in that city.  The corrupting appliances of federal power were at last invoked, under Buchanan’s administration; and Blair was for the moment overwhelmed by fraud, and thrown out of Congress.  But, with a resolution from which even his friends would have dissuaded him, and with a persistency and confidence that were a marvel to friend and foe, he contested his seat before Congress, and won it.  And this verdict was soon ratified by his brave and faithful constituency at the polls.  Such was the Republican party, such their leader in St. Louis, when the black day of disunion came.  And in their hands lay the destiny of the State.

As soon as the presidential election was decided, and the choice of Abraham Lincoln was known, the disunionists in Missouri commenced their work.  Thomas C. Reynolds, the lieutenant-governor, made a visit to Washington, and extended it to Virginia, counseling with the traitors, and agreeing upon the time and manner of joining Missouri in the revolt.  The legislature of Missouri met in the latter part of December, about two weeks after the secession of South Carolina.  A bill was at once introduced, calling a State convention, and passed.  The message of Claiborne F. Jackson, the governor, had been strongly in favor of secession from the Union.  The Missouri Republican, the leading newspaper of the State, whose advocacy had elected the traitor, declared, on the last day of the year, that unless guaranties in defence of slavery were immediately given by the North, Missouri should secede from the Union.  And so the secession feeling gathered boldness and volume.

Candidates for the State convention came to be nominated in St. Louis, and two parties were at once arrayed—­the unconditional Union party, and the qualified Unionists, who wished new compromises.  Frank Blair was one of the leaders of the former, and he was joined by all the true men of the old parties.  But the secessionists—­they might as well be so called, for all their actions tended to weaken and discredit the Union—­nominated an able ticket.  The latter party were soon conscious of defeat, and began to hint mysteriously at a power stronger than the ballot-box, that would be invoked in defence of ‘Southern rights.’  To many, indeed to most persons, this seemed an idle threat.  Not so to Frank Blair.  He had imbibed from Benton the invincible faith of the latter in the settled purpose of the ‘nullifiers’ to subvert and destroy the government.  And in a private caucus of the leaders of the Union party, on an ever-memorable evening in the month of January, he startled the company by the proposition that the time had come when the friends of the government must arm in its defence.  With a deference to his judgment and sagacity that had become habitual, the Unionists yielded their consent, and soon the enrolment of companies began; nightly drills with arms took place in nearly all the wards of the city; and by the time of election day some