 1836 and 1837, while Congress was being thrown into a furor by abolition activity, twentyeight were liberated.⁶⁴ In the year 1855, while the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the settlement of Kansas were forcing the State into a fever of excitement, no less than forty-nine slaves received their freedom before the circuit court at St. Louis. Thirty-nine persons manumitted these forty-nine negroes.⁶⁵ In 1858 forty-nine slaves were liberated by nineteen different owners.⁶⁶

Evidently many free blacks moved from county to county or else the natural increase of the free negro was large. Although

but eight were freed in Boone County between 1851 and 1861, the free negroes there increased from 13 in 1850 to 69 in 1860, and Howard County, while manumitting but a single slave in these ten years, increased her free colored population from 40 to 71. No slaves were liberated in Greene County between 1845 and 1861, nevertheless the free blacks of the county increased from 7 in 1850 to 12 in 1860. The gain of St. Louis County, however, was consistent with her numerous liberations, increasing from 1470 in 1850 to 2139 in 1860.⁶⁷

The census returns, both state and Federal, contain so many omissions, especially in the free negro column, that little can be gained from comparisons of the relative growth of the slaves and the free blacks. Moreover, the state census returns do not harmonize with the Federal. For Missouri as a whole the relative gains of the three classes, whites, slaves, and free colored, are as follows according to the Federal census returns:—⁶⁸

From the above figures it appears that the free negroes and the slaves continued at about the same ratio, while both were outstripped by the whites. Law and sentiment kept the number of free blacks from being swelled from without, but slave accessions were not restricted. Would the free negro class tend naturally to increase as fast as the slaves? To answer this question a detailed study of the life of the free colored as well as of that of the slave would be necessary, and even if such a study should be made, it would be denied by many that the birthrate of the despised free negro was governed by any economic law.

The various portions of the State differed in sentiment as in interest. Outside of St. Louis County the slaves increased faster than the free negroes. St. Louis was a city of one hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants in 1860, of whom sixty per cent were foreign born.⁶⁹ The rural sections of the State looked askance at the liberal, antislavery, commercial spirit of the metropolis. The business interests of the city blamed slavery for keeping free labor from the State. The German element was strongly nationalistic and antislavery in feeling. As a consequence St. Louis County differed from the State as a whole. The Federal census reports for the county are as follows:—⁷⁰

The city of St. Louis contained more free negroes than slaves. In 1860 its population was divided as follows:—⁷¹

The increase of the free colored population was more rapid than that of the slaves. The cause of this lies not only in the fact that the people of St. Louis perhaps favored the freeing of the blacks more than did the State at large, but also in the fact that the great commerce of the city and its growing industry offered greater opportunities for labor than did the

interior of the State. The negro when released from his bonds has tended to drift cityward, and much must have been the case with the free negro before the Civil War. In addition the antislavery views of so many of the people of the city might naturally attract the free black to a congenial environment.

From the foregoing pages it is evident that the freeing of the slave was tolerated but not welcomed in Missouri. The law provided that it should be done only at the risk of the owner, and the free negroes were looked upon with distrust. This contempt for and fear of the free black was the chief reason for the limited number of manumissions in all of the Southern States.

It is not the purpose of this study to discuss the free negro except where such a treatment affects the slavery system, yet the movement to colonize the free blacks is closely related to the slave in that the fear and dislike of the free colored population often prevented the manumitting of the bondman. Colonization in Africa by American negroes was a definite program favored by the slaveholders of the South and the philanthropists of the North as a means of ridding the country of free negroes. The organized movement had hearty support from the second decade of the nineteenth century till long after the Civil War. James Madison and Henry Clay were early presidents of the national society. It was recognized as a slaveholders’ movement.

The Missouri society was late in its origin and never developed to great proportions. Even Arkansas seems to have supported the movement with greater ardor than did her neighbor to the north. Missouri contained few free colored persons, and the economic burden of slaveholding, if such a burden there was, seems not to have been generally felt at the time. The first colonization society of the State was the “Auxilliary Society of St. Louis,” which was founded about 1827. In this year William Carr Lane was president, James H. Peck, Governor Cole of Illinois, George Thompkins,

and William S. Carr vice-presidents, T. Spalding and D. Hough secretaries, and Aaron Phule treasurer.⁷² In 1832 this was as yet the only society in the State, and it still had the same officers.⁷³ The legislature gave the movement at least indirect support in resolutions passed in 1829 which declared unconstitutional the action of Congress in appropriating funds for the use of the national society.⁷⁴

The churches pushed the work, and the St. Louis society often met under the auspices of the Methodists.⁷⁵ Indeed, the Missouri Conference of that body in 1835 put itself on record as being enthusiastic over the subject of colonization: “Resolved, That we highly approve of the Colonization enterprise as conducted by the American Colonization Society; we will use our influence and reasonable endeavors to promote its interests, and we recommend its claims to the people among whom we may be appointed to labor.”⁷⁶ Other churches were also interested. In 1846 “Reverend W. Patton’s church” of Fayette sent $7.50 to the national society,⁷⁷ while two years before the Reverend A. Bullard had enclosed $66 to aid a colonist.⁷⁸ The Unitarian church of St. Louis raised $150 for the society at a meeting in 1849.⁷⁹

The Missouri State Colonization Society was organized in 1839 with Beverley Allen as president.⁸⁰ This association evidently prospered, for in 1845 its “Agent,” the Reverend Robert S. Finley, sent $50 to the organ of the national society, the Repository.⁸¹ It even advocated the raising of $1000 in the State with which to cooperate with the Illinois society in sending a packet twice a year to Liberia.⁸² During that decade there were numerous signs of active interest. Public meetings were held, and colonial literature was sent to the clergymen of the State,⁸³ but whatever may have been the activity of the society the number of negroes sent from Missouri to Liberia was not great. Up to 1851 only 21 blacks had been sent to Africa from the State out of a total of 6116 sent from the United States.⁸⁴ Within the next five years Missouri sent 62 more.⁸⁵

An illustration of the manner in which a local society was formed and the real motives behind the movement can be gained from the contemporary account of the genesis of the Cole County society. On November 17, 1845, a gathering was addressed in the Jefferson City Methodist church by the state colonization agent, the Reverend R. S. Finley. Officers were elected, and the society adjourned to meet in the Capitol on the following evening.⁸⁶ The state constitutional convention was in session at Jefferson City at the time, and many of its members were present at this second meeting. Colonel James Young of Callaway County was made

chairman and General Aaron Finch of Dade County secretary. Colonel Young offered a resolution in favor of the society and its work, and recommended the movement to the people of the State. This resolution was “unanimously adopted.” General Finch then made a speech in which he lauded the society. He urged that the work of colonizing Africa with these negroes should be vigorously pushed, as it was the only means of removing from the State the free blacks, who were an “injury to our country” and constantly “corrupt our slaves.”⁸⁷ From the above account it is evident that it was the slaveholders and not the abolitionists who led the movement. At the same time many radical anti-slavery agitators such as Frank Blair likewise advocated the colonization program, yet the movement was entirely distinct from the organized antislavery agitation.

The policy of supporting the colonization program was apparently popular in the closing days of the slavery regime. The cautious and prominent Presbyterian clergyman, the Reverend N. L. Rice of the Second church of St. Louis, who dreaded both northern and southern agitators, wrote a series of public letters to the General Assembly of his church in 1855 in which he declared that colonization alone could save the country from northern abolitionism and southern radicalism.⁸⁸ When on January 1, 1852, Captain Andrew Harper of St. Charles turned his twenty-four slaves over to the society upon the condition “that they be immediately Colonized to Liberia,” the conservative old St. Louis Republican declared it a “noble New Year’s gift.” “How can the affluent hope to dispense their wealth better than in generously aiding in this effort to let the bondman go free?”⁸⁹

Even the political heat engendered by the Kansas struggle and the war between the Benton and anti-Benton forces seems to have had little effect on the popularity of colonization. On January 14, 1858, Frank Blair delivered in Congress an able speech in favor of a resolution introduced by himself which provided that territory be acquired in Central or South America on which to plant a colony of free negroes of the United States.⁹⁰ Senator Green of Missouri, a strong proslavery man, in a speech of May 18 on this measure expressed his own favorable attitude toward colonization, but resented Senator King’s statement that Blair as a Missourian was the logical person to push the measure. He declared that only “a few individuals” in the State favored emancipation.⁹¹ This illustrates how easily the colonization movement might be confused with the active antislavery program. In 1860 among the ninety-seven vice-presidents of the national society were Edward Bates and John F. Darby of St. Louis,⁹² showing that the project had able and influential supporters in Missouri in the closing days of the slavery period.

It will be the aim of the following paragraphs to depart entirely from the military and political affairs which engulfed Missouri from 1861 to 1865 and to outline the development of the movement toward emancipation.

When Governor Jackson was driven from Jefferson City and the “Rebel” legislature moved to Neosho, Hamilton R.

Gamble, a lifelong Whig and antislavery man, was made governor. His party was conservative, and hoped by gentle means to placate those who had believed in the “Union with slavery.” Opposed to this party were the “Radicals” or “Charcoalers,” headed by Charles D. Drake and General George R. Smith. These latter preached immediate emancipation, and accused the governor and his friends of having lurking proslavery sentiments.⁹³

When the state convention met in March, 1861, to decide the relation of Missouri to the Union, Uriel Wright declared that emancipation meant the destruction of the agricultural interests of the South.⁹⁴ The majority of the committee on Federal relations were otherwise minded, and they maintained that the interests of Missouri would suffer from the policy of free trade as advocated by the South. They condemned secession, and thought that the North could never be at peace with the South as a separate nation, as the question of fugitive slaves would force a free North to police her territories for a slave South.⁹⁵ The convention was loyal to the Union, but could not be said to be at all in favor of materially affecting the slavery system.

In August, 1861, General Fremont, in command of the Union forces of the State, by proclamation declared the property of all rebels to be forfeited, and emancipated their slaves. But President Lincoln on New Year’s day, 1862, modified this provision so that it applied only to those who had taken up arms against the United States or had aided her enemies.⁹⁶

When the state convention reassembled in June, 1862, emancipation was immediately agitated. Breckenridge for the committee on the constitution introduced a series of resolutions which provided for the abolition of the slavery clauses of the state constitution; for the liberation of all slaves born in the State on and after the first of January, 1865, when such should reach the age of twenty-five years; for indemnifying the masters of slaves for their losses, and for requiring the reporting of slave births within six months under a penalty of the confiscation of the slave. No slaves were to be imported. The proposal of the President to aid the State in reimbursing her slaveholders was favorably considered. These resolutions were tabled by a vote of 52 to 19.⁹⁷ On June 13 Governor Gamble submitted to the convention the offer of President Lincoln of the recent congressional provision proposing to pay Missouri slave-owners in case of gradual emancipation. The governor, however, feared that the measure “would produce excitement dangerous to the State,” and hinted that in such a contingency the President would not consider the “action disrespectful” if the offer were rejected. The proposition was thereupon tabled and ordered printed.⁹⁸ Hitchcock then moved that the offer of the President be considered, that he he advised of the danger its acceptance might cause, and that he be duly thanked. A committee of five was appointed for this purpose.⁹⁹

The convention was not composed entirely of kindred spirits. Hall immediately moved a counter-resolution declaring that “the people in choosing the Convention, never intended or imagined that body would undertake any social revolution wholly unconnected with the relations between the State and the General Government.” This resolution

was rejected by a vote of 35 to 30.¹⁰⁰ Birch then moved that the President’s offer be “respectfully declined.” This was rejected by a vote of 38 to 22, whereupon Breckenridge moved to submit the communication of the governor, along with the motion of Hitchcock, to the President. This motion passed by a vote of 37 to 23.¹⁰¹ It is evident from the action of this convention and from a survey of the vote on the various motions that the time was not yet ripe for radical interference with the slavery system.¹⁰²

By 1863 a large portion of the Union element, which party then controlled the situation in the State, was in favor of emancipation. Some wished immediate and some gradual emancipation. Charles D. Drake said to the convention which he and his followers called in 1863 that in the summer of 1861 “a large majority—perhaps seven-eights—of them [the people of Missouri] then were proslavery people.” But during the two years which followed, he claimed that the “sentiments of the people of Missouri in regard to the institution of slavery underwent a radical change.” He added that Lincoln’s offer of cooperation in reimbursing the slaveholders was largely responsible for this transition.¹⁰³ This change in feeling regarding emancipation is also vouched for by the Reverend J. W. Massie of England, who was sent to the United States in 1863 by a band of four thousand French and English clergymen. “I was as free to utter my antislavery sentiments in Missouri as I had been

in Connecticut. The Reverend H. Cox at whose church I spoke [Methodist] affirmed that such an address would not have passed without a mob, and the probable destruction of the place, only the year before.”¹⁰⁴

When the legislature met for the regular session of 1862-63, Governor Gamble submitted his message, which dealt largely with the negro situation.¹⁰⁵ On January 21 concurrent resolutions were introduced in the House declaring that $25,000,000 would be necessary to carry emancipation into effect in the State and requesting that amount of Congress for the purpose. This was amended by various members to read a greater and again to read a less amount. Zerely moved that Missouri had no wish that the slaves when emancipated should remain in the State. He was declared out of order. On the following day the original motion passed by a vote of 70 to 34, nineteen members being absent for one cause or another.¹⁰⁶ In the Senate this resolution appeared on January 26, was likewise amended, and finally passed the next day, the vote being 26 to 2, four members not being present.¹⁰⁷ But as the slaves could not be liberated without paying their owners, the constitution of 1820 so providing, the legislature felt its power to be limited, and therefore the governor on April 15 called the convention to reassemble on June 15.¹⁰⁸

The convention met as called. On the following day Smith introduced an ordinance for the “emancipation of slaves.”¹⁰⁹ On June 23 Gamble resigned as governor in order to retain his position in the convention as chairman of the committee on emancipation. At the request of the convention he consented to continue as governor till the election of the following November.¹¹⁰ He then submitted an ordinance repealing the slavery sections of the constitution; abolishing slavery after July 4, 1876; liberating all slaves thereafter brought into the State not then belonging to citizens of Missouri; freeing any slaves who had been taken into one of the seceding States after such had passed the Ordinance of Secession, and declaring that the legislature had no power to emancipate slaves without the consent of the owners.¹¹¹ A number of amendments were proposed reducing the period of servitude. These were rejected.¹¹² Drake moved that all slaves over forty years of age remain as apprentices for the remainder of their lives and those under twelve till they were twenty-three, and that all others be free on July 4, 1874.¹¹³ Broadhead amended Drake’s proposition to read July 4, 1870, instead of 1874, and moved that these “apprentices” should not be sold without the State or to non-residents after 1870. In this form the ordinance passed by a vote of 55 to 30.¹¹⁴ On July 1, 1863, with some slight changes it was adopted as a whole, the vote being 51 to 30, seven members not being present. The governor approved the ordinance the same day.¹¹⁵

In those stormy days events took place in rapid succession and issues developed readily. The halfway measures of the convention in framing the ordinance displeased the “Radicals.” Quantrell’s raid on Lawrence in the late summer, the ill success of the state guard in maintaining order, and the occasional success of Confederate sympathizers aroused Drake and his followers.¹¹⁶ They met in convention at Jefferson City on September 1. Seventy-two counties were represented, St. Louis sending one hundred and six delegates, most of whom were Germans. On the

opening day Drake addressed the convention. He condemned Governor Gamble for seeking to betray the will of the people by opposing immediate emancipation.¹¹⁷ This “Radical” or “Charcoal” convention at once showed the purpose of its meeting. On the opening day Lightner offered a resolution declaring “That Missouri requires and demands as indemnity for past and security for the future the extinction of slavery, and the disfranchisement of rebels.” This resolution was referred to a committee.¹¹⁸ A committee of one from each county was appointed to go to Washington and interview the President on the subject of immediate emancipation.¹¹⁹ The Germans of the State were thanked for their “undivided support and defense of the Government and the Constitution,” “Without a dissenting voice” the convention declared “that we demand a policy of immediate emancipation in Missouri because it is necessary not only to the financial success of the State and the prosecution of its internal improvements, but especially because it is essential to the security of the lives of our citizens.”¹²⁰

During the year 1864 emancipation was loudly advocated throughout the State. B. Gratz Brown of the Missouri Democrat was especially active both in and out of the legislature.¹²¹ On February 15 the restrictions on legal manumission

were removed by the General Assembly.¹²² But slavery still existed in the State, despite the hopeless condition of the Confederacy and the abolition of the system in several of the Southern States through the Emancipation Proclamation.¹²³ “Slavery is not extinct. It dies slowly,” says an item in the Annals of Platte County for May, 1864.¹²⁴

On January 6, 1865, the state convention reassembled at St. Louis. On January 9 Owens moved an ordinance repealing the slavery clauses of the constitution and the ordinance passed by the convention the year before. Slavery was to be abolished entirely. On January 11 this ordinance passed by a vote of 60 to 4.¹²⁵ The members voting in the negative were Switzler of Boone, Morton of Clay, Harris of Callaway, and Gilbert of Platte. Charles D. Drake was the warhorse of the convention.¹²⁶ After pushing through his ordinance, he secured the passage of a provision forbidding any apprenticeship of the negro, save where the laws would later affect individuals.¹²⁷ On April 8 the new constitution passed by a vote of 38 to 13, thirteen members not being

present.¹²⁸ By its provisions slavery was forbidden and the educational and civil position of the negro was fixed.

While the convention was in session, the legislature was acting upon the Thirteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. A concurrent resolution which ratified the above amendment was passed by the House on February 9 by a vote of 85 to 8, thirty-nine members not being present.¹²⁹ On February 6 it passed the Senate, the vote being 25 to 2, five members not being present.¹³⁰ Governor Fletcher signed the measure on the 10th.¹³¹

Thus Missouri voluntarily abolished slavery by convention a month before the General Assembly ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. The slaveholders of the State were never reimbursed for their losses, but by 1865 there could have been few actual slaves in Missouri. The State has always been proud of its voluntary action in freeing the remnant of its black population.