The test oath of Missouri

              
                        Missouri Test Oath.                      28I 
 
sustaining the Federal government as the supreme power of the na- 
tion. At its second session it overturned the old State government, 
established a Provisional government, and in the exercise of its 
sovereign power appointed new executive officials. Whenever offi- 
cers of this new government proved to be disloyal, the Conven- 
tion, as it met from time to time, removed them, and required all 
judicial and executive officials to subscribe to a Test Oath which 
not only bound them    not to aid or abet treason, but also to be 
strictly loyal to both the National and provisional State govern- 
ments. This oath was necessarily of such a character as to search the 
conscience.  Nothing else could answer the purpose, since the design 
was, if possible, to fill all offices with men that were absolutely free 
from all taint of disloyalty.  The convention was eminently con- 
servative in its character, but saw most clearly that any measure less 
radical might give the State over into the hands of disunionists. 
In the summer of 1863 this sovereign body met for the last time, and 
contrary to the general and rising sentiment of the State, which de- 
manded at once the total abolition of slavery, passed an act of gradual 
emancipation.  Having accomplished this work it dissolved.   All 
were ready to acknowledge that it had done much that was praise- 
worthy. The people, however, who elected it to perform a specific 
duty, felt that by its long continuance and multiplied enactments it 
had transcended its rightful powers, and reluctantly consented to its 
usurpation only on account of the great perils which beset them on 
every hand. And now that, at the very close of its career, it had 
fallen below the expectation of the masses in its last and most im- 
portant act, there was a universal demand for another convention that 
would pass a statute of immediate unconditional emancipation, and 
also revise the constitution of the State so that it would accord with 
such an enactment in both letter and spirit. 
  A new convention was accordingly called in 1864. In many re- 
spects the time was most unpropitious for the election of its delegates. 
For more than three years civil war of the intensest malignity had 
raged within the State. In almost every portion of its domain were 
roving bands of guerrillas and bushwhackers, who were constantly 
committing the most execrable depredations. On the part of many 
desperadoes cold-blooded murder had become a customary pursuit. 
This mode of warfare,-if it can be dignified by such a name-was 
first introduced by the rebels, but professed unionists at last be- 
came deeply involved in it. It was often resorted to for the purpose 
of satisfying old grudges. The courts, schools and newspapers were 
generally suspended.   All that belongs to good government and