CHAPTER IV
The story of the State's admission to the Union is told in detail in Shoemaker's "Missouri's Struggle for Statehood." Only a brief account will be given here. Two years had not elapsed after Congress had created the territory of Missouri with the highest degree of territorial organization, until petitions began to pour in upon the Congress men asking that Missouri be admitted to the Union. On the eighth day of January, 1818, the third anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, the first one of these petitions was introduced. Early in April of that year a bill was presented authorizing the people of Missouri to form a constitution. It did not pass either house.
In November of 1818, the Legislature of Missouri drafted a memorial asking the admission of the State. No other instance is recorded where a territorial Legislature applied to Congress for the admission of the territory as a State in the Union. The bill which was introduced in Congress as a result of this memorial failed in the Senate because of an amendment which provided that no more slaves should be brought into Missouri and that all slave children in the State should become free upon reaching the age of twenty-five years.
The third bill regarding admission was introduced early in December, 1819. It was at this session of Congress that Maine sought admission into the Union. The Senate joined the two bills and added an amendment which provided that slavery should be prohibited in all the territory ceded by France, commonly known as the Louisiana Purchase, north of the parallel 36 degrees and 30 minutes, the southern boundary line of Missouri, except the State of Missouri; this was the celebrated Missouri Compromise. After considerable conference, the enabling act was approved on the 6th of March, 1820, by the terms of which the inhabitants of the territory of Missouri were authorized to form a constitution and government. The boundaries of the State, beginning where the thirty-sixth parallel crosses the Mississippi River, ran north of the St. Francois River, thence north along that river to the parallel 36 degrees and 30 minutes, thence west to a line running due north and south to the mouth of the Kansas River, thence north to the parallel intersecting the rapids of the Des Moines River, thence along that parallel to the Des Moines River, down the Des Moines River to the Mississippi and down the Mississippi River to the place of beginning. It will be noted that the above boundaries did not include the northwestern part of the State of Missouri, including the counties of Platte, Buchanan, Andrew, Nodaway, Atchison and Holt; these were added through the so-called Platte Purchase, nearly twenty years later.
The convention to frame the Constitution met in Saint Louis, early in June, 1820. The chief question which was to come before the convention, was that of restriction of slavery. There seemed to be, however, but few of the counties in which there was any contest for seats in the constitutional convention between those who favored restriction of slavery by the State and those who opposed it. There was not a delegate elected who was in favor of restricting slavery in the State.
In the convention the most popular member, David Barton, afterwards elected first United States Senator, was the president. There were forty-one members, representing seven different lines of descent, twenty-six of them being English. Seventeen of the delegates came from Maryland, Kentucky or Virginia; eight from Tennessee and North Carolina; five from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, three from Pennsylvania or Spanish Upper Louisiana. Thirteen farmers and thirteen business men sat in the convention. Of the other delegates, nine were lawyers, two doctors, two surveyors and two teachers. This convention was in-session something over thirty days. It is said to have spent for stationery $26.25. The constitution adopted by it took effect immediately without an act of the people. This is the only Constitution or constitutional revision made between 1820 and 1830 in six different States, that did not require submission to the people.
Shoemaker, in his Struggle for Statehood, mentioned above, states that "there was no demand on the part of the people for such a referendum or adoption; the people of Missouri Territory wanted an immediate State Government without further delay; the delegates possessed the confidence of their constituents, the Constitution was generally acceptable and the convention itself was opposed to such a course."
One of the provisions of the Constitution was that the Legislature should enact a law preventing free negroes and mulattoes from coming to and settling in the state. This caused considerable friction in Congress, when, after a large amount of debate and many attempts to settle the matter, a second Missouri Compromise was effected by the efforts of Henry Clay, although the Compromise was prepared by Thomas of Illinois. This Compromise provided that Missouri should be admitted whenever her Legislature should pass a Solemn Public Act, repeating the clause in reference to the exclusion of free negroes and mulattoes. This was done by the Missouri Legislature, called in special session at Saint Charles to pass the Solemn Public Act, which was of no value whatever from a constitutional point of view.
Shoemaker states that Missouri must be regarded as having been admitted into the Union on July 19, 1820, the day on which the convention adopted the Constitution; however. President Monroe did not issue the proclamation declaring Missouri admitted into the Union as the twenty-fourth State, until he had received a certified copy of the Solemn Public Act, as passed by the Missouri Legislature. This proclamation was issued on the 10th of August, 1821. The constitutional convention issued writs for general election the same day that they adopted the Constitution, or on the 19th day of July, 1820. The first general election was held on August the 28th, 1820. Alexander McNair was elected governor. Fifty-seven representatives and fourteen senators were elected to the General Assembly. In Howard County, there were thirty-nine candidates for the General Assembly and nineteen made the race in the city of St. Louis.
The first General Assembly met in the Missouri Hotel in St. Louis in 1820. The most notable business transacted was the election of David Barton and Thomas Hart Benton to the United States Senate. Ten new counties were created, three presidential electors were chosen and Missouri, was really a State.
