Nothing discouraged by this result, Blair resumed the work of organizing for the future. The Fillmore party gave no thanks to the free-soilers for their aid in the presidential election, nor did the latter ask any. They had simply taken the choice of evils; and now, renouncing all alliances, Blair became the champion and leader of a self-existing, self-reliant State party, that should accomplish emancipation in Missouri. He again established a newspaper to inculcate free principles in the State. By untiring effort, he revived and recruited his party. He gave it platforms, planned its campaigns, contested every election in St. Louis, whether for municipal officers, for State legislature, or for Congress; and always fought his battles on the most advanced ground assumed by the growing free-soil party of the Union. The powerful and rapidly-increasing German population of St. Louis responded nobly to his zeal and skillful leadership. Soon a victory was gained; and St. Louis declared for freedom, amid acclamations that reverberated throughout the States that extended from the Ohio to the lakes, and from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. But, having wrenched victory from a people so intolerant as the pro-slavery population of Missouri, it was not to be expected that he would retain it easily. He was set upon more fiercely than ever. The loss of the city of St. Louis was considered a disgrace to the State; and the most desperate personal malignity was added to the resentment of pro-slavery wrath in the future election contests in that city. The corrupting appliances of federal power were at last invoked, under Buchanan's administration; and Blair was for the moment overwhelmed by fraud, and thrown out of Congress. But, with a resolution from which even his friends would have dissuaded him, and with a persistency and confidence that were a marvel to friend and foe, he contested his seat before Congress, and won it. And this verdict was soon ratified by his brave and faithful constituency at the polls. Such was the Republican party, such their leader in St. Louis, when the black day of disunion came. And in their hands lay the destiny of the State.
As soon as the presidential election was decided, and the choice of Abraham Lincoln was known, the disunionists in Missouri commenced their work. Thomas C. Reynolds, the lieutenant-governor, made a visit to Washington, and extended it to Virginia, counseling with the traitors, and agreeing upon the time and manner of joining Missouri in the revolt. The legislature of Missouri met in the latter part of December, about two weeks after the secession of South Carolina. A bill was at once introduced, calling a State convention, and passed. The message of Claiborne F. Jackson, the governor, had been strongly in favor of secession from the Union. The Missouri Republican, the leading newspaper of the State, whose advocacy had elected the traitor, declared, on the last day of the year, that unless guaranties in defence of slavery were immediately given by the North, Missouri should secede from the Union. And so the secession feeling gathered boldness and volume.
Candidates for the State convention came to be nominated in St. Louis, and two parties were at once arrayedthe unconditional Union party, and the qualified Unionists, who wished new compromises. Frank Blair was one of the leaders of the former, and he was joined by all the true men of the old parties. But the secessioniststhey might as well be so called, for all their actions tended to weaken and discredit the Unionnominated an able ticket. The latter party were soon conscious of defeat, and began to hint mysteriously at a power stronger than the ballot-box, that would be invoked in defence of 'Southern rights.' To many, indeed to most persons, this seemed an idle threat. Not so to Frank Blair. He had imbibed from Benton the invincible faith of the latter in the settled purpose of the 'nullifiers' to subvert and destroy the government. And in a private caucus of the leaders of the Union party, on an ever-memorable evening in the month of January, he startled the company by the proposition that the time had come when the friends of the government must arm in its defence. With a deference to his judgment and sagacity that had become habitual, the Unionists yielded their consent, and soon the enrolment of companies began; nightly drills with arms took place in nearly all the wards of the city; and by the time of election day some thousands of citizen soldiers, mostly Germans, could have been gathered, with arms in their hands, with the quickness of fire signals at night, at any point in the city. The secessionists had preceded this armed movement of the Union men by the organization of a body known as 'minute-men.' But the promptness and superior skill that characterized Frank Blair's movement subverted the secession scheme; and it was first repudiated, and then its existence denied. The day of election came, and passed peacefully. The unconditional Union ticket was elected by a sweeping majority of five thousand votes. The result throughout the State was not less decisive and surprising. Of the entire number of delegates composing the convention, not one was chosen who had dared to express secession sentiments before the people; and the aggregate majority of the Union candidates in the State amounted to about eighty thousand. The shock of this defeat for the moment paralyzed the conspirators; but their evil inspirations soon put them to work again. Their organs in Missouri assumed an unfriendly tone towards the convention, which was to meet in Jefferson City. The legislature that had called the convention remained in session in the same place, but made no fit preparations for the assembling of the convention, or for the accommodation and pay of the members. The debate in the legislature on the bill for appropriations for these purposes was insulting to the convention, the more ill-tempered and ill-bred secession members intimating that such a body of 'submissionists' were unworthy to represent Missouri, and undeserving of any pay. The manifest ill feeling between the two bodiesthe legislature elected eighteen months previously, and without popular reference to the question of secession, and the convention chosen fresh from the people, to decide on the course of the Statesoon indicated the infelicity of the two remaining in session at the same time and in the same place. Accordingly, within a few days after the organization of the convention, it adjourned its session to the city of St. Louis. It did not meet a cordial reception there. So insolent had the secession spirit already grown, that on the day of the assembling of the convention in that city, the members were insulted by taunts in the streets and by the ostentatious floating of the rebel flag from the Democratic head-quarters, hard by the building in which they assembled.
Being left in the undisputed occupancy of the seat of government, the governor, lieutenant-governor, and legislature gave themselves up to the enactment of flagrant and undisguised measures of hostility to the federal government. Commissioners from States that had renounced the Constitution, and withdrawn, as they claimed, from the Union, arrived at Jefferson City as apostles of treason. They were received as distinguished and honorable ambassadors. A joint session of the legislature was called to hear their communications. The lieutenant-governor, Reynolds, being the presiding officer of the joint session, required that the members should rise when these traitors entered, and receive them standing and uncovered. The commissioners were allowed to harangue the representatives of Missouri, by the hour, in unmeasured abuse of the federal government, in open rejoicings over its supposed dissolution, and in urgent appeals to the people of Missouri to join the rebel States in their consummated treason. Noisy demonstrations of applause greeted these commissioners; and legislators, and the governor himself, in a public speech in front of the executive mansion, pledged them that Missouri would shortly be found ranged on the side of seceded States. The treason of the governor and legislature did not stop with these manifestations. They proceeded to acts of legislation, preparatory to the employment of force, after the manner of their 'Southern bretheren.' First, it was necessary to get control of the city of St. Louis. The Republican party held the government of the city, mayor, council, and police forcea formidable Union organization. The legislature passed a bill repealing that part of the city charter that, gave to the mayor the appointment of the police, and constituting a board of police commissioners, to be appointed by the governor, who should exercise that power. He named men that suited his purposes. The Union police were discharged, and their places filled by secessionists. Next, the State militia was to be organized in the interests of rebellion, and a law was passed to accomplish that end. The State was set off into divisions; military camps were to be established in each; all able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and fifty were liable to be called into camp and drilled a given number of days in the year; and, when summoned to duty, instead of taking the usual oath to support the Constitution of the United States, they were required only to be sworn 'to obey the orders of the governor of the State of Missouri.' These camps were styled camps of instruction. One of them was established at St. Louis, within the corporate limits of the city, about two miles west of the court-house, on a commanding eminence.