" Very
naturally such a body selected pro-slavery officials. Hamilton R.
Gamble, whom it made Governor, was a bigoted supporter of "the
institution." He had not long before been mixed up in the proceedings
that compelled Elijah P. Lovejoy to leave Missouri for Alton,
Illinois, where he was murdered by a pro-slavery mob. Gamble was an
able and ambitious man.
The Conservatives, likewise, had the backing of the Federal
Administration--a statement that to a good many people nowadays will
be surprising. There were reasons why such should be the case. Judge
Bates, of Missouri, who was Attorney-General in Lincoln's Cabinet, had
long been Gamble's law partner and most intimate friend. He never was
more than nominally a Republican. Another member of the Cabinet was
Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, who had been a resident of Missouri,
and was a brother of General Francis P. Blair, Jr., of St. Louis.
General Blair had been the leader of the Missouri emancipationists,
but had turned against them. For his face-about there were, at least,
two intelligible reasons. One was that in the quarrel between him and
Fremont the most of his former followers had sided with Fremont.
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