State Convention of 1865

On February 13, 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, Missouri’s Legislature approved an act to call a State Convention. Missouri’s Secretary of State Mordecai Oliver recorded the act that required an election to be held on November 8th, 1864, for such assembly to be duly elected, for the Convention to be held on the 6th Day of January, 1865. The minutes would record the names of the members of the Committee, their nativity, age, profession, and post office address.

The Missouri State Convention assembled in the small hall of the Mercantile Library building, in the city of St. Louis, on Friday, the sixth day of of January, eighteen hundred and sixty five. (1)

J.W. Stephens, born in England, who was a lawyer from Rolla, was elected Sergeant at Arms. H.J. Stierlin, born in Germany, a clerk in St. Louis, was made Doorkeeper. Thomas Proctor, born in Ohio, was elected Assistant Secretary and was an Editor from a Macon City Newspaper. Amos P. Foster, born in New Hampshire, who was a merchant in Washington, Missouri, was Secretary. Charles D. Drake, from Ohio, and a St. Louis lawyer, was Vice President. And Arnold Krekel, born in Germany, a lawyer from St. Charles, was elected President of the Convention. Of those six, not only were half of those elected as officers foreign-born immigrants, but not one of them had even been born in the State of Missouri.

Missouri, which became a state in 1821, was about to alter its original Constitution. By the third day, not only had the officers been established, but the committees had also been established. And the first order of business was an ordinance for the abolition of slavery in the State of Missouri.

1. Journal of the Missouri State Convention, held at the City of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri Democrat, corner of Fourth and Pine Sts 1865. (Public Domain)