under Hood turned northward from Atlanta to begin its
third and final invasion of the State. This once more delayed all work
of reconstruction until the Confederate army was routed and dispersed by
the battle of Nashville on December 15, 1864. Previous popular action
had called a State convention, which, taking immediate advantage of the
expulsion of the enemy, met in Nashville on January 9, 1865, in which
fifty-eight counties and some regiments were represented by about four
hundred and sixty-seven delegates. After six days of deliberation the
convention adopted a series of amendments to the constitution, the main
ordinance of which provided:

"That slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, are hereby
forever abolished and prohibited throughout the State."

These amendments were duly adopted at a popular election held on
February 22, and the complete organization of a loyal State government
under them followed in due course.

The State of Missouri needed no reconstruction. It has already been said
that her local affairs were administered by a provisional State
government instituted by the State convention chosen by popular election
before rebellion broke out. In this State, therefore, the institution of
slavery was suppressed by the direct action of the people, but not
without a long and bitter conflict of party factions and military
strife. There existed here two hostile currents of public opinion, one,
the intolerant pro-slavery prejudices of its rural population; the
other, the progressive and liberal spirit dominant in the city of St.
Louis, with its heavy German population, which, as far back as 1856, had
elected to Congress a candidate who boldly advocated gradual
emancipation: St. Louis, with outlying cities and towns, supplying
during the whole rebellion the dominating influence that held the State
in the Union, and at length transformed her from a slave to a free
State.

Missouri suffered severely in the war, but not through important
campaigns or great battles. Persistent secession conspiracy, the Kansas
episodes of border strife, and secret orders of Confederate agents from
Arkansas instigating unlawful warfare, made Missouri a hotbed of
guerrilla uprisings and of relentless neighborhood feuds, in which armed
partizan conflict often degenerated into shocking barbarity, and the
pretense of war into the malicious execution of priv