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.Instead, they were overwhelmed by a groundswell of popularoutrage at politicians in Washington meddling in this local matter. Residentsin several counties passed resolutions denouncing Congress, and grand jurors inSt.Louis came out with a statement saying all the slave states were threatenedby any attempt to keep slavery out of Missouri.3 Editorials in all five territorialnewspapers sounded the same theme.On May 15, the St.Louis lawyer ThomasHart Benton, shortly to be elected Missouri s first senator, told an enthusiasticthrong that federal lawmakers had no authority to exclude the slave system fromany state or territory.4Even those opposed to slavery, such as the territory s representative in Con-gress, were loath to go against the will of the people on this question.5 Whendelegates were being selected at the county level to draft the new state s consti-tution, any candidate who spoke out against slavery was loudly denounced.6Northerners inspired the most severe condemnation.7 As the Congregationalistminister Timothy Flint noted with some dismay, no aspirant stood the slightest1.Letter of Pacificus to the Printer, Missouri Gazette, 2 June 1819.2.Missouri Gazette, 23 June 1819.This article also reported that other counties were holdingmeetings to address this growing evil and threatening curse of the further admit-tance of involuntary slavery in Missouri.3.Trexler, Slavery in Missouri, 1804-1865, 106-7.Cf.Trexler, Slavery in Missouri Territory, 197.4.March, History of Missouri, 389.5.In 1819, Scott declared that even though he believed slavery to be wrong, he remained an advocate of the people s rights to decide on this question.for themselves. Quoted in Trexler, Slavery in Missouri, 105.6. When a few citizens in the territory had the temerity to question if Missouri shouldconsider limiting the further introduction of slavery, the proslavery majority raised ahue and cry against the menace of restrictionism. Foley, Genesis of Missouri, 295.Formore details, see Arvarh Strickland, Aspects of Slavery in Missouri, 1821, MissouriHistorical Review 65:4 (July 1971), 517.7.To discredit them, Benton attacked restrictionists as preachers from the North. Quoted in March, Admission, 441.200 VI.Racial Strife Crosses the Mississippichance of getting votes unless his sentiments [in favor of slavery] were unequiv-ocally expressed. 1 As a consequence, candidates favoring restrictions ran in onlyfive of Missouri s 15 counties, and almost none of them were elected.2 In a lead-mining district in Franklin County, one slavery opponent lost by a lopsided voteof 1,147 to 61, and another went down to defeat by a 3-to-1 margin in St.Louis.3 Inthe salt-producing region known as Boone s Lick Country, (where large num-bers of migrants from Kentucky and Virginia had settled, including many non-slaveholders), none of the 20 candidates came out for the exclusion of slavery.4Thus a minority of slaveholders gained political power in Missouri, neutralizingmost opposition by diverting attention away from the issue of slavery to theissue of states rights.This shift in tactics suggests that support for the chattelsystem itself was waning.Still, many non-slaveholders did join the pro-slaverycamp out of perceived economic self-interest, having witnessed how the terri-tory had prospered under the chattel system.5When the delegates gathered early in June 1820, several months after Con-gress had reached a compromise on Missouri statehood, the conservative,planter faction in the pro-slavery forces took control just as it had previouslyin the territorial legislature.6 (Among its members was Edward Bates, a St.Louislawyer from a distinguished Virginia family, who would later serve as AbrahamLincoln s attorney general.7) This outcome assured that the new constitutionwould fully protect the institution of slavery.8 Indeed, the document includedprovisions prohibiting emancipation without the consent of the slave owner andpreventing the legislature from ever voting to restrict the future entry of slaves1.Timothy Flint, Recollections of the Last Ten Years (New York: DeCapo Press, 1968), 214.Flint also observed that many proslavery candidates had never run for office beforeand displayed unblushing effrontery in attacking their opponents.2.March, Admission, 440.Trexler cites Benjamin Emmons, of St.Louis, as rumored tohave been the sole opponent of slavery elected as a delegate.But Emmons views onthe subject are not well documented.See Trexler, Slavery in Missouri, 103, note 9.3.Trexler, Slavery in Missouri, 103-4, 109-10.He quotes the pro-slavery positions of severalcandidates elected to the constitutional convention.4.March, History of Missouri, 400.5.Cf.Strickland, Aspects of Slavery, 516-7.6.Because of their larger white populations, counties with high concentrations of slaveselected the bulk of representatives to the territorial assembly in 1818.Howard, St.Charles, and St.Louis counties accounted for 20 of the 35 legislators.See Journal of theTerritory of Missouri, 4th General Assembly, 29 Oct.1818.As one historian has summed up,conservatives played upon antislavery fears and positioned themselves as championsof the antirestrictionist majority.For the moment, statehood and the future of slaveryin Missouri were the paramount issues, and a majority of the voters played it safe byselecting well-known, proslavery property holders to represent them in the constitu-tional convention. Foley, Genesis of Missouri, 296.7.Marvin R.Cain, Lincoln s Attorney General: Edward Bates of Missouri (Columbia: Universityof Missouri Press, 1965), 9-10.Bates would also serve briefly as president of theMissouri Colonization Society.8.Cf.March, History of Missouri, 193.201 Race to the Frontierinto the state.1 But the delegates, still smarting from Congress s attempt to setconditions for Missouri s admission to the Union and determined to have theirown say this time, also added a provocative clause to the constitution.Mirroringsimilar restrictions in slave states like Delaware, Article 3, Section 26 requiredthe General Assembly to enact laws to prevent free negroes and mulattoes fromcoming to and settling in this State, under any pretext whatsoever. 2On the surface, this provision appeared to be nothing more than a gratuitousretaliatory slap in the face of Congress.3 Since there were fewer than 300 freeblacks in all of Missouri in 1820, they did not pose any immediate concern towhite residents.But it was also true that the delegates and the voters theyrepresented were worried that more blacks might soon migrate westward
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