The close connection of the State of Missouri with the slavery agitation
that has now ripened into a rebellion against the government of the
United States, is a singular historical fact. The admission of the State
into the Union was the occasion of vitalizing the question of slavery
extension and fixing it as a permanent element in the politics of the
country. It has continued to be the theatre on which the most important
conflicts growing out of slavery extension have been decided. It will be
the first, in the hope and belief of millions, to throw off the fetters
of an obsolete institution, so long cramping its social and political
advancement, and to set an example to its sister slave-holding States of
the superior strength, beauty, and glory of Freedom.

The pro-slavery doctrines of John C. Calhoun, after having pervaded the
democracy of all the other slave-holding States, and obtained complete
possession of the national executive, legislative and judicial
departments, finally, in 1844, appeared also in the State of Missouri.
But it was in so minute and subtle a form as not to seem a sensible
heresy. Thomas H. Benton, the illustrious senator of the Jackson era,
was then, as he had been for twenty-four years, the political autocrat
of Missouri. He had long been convinced of the latent treason of the
Calhoun school of politicians. He was able to combat the schemes of the
Southern oligarchy composing and controlling the Cabinet of President
Polk; unsuccessfully, it is true, yet with but slight diminution of his
popularity at home. Nevertheless, the seeds of disunion had been borne
to his State; they had taken root; and, like all evil in life, they
proved self-perpetuating and ineradicable. In 1849 the Mexican war,
begun in the interest of the disunionists, had been closed. A vast
accession of territory had accrued to the Union. It was the plan and
purpose of the disunion party to appropriate and occupy this territory;