sary to trace very briefly the origin and progress of the evils that now afflict the State. powerful force might be applied by a be- | cent Providence, to avert its fury, and pree our country from threatened ruin. That It is not necessary that any lengthy reference has not been realized. The storm, in all should be made to the action of those States ry, has burst upon the country-the armed which have seceded from the Union. We cans of different sections have met each other not remedy or recall that secession. They loody conflict, and the grave has already have acted for themselves, and must abide the ived the remains of thousands of slaugh-consequences of their own action. So far as d citizens. Reason inflamed to madness you have expressed your wishes, you have deands that the stream of blood shall flow clared your determination not to leave the der and deeper; and the whole energies Union, and your wishes have been expressed by people, but a few months since prosperous this Convention. happy, are now directed to the collection Any action of any officer of the State in conrger hosts and the preparation of increased flict with your will thus expressed is an action more destructive engines of death. in plain opposition to the principle of our Govour delegates enjoy the satisfaction of ernment, which recognizes the people as the wing that neither by their action, nor their source of political power, and their will as the are to act, have they in any degree contrib-ule of conduct for all their officers. It would to the ferocious war spirit which now have been but a reasonable compliance with ails so generally over the whole land. We your will, that after you had, through this Consought peace, we have entreated those vention, expressed your determination to rewere about to engage in war to withhold main in the Union, your Executive and Legisr hands from the strife, and in this course lative officers should not only have refrained know that we but expressed the wishes and from any opposition to your will, but should Ings of the State. Our entreaties have been have exerted all their powers to carry your ceded; and now, while war is raging in will into effect. er parts of our common country, we have that our first and highest duty is to pre-e, if possible, our own State from its ravs. The danger is imminent, and demands mpt and decisive measures of prevention. We have assembled in Jefferson under cirstances widely different from those that ted when the Convention adjourned its sesat St. Louis. We find high officers of the State Governat engaged in actual hostilities with the es of the United States, and blood has been t upon the soil of Missouri. Many of our zens have yielded obedience to an ill-judged of the Governor, and have assembled in s for the purpose of repelling the invasion of State by armed bands of lawless invaders, he troops of the United States are designatby the Governor in his proclamation of the day of June last. Ve find that troops from the State of Arkanhave come into Missouri for the purpose of Laining the action of our Governor in his test with the United States, and this at the uest of our Executive. We find no person present, or likely soon to present, at the seat of Government, to exerthe ordinary functions of the Executive partment, or to maintain the internal peace the State. We have been enabled to ascertain by some correspondence of different public officers, accidentally made public, that several of these officers not only entertained and expressed opinions and wishes against the continuance of Missouri in the Union, but actually engaged in schemes to withdraw her from the Union, contrary to your known wishes. After the adjournment of your Convention, which had expressed your purpose to remain in the Union, Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, in a letter addressed to David Walker, President of the Arkansas Convention, dated April 19, 1861, says: "From the beginning, my own conviction has been that the interest, duty, and honor of every slaveholding State demand their separation from the non-slaveholding States." Again, he says: "I have been, from the beginning, in favor of decided and prompt action on the part of the Southern States, but the majority of the people of Missouri, up to the present time, have differed with me." Here we have the declaration of his opinion and wishes, and the open confession that a majority of the people did not agree with him. But he proceeds: "What their future action (meaning the future action of the people) may be, no man with certainty can predict or foretell; but my impression is, judging from the indications hourly occurring, that Missouri will be ready for secession in less than thirty days, and will secede if Arkansas will only get out of the way and give her a free passage." We find that throughout the State there is minent danger of civil war in its worst form, which neighbor shall seek the life of neigh, and bonds of society will be dissolved, and It will presently be seen, by an extract from versal anarchy shall reign. If it be possible another letter, what the Governor means by find a remedy for existing evils, and to avert being ready for secession; but it is very ree threatened horrors of anarchy, it is mani-markable that he should undertake not only to tly the duty of your delegates, assembled in nvention, to provide such a remedy; and, in ler to determine upon the remedy, it is neces say that she would be ready to secede in thirty days, but further, that she will secede, when in fact your Convention, at that time, stood ad journed to the 3d Monday of December next. His declaration that the State would secede is made, doubtless, upon some plan of his own, independent of the Convention. Nine days after this letter to the President of the Arkansas Convention, he wrote another, addressed to J. W. Tucker, Esq., the editor of a secession newspaper in St. Louis. This letter is dated April 28, 1861. The writer says: "I do not think Missouri should secede to-day or to-morrow, but I do not think it good policy that I should so openly declare. I want a little time to arm the State, and I am assuming every responsibility to do it with all possible despatch." Again he says: "We should keep our own counsels. Everybody in the State is in favor of arming the State, then let it be done. All are opposed to furnishing Mr. Lincoln with soldiers. Time will settle the balance. Nothing should be said about the time or the manner in which Missouri should go out. That she ought to go, and will go, at the proper time, I have no doubt. She ought to have gone last winter, when she could have seized the public arms and public property, and defended herself." Here is the second executive officer of s souri avowedly engaged in travelling thro States which he must regard while Mist continues in the Union as foreign States, E. those States endeavoring, as he says, to promes the interests of our State. The mode of promoting our interests is de closed in another passage of the addres which he gives the people assurance that the people of the Confederate States, though a gaged in a war with a powerful foe, would be hesitate still further to tax their energies ai resources at the proper time, and on a prope occasion in aid of Missouri. The mode of pro moting our interests, then, was by obta military aid, and this while Missouri conte in the Union. The result of the joint of the first and second executive officers of the State has been that a body of military fr of Arkansas has actually invaded Missouri carry out the schemes of your own officer, via ought to have conformed to your will, as had made it known at elections, and bade pressed it by your delegates in Convention. Still further to execute the purpose of ing the connection of Missouri with the te States, the General Assembly was called when assembled sat in secret session, and Here we have the fixed mind and purpose of the Governor, that Missouri shall leave the Union. He wants time-a little time to arm the State. He thinks secrecy should be pre-acted laws which had for their object the ple served by the parties with whom he acts in keeping their counsels. He suggests that nothing should be said about the time or the manner in which Missouri should go out; manifestly implying that the time and manner of going out, which he and those with whom he acted, proposed to adopt, were some other time and manner than such as were to be fixed by the people through their Convention. It was no doubt to be a time and manner to be fixed by the Governor and the General Assembly, or by the Governor and a military body to be provided with arms during the little time needed by the Governor for that purpose. There have been no specific disclosures made to the public of the details of this plan, but the Governor expresses his strong conviction that at the proper time the State will go out. This correspondence of the Governor occurred at a time when there was no interference by soldiers of the United States with any of the citizens, or with the peace of the State. The event which produced exasperation through the State, the capture of Camp Jackson, did not take place until the 10th of May. Yet, the evidence is conclusive that there was at the time of this correspondence a secret plan for taking Missouri out of the Union without any assent of the people through their Convention. An address to the people of Missouri was issued by Thomas C. Reynolds, the LieutenantGovernor, in which he declares that in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia his efforts have been directed unceasingly, to the best of his limited ability, to the promotion of our interests, indissolubly connected with the vindication of our speedy union with the Confederate States. ing in the hands of the Governor large SULA money to be expended in his discretion for tary purposes, and a law for the organiza of a military force which was to be sustained by extraordinary taxation, and to be able subject to the orders of the Governor, to aginst all opposers, including the United State By these acts, schools are closed, and the mands of humanity for the support of lunatics are denied, and the money raised for the p poses of education and benevolence may s the fund to be expended in war. Without referring more particularly to the provisions of these several acts, which are mos extraordinary and extremely dangerous as pre cedents, it is sufficient to say that they dis the same purpose to engage in a conflict with the General Government, and to break the conection of Missouri with the United State which had before been manifested by Gor. Jackson. The conduct of these officers of the Legislative and Executive Departments s produced evils and dangers of vast magnitud and your delegates in Convention have ad dressed themselves to the important and de cate duty of attempting to free the State from these evils. than The high executive officers have fled from the Government and from the State, leaving s without the officers to discharge the ordinary necessary executive functions. But, more this, they are actually engaged in carrying on war with the State, supported by troops from States in the Southern Confederacy; the State, while earnestly desirous to keep o of the war, has become the scene of cont without any action of the people assuming such So that lity. Any remedy for our present evil, to | our delegates desire that you shall by elec- ordinance amended the Military law, and such other acts as were doubtless passed for the purpose of disturbing the relations of the State with the Federal Government. These are the measures adopted by your delegates in Convention for the purpose of restoring peace to our disturbed State, and enabling you to select officers for yourselves to declare and carry into effect your views of the true policy of the State. They are measures which seem to be imperatively demanded by the present alarming condition of public affairs, and your delegates have determined to submit them to you for your approval or disapproval, that they may have the authority of your sanction, if you find them to be adapted to secure the peace and welfare of the State. There are some who question the power of the Convention to adopt these measures. A very brief examination of this question of power, will show that the power exists beyond doubt. It is one of the fundamental principles of our Government, that all political power resides in the people; and it is established beyond question, that a Convention of Delegates of the people, when regularly called and assembled, possesses all the political power which the people themselves possess, and stands in the place of the assemblage of all the people in one vast mass. If there be no limitation upon the power of the Convention, made in the call of the body, then the body is possessed of unlimited political power. our delegates judged it necessary that, in r to preserve the peace, and in order to arinvasions of the State, these executive es should be vacated at once, and be filled ersons selected by your delegates, until you 1 fill them by election. They have, theremade such selection as they trust will be d to be judicious in preserving the peace he State. The office of Secretary of State not been mentioned before, and it is suft to say that Benjamin F. Massey, the ent incumbent, has abandoned the seat of rnment, and has followed the fortunes of If it be a State Convention, then there is a Governor, taking with him the Seal of State limitation upon it, imposed by the Constitution instrument of evil. He may be employed of the United States. If we state the position he Governor in action deeply injurious to of the opponents of the powers now exercised State; and he has been dealt with by your by this Convention in the strongest form, it is gates in the same manner as the Governor this: The Convention was called by an act of Lieutenant-Governor. the General Assembly for specific purposes deregard to the members of the General As-clared in the act, and, therefore, the people in ly, it is only necessary to say that by the tment of the law called the Military bill, ch violates the Constitution, and places the e military strength of the State at the ost unlimited control of the Executive, and oses onerous burdens upon the citizens for support of an army, and by the passage of eral appropriation acts which give to the cutive the command of large funds to be ended at his discretion for military purs, thus uniting the control of the purse and sword in the same hands, they have dised their willingness to sustain the war cy of the Executive, and place the destinies he State in the hands of the Governor. he offices of the members of the General embly have therefore been vacated and a election ordered, so that you may have an ortunity of choosing such Legislative Repreatives as may carry out your own views of cy. order that the schemes of those who seek ake Missouri out of the Union may not furbe aided by the late secret legislation of General Assembly, your delegates have by VOL. II.-Doc. 36 electing delegates under that act intended to limit the Convention to the subjects therein specified, and this action taken by the Convention, in vacating State offices, is not within the scope of the subjects thus submitted to the Convention. It is very well understood by all that a Convention of the people does not derive any power from any act of the Legislature. All its power is directly the power of the people, and is not dependent upon any act of the ordinary functionaries of the State. It cannot be claimed, in the present case, that we are to look at the act of Assembly referred to for any other purpose than to find whether there is any limitation imposed by the people upon the powers of the Convention, by electing the Convention under the act. If it be examined with that view, and if it be conceded that any of its provisions were designed to limit the powers of the Convention, it will be seen that all the Convention has done comes clearly within the scope of the powers designed to be exercised. The 5th section of the act provides that the Convention, when assembled, shall proceed to consider the then avert them. They desire to restore pese: all her citizens. They have adopted the res ures which, in their judgment, gave the highes promise of peace and security to all her citie If the measures adopted should have the sired effect, your delegates will feel that grandcation which always attends the success of var intended effort. If the measures should f restore peace, your delegates will find consis tion in the fact that they have done what ty could. TO The report of the Committee was agreed t Doc. 146. SPEECH OF JOSEPH HOLT, existing relations between the Government of the United States, the people and governments of the different States, and the government and people of the State of Missouri, and to adopt such measures for vindicating the sovereignty of the State and the protection of its institutions as shall appear to them to be demanded. The measures to be adopted are to be such as the Convention shall judge to be demanded in order to vindicate the sovereignty of the State and protect its institutions; those measures are left to the judgment of the Convention, and may reach any officer or any class of persons. Let us take the case, then, of an armed invasion of the State by troops from Arkansas, neither invited nor headed by the Governor of Missouri. The vindication of the sovereignty of the State may demand that such invasion be repelled by force, and every person can see that, while the forces of Missouri may be employed in repelling the invasion, it is perfectly obvious that the vindication of our sovereignty requires that the Governor, who is, by the Constitution, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the State, must be removed from that office when he is actually engaged in leading or inciting the invasion. To consider the relations existing between the people and Government of Arkansas and the peo-diers. Your soldiership is but the state ple and Government of Missouri, and to adopt measures to vindicate our sovereignty, imperatively demands in the case supposed, and which actually exists, that the commander in the State of Missouri be removed from his office. This case is stated merely as an illustration of the principles upon which the Convention has felt itself bound to act. Other cases equally strong and equally demanding like interposition of the Convention, might be stated as actually existing, but that now stated is sufficient to put you in possession of the principles upon which the action of the Convention rests. It is clearly an action demanded by the duty of vindicating the sovereignty of the State, and it applies to the other persons removed from office by the Convention upon the ground that they are all involved in the same scheme for assailing the Sovereignty of the State. In relation to the members of the General Assembly, the Convention are aware that all the members did not participate in the action which is regarded as an attempt to destroy the institutions of the State by destroying her connection with the Union, and thus overturning the institutions which she has as one of the United States. But no distinction could be made among the members on account of their individual opinions. The body was necessarily located collectively. And now, having stated the necessity for the action of the Convention, and the principles which have governed the action, your delegates submit the whole for your consideration and calm judgment. They have felt their own position and that of the State to be peculiar. They have looked over Missouri and beheld the dangers that threaten her. They desire to Fellow-Citizens and Soldiers :—I say d zens, since you still are such, and it is e because you have resolved that no eart power shall rob you of this proud title, c any manner curtail the privileges and blessin associated with it, that you have become §. mor you have donned for the purpose of de battle in defence of that citizenship whi at once the most intense and the most trut expression of your political life. No poor words of mine could adegusta convey to you the grateful emotions inspirs by the kindness and warmth of this weloits I should have been rejoiced to meet you g where; how full, therefore, the measure of 17 happiness must be to meet you here in str presence and amid the thrilling associations separable from the scene, you can well unde stand. I should have felt proud to have al my name connected with the humblest p ping of your encampment, but to have it linke with the encampment itself, and thus inscribe as it were, upon one of the milestones th mark your progress toward those fields of ger and of fame that await you, is at once honor and a token of your confidence and good will for which I cannot be too profound! thankful. It is not my purpose to occupy you with any political discussion. The gleaming barrer, the glistening bayonets, and the martial most and indeed all that meets the eye or the upon this tented field, admonish me that wi you at least the argument is exhausted, and that you have no longer doubts to solve of hesitating convictions to confirm. Your resolution is taken, and you openly proclaim tha let others do as they will, as for yourselves unchilled by the arctic airs of neutrality, yea are determined to love your country, and, awed by traitors, to fight its battles, and, i need be, to lay down your lives for its preser vation. It is indeed transporting to the p triot's heart to look upon the faces of men that nely resolved; and there is to me a ve enchantment in the very atmosphere e pulsations have been stirred by the ings of their heroic spirits. Now that poming of the cannon of treason and the f men stricken unto death for fidelity to ag are borne to us on almost every breeze, arrowing to the soul to be dragged into anionship with those who still vacillate, are still timidly balancing chances and calculating losses and gains; who still t in treating this agonized struggle for nal existence as a petty question of come, and deliberately take out their scales weigh in our presence the beggarly jewels de against the life of our country. diers: next to the worship of the Father all, the deepest and grandest of human ons is the love of the land that gave us It is an enlargement and exaltation of e tenderest and strongest sympathies of ed and of home. In all centuries and s it has lived and has defied chains and cons and racks to crush it. It has strewed arth with its monuments, and has shed Ang lustre on a thousand fields on which s battled. Through the night of ages, nopyla glows like some mountain peak hich the morning sun has risen, because ty-three hundred years ago, this hallowassion touched its mural precipices and its ning crags. It is easy, however, to be otic in piping times of peace, and in the 7 hour of prosperity. It is national sorrow, war, with its attendant perils and horrors, tests this passion, and winnows from the es those who, with all their love of life, still their country more. While your present on is a most vivid and impressive illustraof patriotism, it has a glory peculiar and ether its own. The mercenary armies h have swept victoriously over the world have gathered so many of the laurels that ry has embalmed, were but machines ed into the service of ambitious spirits n they obeyed, and little understood or eciated the problems their blood was ed out to solve. But while you have all launtless physical courage which they dised, you add to it a thorough knowledge he argument on which this mighty moveproceeds, and a moral heroism which, king away from the entanglements of kinand friends, and State policy, enables you llow your convictions of duty, even though should lead you up to the cannon's mouth. ust, however, be added that with this eleon of position come corresponding responsies. Soldiers as you are by conviction, the try looks not to your officers, chivalric and ul as they may be, but to you and to each ou, for the safety of those vast national insts committed to the fortunes of this war. r camp life will expose you to many tempons; you should resist them as you would advancing squadrons of the enemy. In every hour of peril or incitement to excess, you will say to yourselves, "Our country sees us," and so act as to stand forth soldiers, not only without fear, but also without reproach. Each moment not absorbed by the toils and duties of your military life, should, as far as practicable, be devoted to that mental and moral training without which the noblest of volunteers must sink to a level with an army of mercenaries. Alike in the inaction of the camp and amid the fatigues of the march, and the charge and shouts of battle, you will remember that you have in your keeping not only your own personal reputation, but the honor of your native State, and, what is infinitely more inspiring, the honor of that blood-bought and beneficent Republic whose children you are. Any irregularity on your part would sadden the land that loves you; any faltering in the presence of the foe would cover it with immeasurable humiliation. You will soon mingle in the ranks with the gallant volunteers from the North and the West, and with me you will admire their moderation, their admirable discipline, and that deep determination, whose earnestness with them has no language of menace, or bluster, or passion. When the men from Bunker Hill and the men from the "dark and bloody ground," unestranged from each other by the low arts of politicians, shall stand side by side on the same national battle-field, the heart of freedom will be glad. Carry with you the complete assurance that you will ere long have not only the moral but the material support of Kentucky. Not many weeks can elapse before this powerful Commonwealth will make an exultant avowal of her loyalty, and will stand erect before the country, stainless and true as the truest of her sisters of the Union. In the scales of the momentous events now occurring, her weight should be and will be felt. Already she is impatient, and will not much longer, under the pressure of any policy, submit to shrink away into the mere dust of the balances. Have no fears as to the vigorous and ultimately successful prosecution of this war; and feel no alarm either as to the expenditure it must involve, or as to those startling steps, seemingly smacking of the exercise of absolute authority, which the Administration may be forced from time to time to take. While doubtless all possible economy will be observed, it is apparent that no considerations of that kind can be permitted, for a moment, to modify the policy that has been resolved upon. When the life of the patient is confessedly at stake, it would be as unwise as it would be inhuman to discuss the question of the physician's fee before summoning him to the bedside. Besides, all now realize that the system of arithmetic has yet to be invented which could estimate in dollars and cents the worth of our institutions. This terrible emergency, with all its dangers and duties, was unforeseen by the founders of our Government, and by |