e at present Missouri will stand by her lot, and hold to
the Union as long as it is worth an effort to preserve it. So long as
there is hope of success she will seek for justice within the Union.
She cannot be frightened from her propriety by the past unfriendly
legislation of the North, nor be dragooned into secession by the extreme
South. If those who should be our friends and allies undertake to render
our property worthless by a system of prohibitory laws, or by reopening
the slave trade in opposition to the moral sense of the civilized world,
and at the same time reduce us to the position of an humble sentinel to
watch over and protect their interests, receiving all the blows and none
of the benefits, Missouri will hesitate long before sanctioning such an
arrangement She will rather take the high position of armed neutrality.
She is able to take care of herself, and will be neither forced nor
flattered, driven nor coaxed, into a course of action that must end in
her own destruction.

25

The inaugural address of the new Governor was, under a thin vail of
professed love for the Union, a bitter Secession appeal. He said that
the destiny of the Slaveholding States was one and the same; that what
injured one necessarily hurt all; that separate action meant certain
defeat by the insolent North, which was alone and wholly responsible for
the present deplorable conditions. He applauded the "gallantry" of South
Carolina, urged that she be not condemned for "precipitancy," and said
significantly: "If South Carolina has acted hastily, let not her error
lead to the more fatal one--an attempt at coercion."

With reference to the Republican Party and the future policy of
Missouri, he said:

The prominent characteristic of this party * * * is that it is purely
sectional in its locality and its principles. The only principle
inscribed upon its banner is Hostility to Slavery;--its object not
merely to confine Slavery within its present limits; not merely to
exclude it from the Territories, and prevent the formation and admission
of any Slaveholding States; not merely to abolish it in the District of
Columbia, and interdict its passage from one State to another; but to
strike down its existence everywhere; to sap its foundation in public
sentiment; to annoy and harass, and gradually destroy its vitality,
by every means, direct or indirect, physical and moral, which human
ingenuity can devise. The triumph of such an organizati