The Confluence - Fall/Winter 2018-2019 | Lindenwood University

Fall/Winter 2018/2019 | The Confluence | 1

C O V E R I M A G E

Leonard Bernstein’s conducting style and larger-than-life personality, capturedhere at a rehearsal in 1946, made him a popular sensation. (Image: Libraryof Congress)


C O N T E N T S

4 Searching for Compromise: Missouri Congressman John RichardBarret’s Fight to Save the UnionBy Nicholas W. Sacco

In the months leading to the Civil War, Missouri politics wereturbulent. Some supported union, others not. John Richard Barretfought to keep Missouri and the state’s Democrats loyal to the union.

34 The Pin-Up Boy of the Symphony: St. Louis and the Rise of LeonardBernsteinBy Kenneth H. Winn

Much has been written about Leonard Bernstein to commemorate the100th anniversary of his birth. St. Louis and the St. Louis SymphonyOrchestra played a key role in Bernstein’s early career—includingperforming the first work by Bernstein to be recorded.

50 Letter From a St. Louis Barroom, March 1849By Christopher Alan Gordon

1849 was a seminal year in the history of St. Louis, as ChristopherGordon asserts in his new book, Fire, Pestilence, and Death: St.Louis, 1849—a devastating fire and cholera epidemic stood juxtaposedagainst a city growing at leaps and bounds and flooded by Argonautsseeking fortunes in the California gold fields. In this edited letter,which Gordon found while researching for his book, Edwin Hollisterdescribes the burgeoning city.

A publication of Lindenwood University Press Fall/Winter 2018/2019Vol. 10, No. 1

The Confluence is a regional studies journal published by Lindenwood University and dedicated to thediversity of ideas and disciplines of a liberal arts university. It is committed to the intersection of history,art and architecture, design, science, social science, and public policy. Its articles are diverse by design.

2 | The Confluence | Fall/Winter 2018/2019

F R O M T H E E D I T O RE D I T O R I A L B O A R D

Mark Abbott, Harris-Stowe State University

Steve Belko, Missouri Humanities Council

Lorri Glover, St. Louis University

Andrew Hurley, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Meredith Marsh, Lindenwood University

Robert J. Moore, Jr., Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

Kristine Runberg Smith, Lindenwood University

Andrew Theising, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Kenneth Winn

S T A F FEditor

Jeffrey E. Smith, PhDArt Director

Beth Thompson KehlArchivist

Paul Huffman

S U B S C R I P T I O N SISSN 2150-2633 The Confluence is anonprofit semiannual publication ofLindenwood University, St. Charles,Missouri. All rights reserved. TheConfluence and Lindenwood Universityare not responsible for statements of fact oropinion expressed in signed contributions.Requests to reprint any part ofThe Confluence should be sent to Editor,The Confluence, c/o LindenwoodUniversity, 209 S. Kingshighway,St. Charles, Missouri 63301, or via e-mailto [email protected].

© Lindenwood University 2018

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Jaime BourassaCharles BrownChris DugganNancy DurbinTim Fox, Write Fox LLCSteve GietschierPaul HuffmanLibrary of CongressMacMillanMissouri Historical SocietyNational Archives and Records AdministrationNew York Public LibraryBarbara RaedekeBradley ShortSt. Louis Mercantile Library AssociationSt. Louis Post-DispatchWashington University Libraries, Gaylord Music Library

An undertaking like The Confluence doesn’t happen without the helpof many people, both within Lindenwood University and beyond. Weowe particular thanks to President Michael Shonrock, Provost MarilynAbbott, and the Board of Trustees at Lindenwood for supporting thisventure. We’d like to take this opportunity to extend our gratitude to thefollowing people, institutions, and companies for their contributions tothis issue of The Confluence; we could not have done it without you.


F R O M T H E E D I T O R

This is an issue about critical moments and turning points. A number ofhistorians have devoted books to the idea that the big issues of an age canbe accessed through a particular moment. For example, both Louis Masur’swonderful 1831: The Year of Eclipse and Jay Winik’s far-reaching April 1865:The Month That Saved America suggest there are moments that expand into anentire era. Such is the case with our offerings in this issue.

August 2018 marked the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth.Bernstein was something of a rock star in classical music as a composer and musician. He was the voice ofthe Young People’s Concerts at the New York Philharmonic that sought to introduce music appreciation toa new generation. He was flamboyant, gifted, and political. And he spent a critical time in St. Louis as theguest conductor at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in the mid-1940s. As Kenneth Winn discusses in “ThePin-Up Boy of the Symphony,” Bernstein’s time in St. Louis was something of a turning point. The St. LouisSymphony performed for the first recording of a Bernstein work, Jeremiah.

The same can be said for Christopher Gordon’s article based on research that was part of his new book Fire,Pestilence, and Death: St. Louis, 1849, analyzing this critical moment in St. Louis history. And it was a realturning point. After the steamboat White Cloud caught fire, blocks and blocks burned to the ground withall sorts of consequences—the evolution of a professionalized fire department, thinking about developinga sewer system under the destroyed streets, and new regulations about building materials. That summer, acholera epidemic decimated the city, just after tens of thousands of Argonauts came through St. Louis enroute to the gold fields in the California Gold Rush. Travelers’ guidebooks all told them to just purchase theirsupplies in St. Louis, so they did, creating economic havoc, high prices, and demand for goods like gold pansand floppy hats. As Gordon correctly asserts, 1849 was a critical year in St. Louis history.

Nicholas Sacco approaches another critical moment, when the United States was moving toward secessionand war. Missouri was in flux in many ways; it was a slave state with a plantation culture in the MissouriRiver corridor, raising primarily tobacco and hemp. Yet, St. Louis’ population had grown in leaps and boundsin the decades preceding the Civil War; while the state’s population tripled between 1840 and 1860, that of St.Louis rose some five-fold. And those new St. Louisans came from all sorts of places, including Europe andnorthern states. With people so divided on the question, Sacco looks at the congressional election betweenJohn Richard Barret and Frank Blair and Barret’s efforts to stand as a candidate of compromise seeking toavert a civil war. Sacco’s article helps readers see the nuanced nature of the conflict.

The thing about critical moments is the idea that events could have gone differently, introducing a rash of“what if” questions. What if Bernstein doesn’t conduct for the St. Louis Symphony? What if the White Clouddoesn’t catch fire? What if the Civil War is averted? We’ll never know, of course, but these approaches arefood for thought.

Jeffrey Smith, PhDEditor


B Y N I C H O L A S W . S A C C O

Missouri Congressman

John Richard Barret’s

Fight to Save the Union

Searchingfor Compromise


John Richard Barret (1825–-1903) spent less than twentyyears in St. Louis as a lawyerwho helped organize the St.Louis Agricultural Society.After his election, thenremoval, and election againto the U.S. Congress, Barretmoved to New York. (Image:Missouri Historical Society)

As Missouri voterswent to the polls toelect a new governorand representatives forCongress in August1860, a store clerkin Galena, Illinois,followed the proceedingswith a careful eye.Ulysses S. Grant hadmoved to Illinois monthsearlier after living in St.Louis for five years as afarmer, but his thoughtsremained focused onthe messy politicalsituation in Missouri. Hetook particular interestin the hotly contestedrace for Missouri’s FirstCongressional Districtbetween RepublicanFrank Blair andincumbent DemocratJohn Richard Barret,admitting to a St. Louis acquaintance that he felt“more interest in the contest you have just gonethrough than I shall in the November [Presidential]election.” Although this future president wouldbecome a devoted Republican after the Civil War,Grant’s sympathies in this contest were with Barret.While stating that he didn’t always agree with theDemocratic Party, he confessed, “I don’t like to seea Republican beat the party. . . . I feel anxious tohear of Blair’s defeat.”1

Grant’s hopes would fall short as Blairdefeated Barret by 1,500 votes. Barret’s currentterm with the 36th Congress, however, wouldnot be completed until March 3, 1861. Asseven southern states seceded from the Unionfollowing Republican Abraham Lincoln’s electionto the presidency, the task of representing St.Louis’ interests in Congress during this nationalemergency would fall to Barret. In the monthsbefore Lincoln’s inauguration, Congress franticallydebated various compromise measures to maintainsectional harmony. Barret would contribute to thedebate with a remarkable pro-compromise speechto his fellow Congressmen on February 21, elevendays before the expiration of his term.

Disavowing both northern and southernextremism, Barret’s pleas for compromise wouldultimately fail as the Civil War broke out lessthan two months later. His political experiences

during the 1850s and1860s—which have notbeen previously analyzedby historians—arenonetheless significantfor several reasons. As arespected proslavery andpro-Union Democrat,Barret climbed the ladderof Missouri politics inthe 1850s as a devotedsupporter of westwardexpansion, railroadconstruction, and theprotection of slaveholders’rights within the state.During his short term in

Congress, Barret’s views on the secession crisisreflected the concerns of a majority of Missourivoters who took a cautious approach to secessionand its potential consequences. By looking atBarret’s political life during the Civil War era,scholars can gain a better understanding of whymost Missourians—especially those within theDemocratic party—simultaneously supportedslavery and the Union and were still hopeful of acompromise even after Lincoln’s election.

Early Life and Entrance intoMissouri Politics

John Richard Barret was born on August21, 1825, in Greensburg, Kentucky. As a youthhe received an education at the town’s localschoolhouse, and around age 14 he moved to St.Louis to join his father, who had recently started agrocery business in the city. Barret was acceptedinto Saint Louis University shortly after arrivingand graduated with honors in 1843. A giftedstudent, he gave the valedictorian speech for hisgraduation class.2

After graduation, Barret began studying fora law degree and eventually opened his ownsuccessful practice. According to one biographicalsketch published in 1860, his “magnetism of


character,” comprehensive knowledge of the law, and“frankness of manner” made him a popular figure inthe St. Louis legal community. Local Democrats soonencouraged him to consider a run for office. In 1852Barret successfully pursued a seat in the Missouristate legislature at the tender age of 27.3

Barret’s political emergence came at a time ofintense party strife among Missouri Democrats.The party had a divisive split in 1850 largely overquestions about slavery and its westward expansioninto new federal territories. Thomas Hart Benton,one of Missouri’s original U.S.senators, the creatorof the Missouri Compromise, and a maverickpolitician within the national Democratic party,was at the center of this split. For several yearsBenton had expressed growing skepticism aboutslavery’s expansion into the territories. Whilehe supported the protection of slavery in stateswhere it already existed, he believed that slaverywould be unsustainable in the west because of theregion’s climate and topography. He also fearedthat proslavery agitation threatened the state ofthe Union. In the 1840s he strongly opposed theMexican-American War on the grounds that it was anaked land grab for future slave territory in the south.

Convinced that whites and free blacks could not livetogether in harmony and that slavery’s expansionwould exacerbate racial tensions, he asserted in1850 that “the incurability of the evil is the greatestobjection to the extension of slavery.”4

Not all Missouri Democrats agreed with Benton,however. In 1849, state senator Claiborne FoxJackson and other proslavery Democrats issued aseries of resolutions criticizing Benton’s position.The “Jackson Resolutions” asserted that Congresshad no authority to ban slavery in the westernterritories; only the residents of a given territory heldthat right. If “northern fanaticism” against slaverycontinued, Missouri would have ample reason to actwith the South toward disunion. Benton respondedby arguing that the Jackson faction, influenced bythe South Carolina radical proslavery Democrat JohnC. Calhoun, promoted treason and discord betweenNorth and South.5

Barret sided with the pro-Benton faction uponarrival in Jefferson City. Interestingly, he and futureopponent Frank Blair were initially strong pro-Benton allies in the state legislature. Barret evenvoted for Blair to be Speaker of the House at an extrasession of the legislature in 1852 and later admittedthat “it was formerly my good fortune to stand uponthe same broad and enduring platform . . . in the StateLegislature, together with [him].”6 A central elementof that “broad and enduring platform” includedseveral efforts to use public money to build railroadsthroughout the state. During the session Barretoffered two different amendments to railroad billsthat Blair supported. One unsuccessfully aimed to usea portion of public land sales to fund construction ofthe Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad (the first east-west line to cross the entire state), while a separate,successful amendment used funds to construct theMissouri Pacific Railroad.7

Equally important, Barret, Blair, and other pro-Benton legislators worked to check the machinationsof the Southern Rights wing of the Democraticparty. Blair took the initiative in a fiery speech inFebruary 1853, denouncing the Jackson Resolutionsas the work of disunionists who aimed to nullifyfederal laws. He defended Benton as a supporter ofslaveholding interests, but only within the context ofmaintaining the Union. Agitation on slavery in theterritories would lead to sectionalism and disunion. Aresolution from Representative Benjamin Tompkinsafter Blair’s speech called upon Missouri’s legislatorsto reject “the railings of fanaticism, either in the northor south” and rescind the Jackson Resolutions.8

The resolution failed to pass after proslaveryWhigs sided with Southern Rights Democrats

Claiborne Fox Jackson (1806–1862) ran for Missourigovernor in 1860 as an opponent of secession butsecretly conspired to lead the state’s secession. The statelegislature removed him from office after he recognizedMissouri as a free republic, leading to its being recog-nized as a state by the Confederacy. Jackson refusedto recognize his removal and served as part of a stategovernment in exile in Arkansas before his death in late1862. (Image: Confederate War Journal)


against the measure, but Barret supported Blair’sspeech and the effort to rescind the resolutions.The Benton faction’s crusade against the JacksonResolutions did not necessarily indicate antislaverybeliefs, however. Antislavery sentiment hadminimal influence on Missouri politics in theearly 1850s, and as historian William E. Parrishpoints out, concerns about southern radicalismand disunionism inspired Blair’s speech. Barrethimself echoed Benton’s belief in protectingslavery where it existed in the states, later statingwhile in Congress that he supported Benton’sdoctrine of “non-intervention, no agitation, security

to property, [and] tranquility to the people” on thesubject.9

Barret was re-elected to the Missouri Houseof Representatives in 1854. He was a frontrunnerfor Speaker of the House—gaining the third mostvotes during early balloting—and supportedThomas Hart Benton for Missouri’s vacant seat inthe U.S. Senate. Most notably, he authored an actto create the St. Louis Agricultural and MechanicalAssociation. The act aimed to promote commercialinterests in St. Louis, and as president of theassociation Barret worked to manage both publicand private funds to create a 50-acre fairgroundwithin the city limits. He also declined to runfor office in 1856 and even gave up his privatelaw practice so that he could dedicate himself topromoting the association’s annual fair. An officialreport from 1858 boasted that the fairgroundfeatured an amphitheater that could seat 36,000people, “the largest in the Union.” The event wasused to promote the finest horses, cattle, and otherfarm animals; 81 booths and several buildings werealso erected to promote agricultural machinery, sellfood and drinks, and house a large musical band.10

Barret’s work as the president of the St. LouisAgricultural and Mechanical Association reflectedhis belief that increased commercial activity wouldnot only boost the city’s economy but also drownout divisive agitation over slavery. By bringingtogether white farmers from all parts of the countryto share agricultural technology, techniques, andpractices, Barret hoped to strengthen interstatecommercial connections and encourage a strongerbond to the Union. That such connections would bemade in St. Louis was central to Barret’s vision forpromoting the city as both an economic power anda center of American patriotism free of sectionalpolitics. At an award dinner held in his honor onNew Year’s Eve in 1856, Barret remarked aboutSt. Louis that “her trade and commerce [consist] ofthe trade of all nations; standing, as she does, at thegeographical center of a vast region . . . surroundedby millions of acres of the richest and mostvaried minerals in the world, it must be apparentto the most superficial observer that the properencouragement of her agricultural and mechanicalinterest will result in prosperity unexampled.”11

Despite Barret’s wishes, the divisive politicsof slavery and the emergence of the newly createdantislavery Republican party in the North creatednew fractures within the Democratic party inMissouri. Pro- and anti-Benton factions heldseparate conventions and sent different delegatesto the Democratic national convention in 1856.

Francis (Frank) Blair (1821–1875) was one of thebest-connected political leaders in St. Louis in themid-nineteenth century. His brother Montgomery waspostmaster general in the Lincoln administration, andhis cousin B. Gratz Brown served as both governorand senator. His history in the U.S. Congress becamecomplicated in the years after his first election to theHouse of Representatives as a Free-Soiler in 1856. JohnBarret defeated him in the 1858 election, but then Blairwas seated in the 36th Congress in early June 1860after successfully contesting the election. He resignedJune 25, then lost again to Barret in the special electionfor the seat. He won the election in 1860, but resignedin July 1861 to join the Union army. He won the 1862election but lost the seat to Samuel Knox, who contestedthe results. Blair was a key figure in keeping Missourifrom seceding from the Union. (Image: Library ofCongress)


Frank Blair ran for and successfully won a seatin Congress for Missouri’s First District as a pro-Benton Democrat committed to protecting slaverywhere it existed and promoting sectional harmony.Shortly after the election, however, he began to havea change of heart. Influenced by the Republicanparty’s stance against slavery’s westward expansionand taking note of the changing political landscape inSt. Louis—where an influx of northern- and foreign-born residents, many of whom were opposed toslavery, would outnumber southern-born residents by1860—Blair began to embrace antislavery politics.In 1857 he started championing emancipation andcolonization of freed blacks to Central America.To fund this initiative, Blair concocted a scheme togrant all remaining public lands in Missouri to thestate and sell them for the purpose of purchasing allof the state’s slaves and transporting them out of thecountry.12

Far from promoting racial equality, Blairopenly admitted his deep-seated racial prejudicesagainst African Americans in speeches promoting

his colonization plan. “The territories should bereserved for free white men,” he argued. “Freedblacks hold a place in this country which cannot bemaintained. Those who have fled to the North aremost unwelcome visitors. The strong repugnanceof the free white laborer to be yoked with the negrorefugee, breeds an enmity between races, whichmust end in the expulsion of the latter.”13 Whilemost Missourians statewide would remain with theDemocratic party in the years before the Civil War,historian Louis Gerteis argues that Blair’s antislaverysentiments became increasingly popular in St. Louis,where the enslaved population was only two percentof the total population by 1860, and much skepticismreigned about the intentions of the Southern Rightswing of the state’s Democratic party.14

Barret, Thomas Hart Benton, and otherproslavery Democrats felt betrayed by Blair andhis supporters. After Blair’s cousin Benjamin GratzBrown gave a speech supporting compensatedemancipation for Missouri’s slaves, Bentonexpressed disgust at the use of his name to

The St. Louis Fairgrounds was home to the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association starting in 1856; John Barretwas among its organizers. Fairs like this one grew out of state fairs that emerged at mid-century as a way to promote newtechnologies and economic growth in cities like St. Louis. The grounds are now Fairground Park, at the northwest corner ofN. Grand and Natural Bridge Avenue in St. Louis. (Image: Library of Congress)


support Blair during the 1856 election. He attackedboth men in a harsh letter that Barret would often reciteat future debates against Blair: “For persons callingthemselves my friends,” Benton warned, “to attach thewhole policy of my life, which was to keep slaveryagitation out of the state, and get my support in thecanvass by keeping me ignorant of what they intendedto do, is the greatest outrage I have ever experienced.”15

Barret made similar accusations against Blair in aspeech to Congress in June 1860. After Blair won hisCongressional seat in 1856, “he and his [newspaper]claimed” that his victory was “a Black Republicanvictory, and it was hailed as such by the papers inthe North,” Barret complained. “After election, thegentleman [was] lionized throughout the North as thegreat champion of freedom from a slave state. Afterelection he had no eyes, no ears, no understanding foranything like slavery,” he sneered, accusing Blair of“advocating emancipation in Missouri; making warupon the institutions of his state; making war upon thepolicy of Colonel Benton’s whole life, and vilifyingwith the most malignant abuse the party under whosebanner he had been elected.”16 Who could be reliedupon to represent St. Louis Democrats and defendslavery in future elections?

Entrance into National Politics

As the midterm elections of 1858 approached,proslavery Democrats in St. Louis sought a candidatewho would support President James Buchanan’sadministration and promote the idea of popularsovereignty in the western territories, which wouldallow a territory’s residents (and not Congress) todetermine whether or not they wanted slavery. These“National” Democrats sought a viable candidate tocompete for Missouri’s First Congressional districtseat against the incumbent Blair, who was nowessentially a Republican but running under the bannerof a “Free” Democrat since the Republican party stillhad little support in the city. Barret was out of townwhen the city’s National Democrats raised his nameas a potential candidate during their convention inJune. The convention’s central focus throughout wasprotecting slavery in Missouri. One speaker baldlydeclared that he “wanted to put a man in nomination,who, if elected, would protect property, whether ahorse or a nigger.” By the end of the convention, Barretwould have unanimous support as the party’s nomineefor Congress.17 Barret and Blair, once close allies inthe Missouri General Assembly a few short years ago,would now go to battle against each other.

The two men agreed to a series of debates inJuly 1858 throughout the St. Louis area. Much likethe famous debates between Abraham Lincoln andStephen Douglas that would begin a month later inIllinois, the St. Louis debates focused almost entirelyon slavery. In many ways the arguments marshaled byBarret and Blair were two sides of the same coin: bothwere opposed to racial equality and were primarilyconcerned about the state of white labor in Missouri.Their major difference concerned whether whiteswould benefit more under a slave or free labor society.The deceptively titled Missouri Republican functionedas the city’s most popular Democratic newspaper, andit gleefully reprinted many of Barret’s remarks duringthese debates in support of slavery within the state andpopular sovereignty for determining slavery’s statusin the territories. These speeches provide some of theclearest insights into Barret’s political views.18

During the first debates at Laclede Station,Florissant, and Carondelet, the two candidatesfocused their arguments on who was the true heir tothe complex legacy of Thomas Hart Benton, whohad recently died in April. Blair highlighted Benton’sgrowing skepticism over slavery. He cited a bookBenton wrote a year earlier that was harshly critical ofthe Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford,which declared that the Missouri Compromise wasunconstitutional and that Congress had no right to banslavery in the western territories. Blair argued that hewas merely following in his mentor’s footsteps. Heproclaimed himself “as the champion of free labor in

Thomas Hart Benton (1782–1858) served as senatorfrom Missouri for its first three decades. A JacksonianDemocrat, Benton came to see expansion of slavery intothe western territories as problematic, a position that costhim his senate seat in the 1850 election. (Image: Libraryof Congress)


Missouri—superiority for the white man” and statedthat he had an obligation to support emancipationin Missouri. He also vowed to stop the creation ofthe proslavery Lecompton Constitution in Kansas,which was created by a minority of proslaveryleaders in that territory and supported by PresidentBuchanan. Citing Barret’s previous statements as astate legislator repudiating the Jackson Resolutions,Blair accused Barret of flip-flopping by now arguingthat popular sovereignty—not Congress—shoulddetermine slavery’s status in the territories. Blairalso used his understanding of history to suggest that“when I advocate emancipation I but reiterate thesentiments of Washington, of Jefferson, of the bestmen of the olden time.”19

Barret repeatedly cited Benton’s letterdisavowing Blair and the “Free” Democrats shortlybefore his death. He also accused Blair of beingsympathetic to the Republican party and againstthe interests of Missourians. “Mr. Blair claims torepresent the Democrat party, but I call him therepresentative of the Black Republican party,”Barret thundered. He argued that Blair betrayed hissupporters when he began advocating emancipationand colonization after winning his Congressionalseat in 1856. “He has recently affiliated so closelywith those who take pride in the congomen. . . . Heformerly claimed to be a Democrat—a NationalBenton Democrat—and it was upon the influence ofthat great name, that he hobbled into place and power. . . he did not then advance doctrines so heretical tothe interest of the Pro-Slavery party, nay, in positiveterms he rejected scornfully the [Republican] namewhich he now is so ambitious to march.”20 It wasBarret, not Blair, who was following in Benton’sfootsteps by protecting slaveholding interests.

Barret expressed support for the proslaveryLecompton Constitution in Kansas and the Buchananadministration’s policy of popular sovereignty. Hebelieved that ongoing violence between MissouriBushwackers and Kansas Jayhawkers in “BleedingKansas” would soon subside once a constitution wasratified, and he attempted to divert the conversationaway from slavery by promising that he would workto have the proposed Pacific Railroad—which wouldbe the country’s first east-west transcontinentalrailroad—come through St. Louis if he was electedto Congress.21

The status of white labor emerged as a point ofcontention at debates in Allenton and Manchester.Blair defended his colonization scheme as in theinterest of white workers. He “did not desire freenegroes to be set loose in the State” or anywherefurther west and reiterated his promise that the sale

of public lands throughout the state would coverthe costs of moving the state’s black population toCentral America. The Blair-supporting MissouriDemocrat reinforced this argument by claiming thatslave labor degraded white labor. “The hundredsof thousands who would seek here a settlement . . .would unquestionably hesitate long, if instead of theadvance tread of freedom, they saw the reconqueringmarch of slavery making a front,” the paper argued.“Men of surplus wealth will not invest in countriesblighted with the institutions of decay. Men ofenterprise will not carry their zeal to sections whereit only wins rebuke or toils hopelessly against servilecompetition.”22

Barret found Blair’s free labor argumentsridiculous and unconstitutional. According to theMissouri Republican, “Barret convinced the peoplethat the Constitution protected their accruing rightsas well as those now in existence, and that ownerscould no more be deprived of the increase of theirslaves, without remuneration, than of the increase oftheir orchards, or of their cattle.” Additionally, “hefurthermore showed the utter impossibility of gettingrid of the negroes.” To strengthen his argument,Barret recalled a recent visit to Illinois. While there,he stopped at a hotel tavern that was tended by a freeAfrican American. Outraged, Barret asked the hotelmanager why he didn’t employ a white bartender.“‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘I can get a free nigger for fifteendollars a month, whilst a white bar keeper I shouldhave to pay from thirty to forty dollars a month.”This incident, according to Barret, demonstrated thatwhite labor was freest and wages were highest whenblack labor was enslaved outside the boundariesof wage labor. “Mr. Barret desired to see no suchcompetition in Missouri,” the Missouri Republicanreported.23

Barret, like Blair, utilized his understanding ofhistory and the legacies of Washington and Jeffersonto justify his proslavery position. He asserted thatthe Constitution was a proslavery document writtenby slaveholders and that Blair was the radicalideologue distorting history. “Let us remember,”Barret warned, “that the commander-in-chief ofthe revolutionary forces was a slaveholder, that theauthor of the Declaration of our Independence was aslaveholder, that the hero of New Orleans and sage ofthe Hermitage [Andrew Jackson], Winfield Scott andZachary Taylor, and a host of other worthies, who inthe cabinet and on the field of battle have performedthe most efficient services to the country, [have] donemore than any other men on earth to promote thecause of human liberty and the freedom of the whiterace.”24 He declared that proslavery Democrats in St.


Louis had nothing to be ashamed of. History provedthat they were the rightful, conservative heirs of thefounding generation’s efforts to create a republicdedicated to political equality, freedom, and libertyfor whites.

Barret declared during later debates at Bridgetonand Creve Coeur that Blair’s colonization plan wasa “free labor humbug” and warned of the dangersposed by the antislavery Republican party emergingin the North and now, through Frank Blair, the slavestate of Missouri. “In their frenzy for the negrothey have ignored every duty to the white man,”he complained, “and in their desire to burst thebands of slavery they have come near severing thebands of the Union. I do not stand here as a slaverypropagandist, but as one disposed to debate thisquestion in any shape or form, and I raise my voiceagainst the unwarrantable aggression on the part ofthis anti-slavery party.” Republicans, just like radicalsouthern firebrands, were threatening the future ofthe country. Blair determined “to make war uponthe dearest interests of the whole State”; therefore,a vote for Barret was a vote against radicalism. Likehis hero Thomas Hart Benton, Barret reinforced hissupport for “non-interference, no agitation, securityof property, and tranquility to the people” when itcame to slavery.25

Blair’s position as the first major antislaverycandidate in a slave state brought national attentionto the election. But when voters went to the pollson August 3, they brought a close victory toBarret, who garnered 7,057 votes to Blair’s 6,631.Proslavery Democrats throughout the country,including President Buchanan, celebrated Barret’svictory.26 Barret took his seat with the 36th Congressin late 1859 hoping to protect popular sovereigntyas a method for determining slavery’s westwardexpansion and promote St. Louis as a centralterminus for the Pacific Railroad.

Barret served on the Committee on PublicLands and used that role to promote the PacificRailroad in St. Louis. On May 26, 1860, he used hisinterest in the railroad to make his first speech inthe House of Representatives. Echoing the spirit ofManifest Destiny, Barret upheld white “frontier men”who migrated west as “the true representatives ofAmerican Progress and of American spirit; the menwho, by their enterprise, have, in spite of all dangers,hardships, and privations, increased and extended ourusefulness.” What better way to support whitewestward expansion than by a railroad line throughthe center of the country? Even though he hadpersonally experienced the bitter nature of sectionalpolitics during the 1858 Congressional campaign,

Barret portrayed Missouri as a state beyondsectionalism. The proposed Pacific Railroad “shouldbe built for the whole Union,” he asserted. “It shouldbe for the North, for the South, for the East, and forthe West; it should be for a whole nation, and notfor a section—for the whole people, and not for aparty.” The middle states were “favored particularlyby Heaven, not only in their climate and in their soil,but in their geographical positions.” Establishingthis rail line in Missouri was imperative since it“constitutes a well-defined geographical divisionof the Union. It is the center; and it possesses morereal wealth and greatness than any other portion ofthe globe of the same extent. It embraces within itsbounds the extreme North and the extreme South.”Moreover, establishing the line in Missouri woulddivert the country’s attention from bitter divisionsover slavery toward the work of growing thecountry’s economy and promoting patriotism. “Letsectional strife between the States subside into aunited effort for national purposes, national defense,and national welfare,” he argued, “and we may oncemore see them cemented into one social, friendlycommunity. . . . Community of interest and socialintercourse are stronger to bind a people togetherthan any written constitution or legislative enactment.Common welfare is the great regulator, propeller,and lubricator of all government machinery; upon itdepends our Union and our Greatness as a nation.”27

As Congress debated Barret’s measure, troublebrewed on the horizon back in St. Louis. Frank Blairclaimed that his loss in the 1858 Congressionalelection was due to fraud. His claims gained tractionamong Republicans within a bitterly partisanatmosphere in Washington, D.C., and suddenly Barretfound his political future threatened. During theCommittee on Elections’ investigation, Blair claimedthat Barret paid residents to vote for him, particularlynon-naturalized Irish immigrants ineligible to vote.Barret defended himself in a speech to Congress onJune 6, denying the claims and arguing that Blair’schanging attitudes toward slavery were the realreason he lost. After many long hours of testimonyand a thorough investigation of Blair’s claims, theHouse of Representatives on June 9 voted alongparty lines 93 to 91 to unseat Barret and replace himwith Blair. Whether or not Barret actually committedelection fraud is unclear, but his time in Congresswas at an end. Blair made a speech in Congressdeclaring victory, but in a surprise move he decidedto resign his seat in order to make a case to the votersfor his re-election in 1860.28

With Missouri’s First Congressional Districtseat now vacant, Barret and Blair returned to St.


Louis in July 1860 for another round of debates. Theupcoming Congressional election would determinewho would serve out the remainder of the secondsession in the 36th Congress (the “short term” thatwould last from December 1860 until March 4,1861) and who would serve in the 37th Congress (the“long term” starting in December 1861). St. LouisDemocrats orchestrated a huge reception for Barretat the Planters’ House hotel on June 29. Horse-drawncarriages, band music, and thousands of supporterslined the streets as he arrived by boat along theMississippi River. According to the MissouriRepublican, “a rocket was sent up as a signal” whenBarret arrived, “which was immediately answered bythe sound of a cannon on the St. Louis shore.”29

Barret addressed the crowd at Lucas Market.He expressed his love for St. Louis and his fears ofpotential disunion being perpetrated by extremismon the slavery question. It became evident that hewas tired of the topic. While in Congress “we feastedupon speeches from the North and from the South.We were filled with this eternal nigger question[laughter]. We had it morning, noon and night, and Ihad to sit and listen to it.” He argued that he served“with the intention of attempting to represent a greatpeople, occupying a central position in the greatMississippi Valley.” Rather than taking a side fornorth or south, Barret stated that his primary interestwas “bringing forward something in the way ofWestern measures.” Supporting a Pacific Railroadline through Missouri was one such measure.Also important for Barret was the fact that he leftslavery out of his railroad speech. “Upon this PacificRailroad bill . . . I congratulated myself on the factthat I was able to make a full-length speech in whichthe subject of the nigger was not touched upon at all[cheers]. . . . I eschewed all such questions as far as Icould.”30

Barret also expressed his belief that America’sfuture was tied with the economic success of thewest, which in his mind included Missouri. “Fellowcitizens, Massachusetts and South Carolina havedictated our politics long enough. They have raisedissues upon which this Union has been shaken timeand again. The representatives of those States donot know the extent of this great valley; they do notknow that the census of 1860 will place us in controlof this great Republic [loud cheers]. They do notknow that even Missouri, with her broad domainpopulated as thickly as the New England States,could this day take Massachusetts in one hand andSouth Carolina in the other, and box their headstogether as disunionists [laughter and cheers].”31

Contrary to Abraham Lincoln’s famous declaration

that a divided country could not exist half free andhalf slave, Barret argued that allowing residentsin the western territories to determine whetheror not they wanted slavery was the only coursefor maintaining national unity. Why the work ofestablishing a transcontinental railroad continued tobe derailed by debates over slavery was a source ofconfusion and frustration for Barret.

With Blair now openly running as a Republicanfor the 1860 Congressional election, Barret raisedfears about Blair being an abolitionist. At a debatein Manchester he cited Blair’s endorsement ofauthor Hinton Rowan Helper’s famous bookcalling for the south to free its slaves. The MissouriRepublican supported Barret’s tactics and assertedthat “this book, as is well known, is literally stuffedwith Abolitionism of the rankest and most abjectcharacter. Black Republicanism, however, hasnothing manly or chivalric in it, and in its attempts toelevate the nigger it drags down the white man to acorresponding level.” Barret continued to raise thesefears at Bridgeton, where he quoted from Republicanleaders who opposed slavery’s westward expansionand argued that the party’s principles were “whollyrevolutionary and [of a] destructive tendency.”32

As the Congressional election in August andthe presidential election in November neared,the Missouri Republican wrote editorials andpublished letters to the editor in support of Barretand presidential candidate Stephen Douglas, both ofwhom were committed to popular sovereignty in theterritories and the end of sectional agitation on theslavery question. The paper cited Barret’s educationat Saint Louis University and argued that he “hasbeen the author of untold blessings to our city.”Most notably, his work with the Agricultural andMechanical Association deserved special attentionbecause it had “become not only the boast of our city,but a source of national pride.” When others playedpolitics and flirted with disunionism, “MissouriDick” followed the conservative footsteps of ThomasHart Benton in consistently promoting Unionism,commerce, and westward expansion. Likewise,supporting Barret’s Democratic confidante Douglasfor President, according to one published letterto the editor, would guarantee economic progressuninterrupted by debate over slavery or disunion asthe government would pledge to “leave the people toregulate their domestic affairs as may best suit theirinterests.”33 Would this line of thinking lead Barretand the “Douglas Democrats” to victory?

The results of the August Congressional electionswere somewhat contradictory. Barret won the“short term” election, meaning he would return to


Washington, D.C., to finish out the second sessionof the 36th Congress. Blair, however, won the “longterm” election by 1,500 votes, requiring that Barretleave his seat after March 1861. William E. Parrishsuggests that voter confusion over the short- andlong-term ballots—and possibly even the distributionof bogus ballots—led to this odd result.34 Anotherinterpretation is that voters might have believedthat claims of voter fraud in the 1858 election weresuspect and that Barret was entitled to finish outhis term. Regardless, Blair’s victory for the nextCongressional session was suggestive of St. Louis’growing support for the antislavery Republican party.When the presidential election took place later thatNovember, St. Louis voters likewise preferred Blair’sally Abraham Lincoln, the only county in Missouri tovote Republican.

It is safe to conclude, however, that Barret’sproslavery unionism and support for popularsovereignty appealed to a majority of Missourivoters. Voters statewide elected Democrat ClaiborneFox Jackson for governor on the same day Barret losthis seat for the long term, and they would later voteStephen Douglas for president (the only other statehe won was New Jersey).35 Both men campaignedon the same policies as Barret, and, much like theMissouri Republican, all three would be featuredon Democratic tickets together in newspapersthroughout the state. Barret’s views may not havereflected the changing political views of St. Louisresidents when he returned to Congress to finish histerm, but they reflected the concerns and desiresof a majority of voters throughout the state. Thisconsideration is important because Barret would berequired to speak for all Missourians—not just thosein his district—as disunion and civil war loomed onthe horizon.

The Beginning of Southern Secession

The political situation had changed dramaticallyby the time Barret arrived in Washington, D.C.,in early December. Abraham Lincoln had won thepresidency through a plurality of northern votes andwould become the nation’s first Republican president.The Democratic party’s national split into northernand southern factions over the appropriate coursefor determining slavery’s westward expansion hadbadly divided the party. Some Democrats claimedthat Lincoln’s victory was illegitimate, and politicalleaders in South Carolina began debating the meritsof leaving the Union. Two and a half weeks afterBarret took his seat in Congress, the Palmetto Statedeclared secession. By February 1861, seven Deep

South states had seceded. A national emergencyreigned as the future of the United States was nowcast in doubt.

Barret’s role in Congress’s compromiseproceedings was limited but important. He was notpicked to represent Missouri in the Committee ofThirty-Three, which was given the task of creatingcompromise legislation to stem the tide of secession.Likewise, he also watched from the sidelines when131 delegates from northern and border slave statesmet in early February for the Washington PeaceConference. The Peace Conference would supporta modified version of the Crittenden Compromiseby proposing to extend the Missouri Compromiseline dividing free and slave territory through to theeastern line of California.36

Barret made his first address to Congress onJanuary 19. He stated that he had received theminutes of a meeting held in St. Louis that hadbeen attended by prominent residents “irrespectiveof party, to take into consideration the unfortunatecondition of the country.” Barret argued that theresolutions were “eminently conservative, and inevery way worthy of the principles of adjustmentproposed by Mr. [John] Crittenden.” They includeddeclarations that “slave property is a constitutionalright,” that an amendment should be passed “so thatthe slavery question may never again disturb thepublic peace or impair the national harmony,” thatSt. Louis was for the Union but would “demandour equal and constitutional rights, and will notbe content with less,” and, equally importantly,that any use of aggressive military force againstseceding states would plunge the country into abloody civil war, which should be avoided at allcosts.37 Reflective of previous statements made byBarret, the proceedings conveyed the desire of manySt. Louisans (and, by extension, Missourians) fora compromise measure to maintain the Union andprotect slavery.

Barret remained relatively quiet for the nextmonth as he prepared to give another speechto Congress in late February. Two importantdevelopments emerged in that time, however.The Committee of Thirty-Three, led by OhioCongressman Thomas Corwin, offered a proposedconstitutional amendment to permanently protectslavery in the states where it already existed.Barret became a strong advocate for the “CorwinAmendment” and would use his pro-compromisespeech to support its passage.

Meanwhile, political leaders back home inMissouri—led by Governor Jackson—proposedthe creation of a convention to debate the merits of


secession. Missourians took a cautious approach andelected pro-Union delegates by an overwhelmingmargin to the convention. The proposed conventionwas still a week away from its first meeting whenBarret addressed Congress again on February 21,but he undoubtedly would have had knowledgeof the delegates who were elected and a generalunderstanding of the positions they would take. Whenthe state convention voted whether or not to leave theUnion on March 4, its delegates voted 98 to 1 againstsecession. Like Barret, they also expressed supportfor the Corwin Amendment.38 What exactly Barretknew about the convention cannot be completelydetermined in the absence of any personal letters ordiaries in his handwriting, but the looming decisionon secession back home would have weighed on hismind as he attempted to convey Missouri’s stancetowards the Union to his fellow Congressmen.

Address to Congress on Secession

When February 21 arrived, Barret rose to thespeaker’s podium in the House of Representatives tomake the most important speech of his life. He wouldaddress Congress for several hours and, similarto his comments at Lucas Market during the 1860Congressional campaign, would criticize extremismfrom both northern and southern politicians. Barret’scompelling oration that day presents a powerfulportrait of unionism from the perspective of a borderslave state politician.39

Barret opened his address with an appeal tohistory. He quoted from George Washington to arguethat secession was unconstitutional. The Union was“indissoluble” and the Constitution was created to“induce [Americans] to forget their local politics andprejudices” in the interest of promoting one unifiednation. From the beginning, however, antislaverynortherners had disregarded Washington’s desires andestablished antislavery societies “entirely upon localpolitics and prejudices, and with the avowed objectof making war upon southern institutions.” Everytime a serious national crisis over slavery emerged—the Missouri Compromise, the Wilmot Proviso, theCompromise of 1850, among others—antislaveryagitation put the country’s future in doubt. The

Seven slaveholding states in theSouth had already seceded inFebruary 1861, when Congressproved unable to reconcilethe crisis over secession andslavery. In a last-ditch effort, apeace conference convened atthe Willard Hotel to try to keepthe eight remaining slavehold-ing states in the Union. Formerpresident John Tyler headed theconvention. (Images: ShappellManuscript Foundation)


South, according to Barret, had been greatly harmedand forced to compromise rights “which even theConstitution would not justify . . . for Peace and forthe Union.”

Barret argued that the current Republican partywas an outgrowth of previous northern prejudicesagainst slavery. It was not simply an opposition partybut an extremist faction with treasonous designs.The party was “an organization wholly sectional inits character, determined upon effecting the ultimateextinction of slavery, regardless of plighted faithand national obligations.” “Two distinct classes”composed this party’s leadership, according to Barret.“The first is composed of the out-and-out, red-mouthed Abolitionists,” he thundered, “who believethat it is the right and duty of every slave to cut hismaster’s throat. These are the bold and desperate menwho attempt to carry out practically the great leadingideas and moving principles of the Republican party.”If these abolitionists had their way, they “would haverejoiced to see John Brown President, Hinton RowanHelper Vice President, and Dred Scott Chief Justiceof the Supreme Court of the United States.” The mostprominent “red-mouthed Abolitionists,” according toBarret, were “preachers of the Gospel, men makingpretense of much true piety and Christian charity.. . . They carry the Bible in their hands, religion ontheir tongues, and hell in their wicked hearts.” Suchpreachers were a threat to the popular proslaverybelief that slavery was a divine institution that wouldChristianize and civilize enslaved blacks.

Barret defined the second class as “cunning andambitious politicians” who exploited antislaverysentiments for their own gain. These politiciansembraced the “wicked, reckless, and lawlessfanaticism of the Abolitionist” and deludedthemselves into “the delicious idea that they weremoving the cause of human rights, and of theequality of man.” Under these circumstances, manysoutherners believed a Republican president anda Republican majority in Congress “must resultin the complete subjugation of the South, and thedestruction of their institution of slavery.” Barretpleaded that Union-loving white southerners now“only ask their rights under the Constitution” and anamendment—the Corwin Amendment—to protecttheir slave property.

Barret then warned of another grave possibilityin the country’s future: racial equality. Republicansactually held a range of views toward racial equalitythat are best viewed on a spectrum, with FrankBlair’s open racism and support for colonization offreed blacks on one end and Congressman JoshuaGiddings’ belief in racial equality on the other.

These distinctions collapsed in Barret’s telling ofthe party’s intentions. Citing speeches by numerousRepublicans, including President-elect Lincoln, hecomplained that the party aimed to “place the negroupon an equality with the white man.” When Lincolnargued that the Declaration of Independence’sproclamation that “all men are created equal”applied to people of all races and not just whites, hedistorted the meaning of that clause and “reducedit to practice” in a way that it was never intendedby the founders. “All men are created equal” onlyapplied to white men, according to Barret, and it wascondescending of Republicans to be “insulting thepeople of this country by explaining to them theirDeclaration of Independence.”

Equally troubling in Barret’s view wasthe Republicans’ focus on the Declaration ofIndependence—a statement of principles—insteadof the Constitution, the nation’s actual governingdocument. The two documents seemed to create aconundrum for Republicans. “The Declaration,”he pointed out, “announces the fact that all menare created equal, and entitled to life, liberty, &c,”but “the Constitution returns the fugitive slave tohis master.” Did the Constitution not embody theprinciple of “all men are created equal” to mean thatall white men were created equal and entitled to theright to own slave property? “Our forefathers,” heargued, “never intended to establish a law paramountto the Constitution itself.” They never declared that“their own slaves [were] entitled to their freedom,and themselves law-breakers in holding them inbondage.” The effort to promote emancipation andracial equality would only lead to violent socialchaos: “the establishment and encouragement ofunderground railroads . . . bloody strife in Kansas . . .incitement to civil war, and the excitement of servileinsurrection.”

The distinction between opposing slavery in thewestern territories (the central plank of the party’splatform) and opposing slavery in states where italready existed (which most Republicans denied) didnot exist in Barret’s address. By preventing slavery’swestward expansion, Republicans would strangleholdits growth and “create dissatisfaction among theslaves in the border States [and] induce them to seekrefuge in the free States.” The mass flight of enslavedpeople into free states would render slave property“so insecure, unprofitable, and even dangerous, inthe border States, that they will rid themselves ofit; and once free, it is expected that those Stateswill cooperate in making an amendment to theConstitution, providing for the ultimate extinction ofslavery throughout the land.”


Whether Republicans sought to take actionon slavery only in the territories or throughout theentire country, their ultimate goal remained thesame: the eventual demise of slavery nationwide.In a remarkably accurate prediction of what wouldoccur if civil war broke out, Barret asserted that“Mr. Lincoln will abolish slavery in the District ofColumbia; [Republicans] will prevent inter-Stateslave trade, restrict slavery in all the Territories,reorganize the Supreme Court, and put the

Government actually and perpetually on the sideof freedom.” Putting the government on the sideof freedom would also have a negative financialimplication for the south. Republicans would“destroy the value of $4,000,000,000 worth of theirproperty” in their antislavery crusade. AlthoughBarret’s speech was intended to be pro-Union, hisdemagoguery about the Republican party’s intentionssuggested that the opposite might actually bepreferable.

Southerners ran campaign cartoons such as this one in 1860 that played on the fears of racial integration, depicting what itcalled “The Miscegenation Ball.” (Image: Library of Congress)


Barret then made a stunning transition and begancriticizing the seceded southern states. Despitethe machinations of the Republicans, the federalgovernment had “done no wrong” to the Southand in fact protected its interests. Destroying theConstitution was counterproductive when “all unitein the opinion that it is the best form of governmentever instituted among men.” The Constitutionprotected minority interests and guaranteed limitson the power of an impassioned majority. Lincoln’selection had created “a national conservativeelement” that could keep his administration in checkand, in Barret’s view, ensure his “certain terminationat the end of four years” if only northern and southernDemocrats could reunite in opposition. Secession,therefore, was “unwise and selfish, an irreparableinjury to themselves, an act of cruel injustice tothe middle and border slave States, to the GeneralGovernment,” and the South’s “northern friends.”Additionally, leaving the Union “cannot render slaveproperty more secure, or in any manner perpetuateit.” Giving up the Constitution’s protections forslavery would result in the “direst of all calamities,”emancipation, during a potentially bloody civil war.Had proslavery northerners and southerners unitedafter Lincoln’s election, they would “make war, notagainst the Government, but its enemies; then mightwe fight, under the Constitution, against those whosubvert it; fight for this beautiful capitol, hallowedin its very name, location, and in all its associations;fight for the archives, the flag, the honor of this greatnation.” The seven southern states that had alreadychosen to secede made this possibility null and void.

Barret confessed that he was unsure of what theborder slave states would do in the face of northernantislavery sentiment and southern secession. “Butlet the North be assured of one thing,” he warned.The “border States are unanimous in the opinion thatthis is a proper occasion for the settlement of thispest question of slavery, now and forever.” He thendramatically explained Missouri’s unique role withinthe secession crisis and offered another warning tothe north:

Missouri occupies the geographical centerof this nation; she lies in the very highwayof civilization, and in the march of empire.She now contains a white population equalto that of Florida, South Carolina, Alabama,and Mississippi, combined; and for her futuregreatness she looks to the North, to the South, tothe East, and to the West. Sir, Missouri was bornof the Union; she was rocked in the cradle of theUnion; she has grown up, lived, and prospered

in the Union, and she loves the Union withunceasing devotion; but not a Union of the Northwith a fragment of the South, but the Union asour fathers made it—a Union of all the States inone grand and glorious Republic. Thus situated,thus interested, Missouri claims the right tocriticize the conduct of her sister States, Northand South. But, if the doctrine of coercion obtain,and the attempt be made to whip the cottonStates into self-government, then Missouri willbe found side by side with the other border slaveStates in armed resistance. And I now say to ourNorthern friends, beware. And I say this not in aspirit of menace, but of solemn warning.

Barret concluded his speech with additionalcritiques against the Republican party. Hecomplained that the most radical of the party refusedto compromise at all or give consideration to theCorwin Amendment. Equally bad in his mind was theidea that since Lincoln’s electoral victory came witha plurality of the popular vote, the administrationcould not claim to represent the consent of thegoverned. “This government is [now] a Governmentof force, of supreme power, of which . . . the consentof the white man forms no constituent element.” Theburden was therefore on the Republicans to solve thesecession crisis. “Shall every seven white men cuteach other’s throats for the sake of one negro? . . .Shall this free, glorious, happy America throw awayall her grand achievements. . . . Shall this modelRepublic, having no model on earth, cease forever tobe an example worthy of study and imitation? Theseare important questions, and you alone can decidethem.” Barret argued that he had done his part bysupporting the efforts of the Committee of Thirty-Three. “I have had the honor of being taunted by menfrom the North, and men from the South, as a Union-saver,” he boasted. “Would that it were in my power,by a word, by a vote, by any act, by any sacrifice, tosave this beautiful and holy house of our fathers; andthat I could thus win this proud title, which, thoughbestowed in derision, is a title worth dying for, worthhaving lived for.” Any sacrifice, of course, except forthe abolition of slavery in the United States.

On February 28, 1861, Barret was among amajority of Congressmen who voted in support ofthe Corwin Amendment, although it would neverbe ratified by the required three-fourths of the statelegislatures.40 The business of the 36th Congresscame to a conclusion with the nation’s futureunresolved and tensions between the United Statesand the new Confederate States of America rising.Abraham Lincoln would be inaugurated president


of a fractured Union on March 4. Barret returned toSt. Louis empty-handed and defeated in his bid forpeaceful compromise.

As the first shots of the Civil War were fired atFort Sumter, Missourians faced the choice of whoto support in a war seemingly provoked by extremepolitics in other parts of the country. Barret choseto support the Confederacy. During the war heworked for General Sterling Price as a commissionerin negotiating prisoner exchanges and as a liaisonbetween Price’s Army of the Trans-Mississippiand the Confederate government in Richmond.41

He and his cousin, Dr. James A. Barret, also beganassociating with Joseph Wofford Tucker, a lawyer,Methodist deacon, newspaper editor, and fierysecessionist. Tucker formed a rogue military groupduring the war that worked to destroy U.S. andcommercial property along the Mississippi Rivervalley. According to historian George E. Rule, Barretwas at one point accused of being “head of landoperations” in Tucker’s organization and encouragingmembers to destroy property and commit acts of

violence against Union soldiers, although the actualextent of his involvement in the group is unknown.Dr. James A. Barret, meanwhile, was arrested andheld in a military prison for his involvement in theOrder of American Knights—a secret group opposedto martial law, emancipation, and the entire Unionwar effort—until United States General Ulysses S.Grant, of all people, wrote a letter to Secretary of WarEdwin Stanton ordering his release.42

Little is known about Barret’s life after theCivil War. A brief biography in an official directoryof former Congressmen vaguely states that heeventually moved to New York City “and wasengaged, among other occupations, in buildingdocks.” He died there on November 2, 1903, at theage of seventy-eight. He was interred back in hisnative Kentucky and currently rests at Cave HillCemetery in Louisville.43 John Richard Barret wouldnever again serve in public office.


St. Louis lawyer John Richard Barret was serving his only term as Congressman for Missouri’s First Districtwhen the first seven states seceded from the Union in the Winter of 1860–1861. Fearing the possibility ofdisunion and civil war, he gave this fiery speech to Congress twelve days before the expiration of his term andthe inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln. Barret made a compelling argument favoring compromiseover slavery’s westward expansion and the maintenance of the Union. He condemned extremism from both“red-mouthed Abolitionists” in the North and proslavery fire-eaters in the South. He also correctly predictedthat a long, bitter civil war would destroy the institution of slavery in the United States.

State of the Union

—Speech of Hon. J.R. Barret,

of Missouri,In the House of Representatives,

February 21, 1861.

The House having under consideration the report from the select committee of thirty-three—

MR. BARRET said:MR. SPEAKER: In 1783, George Washington, in a letter to the Governors of the Several States, used the

following language:“There are four things which I humbly conceive are essential to the well-being, I may even venture to say

to the existence, of the United States as an independent power: 1. An indissoluble Union under our Federalhead. 2. A sacred regard for public justice. 3. The adoption of a proper peace regulation. 4. The prevalence ofthat pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the United States which will induce them to forgettheir local politics and prejudices.”

In 1787, acting upon this advice from the Father of his Country, whom to love was the delight of thewhole nation, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insuredomestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessingsof liberty to themselves and their posterity, did ordain and establish our blessed Constitution. To say that thosewho formed that sacred instrument were good and great, is not enough. They seemed inspired from above—special messengers from the very throne of the Eternal; bearers of the high and holy mission of teaching to allthe earth the true doctrines of self-government.

The Constitution, as a peace regulation, would, in all things, be complete; and the Union thus formed,under one Federal head, would be indissoluble, if there existed a sacred regard for public justice and such afriendly and pacific feeling among the people as to induce them to forget their local politics and prejudices.

George Washington seemed impressed with this idea when, in 1796, he, in the most affectionate, solemn,and earnest manner, warned his countrymen against every attempt to alienate one portion of the people fromthe rest, and enjoined upon all the constant love of liberty, and especially the preservation of the unity of theGovernment, as the palladium of our political safety and prosperity.

In utter disregard of the warnings and injunctions, in direct conflict with the spirit of the Constitutionand the principles of public justice, a party was formed in the North, founded entirely upon local politicsand prejudices, and with the avowed object of making war upon southern institutions. And in 1820, uponthe application of Missouri for admission as a State, an issue, based upon geographical discriminations, wasdirectly made, which endangered, even at that early day, the very existence of the Union. It may be well tocall attention to the views of Mr. Jefferson, upon this proposition and the party making it, as he is one of thefathers of the Republic, to whom this anti-slavery party now delight to refer.

In a letter to Mr. Monroe, of March 3, 1820, he says:“The Missouri question is the most portentous one which ever threatened our Union. In the gloomiest

moment of the revolutionary war, I never had an apprehension equal to that I felt from this source.”In his writings, volume seven, he says:“The question is a mere party trick; the leaders of Federalism, defeated in their schemes of obtaining

power, by rallying partisans to the principle of monarchism—a principle of personal, not of local division—


have changed their tact and thrown out anotherbarrel to the whale. They are taking advantage of thevirtuous feeling of the people to effect a division ofparties by geographical lines; they expect this willinsure them, on local principles, the majority theycould never obtain on principle of Federalism.”

In a letter to Mr. Adams, January 22, 1821, hesays:

“What does the holy alliance, in and out ofCongress, mean to do with us on the Missouriquestion? And this, by the way, is but the name ofthe case: it is only the John Doe and Richard Roeof the ejectment [sic]. The real question, as seen inthe States afflicted with this unfortunate population,is, ‘are our slaves to be presented freedom and adagger?’ For, if Congress has the power to regulatethe conditions of the inhabitants of the States withthe States, it will be but the exercise of that power todeclare that all shall be free.”

In a letter to La Fayette, November 4, 1823, hesays:

“On the eclipse of Federalism with us, althoughnot its extinction, its leaders got up the Missouriquestion under the false front of lessening themeasure of slavery, but with the real view ofproducing a geographical division of parties whichmight insure them the next President.”

To Mr. Holmes, April 22, 1820:“I have been among the most sanguine in

believing that our Union would be of long duration.I now doubt it much, and see the event at nogreat distance, and the direct consequence of thisquestion. My only comfort and consolation is, thatI shall not live to see it; and I envy not the presentgeneration the glory of throwing away the fruitsof their fathers’ sacrifices of life and fortune, andof rendering desperate the experiment which wasto decide, ultimately, whether man is capable ofself-government. This treason against human hopewill signalize their epoch in future history as thecounterpart of the model of their predecessors.

“This momentous question, like a fire-bell inthe night, awakened me and filled me with horror.I considered it, at once, as the knell of the Union.It is hushed, indeed, for the moment; but this is areprieve, only, not a final sentence. A geographicalline, coinciding with a marked principle, moral andpolitical, once conceived and held up to the angrypassions of men, will never be obliterated; and everynew irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.”

For peace and for the Union, the South upon thisquestion made a compromise of their rights whicheven the Constitution would not justify.

But this compromise did not secure peace. Itwas a “reprieve only,” and not a “final sentence.” Itwas but a temporary success of sectionalism, whichencouraged more thorough organization. On the30th of January, 1832, the Anti-slavery Society ofNew England was formed. This was an association,not professedly political, having for its object theabolition of slavery by moral means. The delightfulamusement of witch-burning had been played out,and so industrious and puritanical a people could notremain idle. In 1848, these humanitarians, assisted bypoliticians, succeeded in getting up another nationalagitation, which once more threatened the Union,until peace was restored by the compromise of 1850.Afterwards, a union of politicians, with the variousanti-slavery societies, formed the Republican Party,an organization wholly sectional in its character,determined upon effecting the ultimate extinctionof slavery, regardless of plighted faith and nationalobligations.

This party is now under the management of twodistinct classes. The first composed of the out-and-out, red-mouthed Abolitionists, who believe that it isthe right and duty of every slave to cut his master’sthroat. These are the bold and desperate men whoattempt to carry out practically the great leading ideasand moving principles of the Republican Party. Theyare men who would have rejoiced to see John BrownPresident, Hinton Rowan Helper Vice President, andDred Scott Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of theUnited States.

MR. KILGORE: I desire to ask the gentleman aquestion.

MR. BARRET: I am unwilling to be interrupted.After concluding my remarks, I will answer anyquestions the gentleman may desire to ask.

MR. KILGORE: I wanted to ask if the gentlemanincludes all the members of the Republican Party inthat category?

MR. BARRET: I decline yielding the floor. Isay most prominent among this Abolition class, arepreachers of the Gospel, men making pretense ofmuch true piety and Christian clarity.

“When devils will their blackest sins put on,They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,”“How smooth and even they do bear themselves!As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.”“They are meek, and humble mouth’d;They sign their place and calling, in full seeming,With meekness and humility.”They carried the Bible in their hands, religion

on their tongues, and hell in their wicked hearts. The


second class is made up of cunning and ambitiouspoliticians. Believing it necessary to their success,they have succeeded in forming sectional parties—parties distinctly northern and southern, slavery andanti-slavery; and to this end they have employedwith marked effect, the wicked, reckless, and lawlessfanaticism of the Abolitionist; and to conceal justenough to catch the more moderate, and the goodmen who are sometimes found in the RepublicanParty.

I shall say nothing of the small demagoguesand pitiful pettifoggers who make themselves soprominent now in the hour of party success. They arebut light, surface material, drawn by the Republicancurrent from every eddy. They are without size andsubstance, and float upon the tide; because its influxmay raise, while its reflex can never lower them.

Under this management, the Republican Partyhas combined States against States, and arrayedsection against section, until, by the power ofnumbers, by a section plurality, led on by party drill,and by the stimulus of pay and rations, and underthe inducement of coveted honors, fat salaries, andthe sweets of patronage, place, and power, and at thesame time penetrated and fired with the deliciousidea that they were moving in the cause of humanrights, and of the equality of man, have succeeded ingetting possession of the General Government.

The South, the defeated section, believingthat this geographical party, in its very nature, isinimical to them, and that their main object in takingpossession of the Government is to use all its powersand patronage in carrying out their leading idea—which must result in the complete subjugation ofthe South, and the destruction of their institution ofslavery—have become alarmed, and they ask forfurther guarantees of their safety. They ask onlytheir rights under the Constitution, but they wantsuch explanatory amendments as will prevent theperversion of that instrument into the means of theirown destruction.

Now, what is the leading idea, and have thesouthern people any cause for fear? In 1859, MR.SEWARD said of the Republican Party, of which heis the acknowledged leader and originator:

“The secret of its assured success lies in the factthat it is a party of one idea—the idea of equality;equality of all men, before human tribunals andhuman laws, as they are equal before divine tribunalsand divine laws.”

On previous occasions he had used similarlanguage. At Buffalo, in 1856, he said:

“If all men are created equal, no one canrightfully acquire or dominion over, or property in,

another man, without his consent. If all men arecreated equal, one man cannot rightfully exact theservice of the labor of another man, without hisconsent. The subjugation of one man to another byforce, so as to compel involuntary labor or service,subverts that equality between the parties which theCreator established.”

In the Senate, on the 11th of March, 1850, hesaid:

“All this is just and sound; but assuming thesame premises—to wit, that all men are equal by thelaw of nature and of nations—the right of property inslaves falls to the ground; for one who is equal to theother cannot be the owner of property of that other.But you answer that the Constitution recognizesproperty in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, toreply, that the constitutional obligation must be void,because it is repugnant to the law of nature andnations.”

These sentiments had been proclaimed by theAnti-Slavery party in every convention, and theywere not only disclaimed by the party at Chicago, butemphatically reasserted in the following resolution:

“That the maintenance of the principlespromulgated in the Declaration of Independence,and embodied in the Federal Constitution, ‘thatall men are created equal; that they are endowedby the Creator with certain inalienable rights; thatamong them are life, liberty, and the pursuit ofhappiness; that to secure these rights, Governmentsare instituted among men, deriving their just powersfrom the consent of the governed,’ is essential to thepreservation of republican institutions.”

To this bold enunciation of the Abolition doctrineof the party some timid man made objection; butthis objection was soon dispelled by that great leaderof the party, Mr. Giddings, of Ohio. He would notallow any dodging, and advocated the resolution withfeeling. He said, and truthfully:

“The Republican Party was founded on thisdoctrine of negro equality; that it grew upon it, andexisted upon it. When you leave this truth out, youleave the party.”

Mr. Curtis, of New York, in advocating theresolution, declared:

“That the words were truths by which theRepublican Party lives, and upon which alone thefuture of this country in the hands of the Republicanparty is passing.”

In the nomination and election of Mr. Lincoln,the future of this country did pass into the handsof the Republican Party upon the doctrine of negroequality. Judging from his speeches, we mustregard Mr. Lincoln as the very embodiment of the


sentiments of Mr. Giddings and Mr. Curtis, and ofthe Abolition party generally. Listen to his words atChicago, in 1858:

“My friends, I have detained you about as longas I desired to do, and I have only to say, let usdiscard quibbling about this man or the other man,this race, that race, and the other race being inferior,and therefore must be placed in an inferior position,discarding our standard which we have left us; letus discard all these things, and unite as one peoplethroughout the land, until we shall once more standup declaring that all men are created equal.”

He makes it still stronger in the same speech:“My friends, I could not, without launching off

upon some new topic, which would detain you toolong, continue to-night. I thank you for this mostextensive audience you have furnished me to-night.I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burnin your bosoms until there shall be no longer a doubtthat all men are created free and equal.”

Afterwards, at Galesburg, Mr. Lincoln said:“I believe that the entire records of the world,

from the date of the Declaration of Independence upto within three years ago, may be searched in vainfor a single affirmation, from one single man, thatthe negro was not included in the Declaration ofIndependence.”

Mr. Lincoln will not be content with anadmission of the abstract equality of men, but wishesto reduce it to practice. The Illinois Journal, ofSeptember 16, 1856, contains the following, whichis prefaced: “We are indebted to Mr. Lincoln for averbatim report of the speech”:

“That central idea, in our political opinion, atthe beginning was, and until recently continued tobe, the equality of men. And although it was alwayssubmitted patiently to whatever inequality thereseemed to be as a matter of actual necessity, itsconstant working has been a steady progress towardsthe practical equality of all men.

“Let past differences as nothing be; and withsteady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate thegood old central ideas of the Republic. We can do it.The human heart is with us; God is with us. We shallagain be able, not to declare that all the States, asStates, are equal, nor yet that all citizens, as citizens,are equal; but renew the broader, better declaration,including both these and much more, that all men arecreated equal.”—Speech at banquet in Chicago.

On the 10th of October, 1854, at Peoria, Illinois,he used the following language:

“What I do say is, that no man is good enoughto govern another man without the other’s consent.I say this is the leading principle, the sheet anchor,

of American republicanism. Our Declaration ofIndependence says:

‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: thatall men are created equal; that they are endowedby their Creator with certain inalienable rights;that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit ofhappiness. That to secure these rights Governmentsare instituted among men, deriving their just powersfrom the consent of the governed.’

I have quoted so much at this time merely toshow that, according to our ancient faith, the justpowers of Governments are derived from the consentof the governed. Now, the relation of master andslave is pro tanto a total violation of this principle.The master not only governs his slave withouthis consent, but he governs him by a set of rulesaltogether different from those which he prescribesfor himself. Allow all the governed an equal voicein the Government; and that, and that only, is self-government.”—Howell’s Life of Lincoln, p. 279.

The stump orators in slave and free States alladvocated the claims of Mr. Lincoln upon thisdoctrine of negro equality; and prominent amongthese was a Dutch upstart, who went city to city,insulting the people of this country by explainingto them their Declaration of Independence. If thatDeclaration did not mean to place the negro upon anequality with the white man, this is his opinion ofthat sacred instrument. I quote his own words:

“There is your Declaration of Independence, adiplomatic dodge, adopted merely for the purposeof excusing the rebellious colonies in the eyes ofcivilized mankind. There is your Declaration ofIndependence, no longer the sacred code of therights of man, but a hypocritical piece of specialpleading, drawn up by a batch of pettifoggers, who,when speaking of the rights of men, meant but theprivileges of a set of aristocratic slaveholders, butstyled it ‘the rights of man’ in order to throw dust inthe eyes of the world, and to inveigle noble-heartedfools into lending them aid and assistance. Thereare your boasted revolutionary sires, no longerheroes and sages, but accomplished humbuggers andhypocrites, who said one thing and meant another;who passed counterfeit sentiments as genuine, andobtained arms, and money, and assistance, andsympathy, on false pretenses! There is your greatAmerican Revolution, no longer the great championof universal principles, but a mean Yankee trick—awooden nutmeg—the most impudent imposition everpracticed upon the whole world.”

Mr. Speaker, there are in the Declaration ofIndependence many self-evident truths. Why shouldthe Chicago platform contain that one concerning


equality? Was it the expression of a sentimenthonestly entertained, or was it a mere pretense todraw the honest elector into the support of the partyby false pretense?

But they say these principles, promulgated inthe Declaration, are embodied in the Constitution.The Declaration announces the fact that all men arecreated equal, and entitled to life, liberty, &c. TheConstitution returns the fugitive slave to his master.Is this a case of principle, promulgated in the oneand embodied in the other? Then, for which arethe Republican party: for the promulgation or theembodiment?

Sir, I do not believe in that interpretation of ourbill of rights. Our forefathers, in the promulgationof a great international principle of human freedom,never intended to establish a law paramount tothe Constitution itself, declaring their own slavesentitled to their freedom, and themselves law-breakers in holding them in bondage. That thereshould be a prejudice against slavery in the minds ofnorthern men, is but natural; and for it I make dueallowance. But that prejudice has grown into a sicklysentimentality; into a wild, wicked, and dangerousfanaticism; into a social and political disease; a greatnational curse. And now, the cardinal doctrine, thegreat leading central idea, the fundamental principleof Republicanism, has become the equality of thenegro with the white man. Hence the persistentdenunciation of slavery in the States; hence theestablishment and encouragement of undergroundrailroads; hence the personal liberty bills; hence thebloody strife in Kansas; hence the devilish raids uponour border; hence the incitement to civil war, and theexcitement of servile insurrection.

The Republicans believe that whetherpromulgated by the Declaration, or embodied in theConstitution, the negro is the equal of the white man,and entitled by the higher law to his freedom; thatslavery is the sum of all villainies; that thieves areless amenable to the moral code than slaveholders;“that slavery is a sin against God and a crimeagainst man, which no human enactment or usagecan make right; and that Christianity and patriotismalike demand its abolition.” They believe, with MR.SUMNER, that—

“Slavery is a wrong so grievous andunquestionable, that it should not be allowed tocontinue; nay, that it should cease at once; nay, thata wrong so transcendent, so loathsome, so direful,must be encountered wherever it can be reached;and the battle must be continued without truce orcompromise, until the field is entirely won.”

That it is the object of the Republican party toabolish slavery in the States, I need only read fromthe organs and leaders of the party, and from Mr.Lincoln himself.

The Chicago Democrat, of the 11th of August,1860, is suggestive:

“Blair is a Republican of the radical school. Heis a Republican of the Seward, the Sumner, and theLincoln school. He believes in making the States allfree. He believes slavery to be an evil and a curse,and that the duty of the Federal Government is toprevent its extension.

“While the great doctrine of the duty of theFederal Government to make ‘the States all free’thus receives indorsement in a slaveholding State,shall the Republicans of the free States lower theirstandard of principle?

“The day of compromising, half-way measures,has gone by. The people are determined to force thepoliticians up to the point of making the States allfree. If the politicians are not prepared for this, theymust get out of the road. Unless they do, they will berun over.” * * * *

“The year of jubilee has come! Already is thechild born who shall live to see the last shacklefall from the limbs of the slave on this continent.Universal emancipation is near at hand.

“The only class of people who are standing inthe way of the accomplishment of this great work arethe office-hunters—the fossils and the flunkeys ofthe North. They cannot, or will not, see that the pathof duty is the path of safety; and they prefer party toprinciple. Such men would have the Republican partyin the free States lower its standard, and pretend notto be devoted to the extinction of slavery everywhere,while our gallant Republicans in the slave States arewinning victories upon this very principle, in the faceof the slave power.

“But the great heart of the Republican massesrevolts against such hypocrisy and such truckling.They throw their banner to the breeze, inscribed withLincoln’s glorious words, ‘The States must be madeall free,’ and under it will march on to victory aftervictory, conquering and to conquer.”

In October, 1855, Mr. Seward said:“Slavery is not and never can be perpetual. It will

be overthrown either peacefully and lawfully underthis Constitution, or it will work the subversion of theConstitution together with its own overthrow.”

Helper, in a work indorsed by sixty-eightmembers of this Congress, has fully exposed theintentions of his party. He says:

“But we are wedded to one purpose, fromwhich no power can divorce us. We are determined


to abolish slavery at all hazards, in defiance of allopposition, of whatever nature, which it is possiblefor the slaveocrats to bring against us. Of thisthey may take due notice, and govern themselves,accordingly.”—page 149.

“Abolition is but another name for patriotism,magnanimity, reason, prudence, wisdom, religion,progress, justice, and humanity.”—page 118.

“The oligarchs say we cannot abolish slaverywithout infringing upon the right of property. Againwe tell them we do not recognize property in man. ** * *

“Impelled by a sense of duty to others, we wouldbe fully warranted in emancipating all the slaves atonce, without any compensation whatever to thosewho claim to be their absolute owners.”—Page 123.

“Of you, the introducers, aiders, and abettors ofslavery, we demand indemnification for the damageour lands have sustained on account thereof: theamount of damage is $7,544,118,825; and now,sires, we are ready to receive the money, and if itis perfectly convenient to you, we would be glad tohave you pay it in specie. It will not avail you, sires,to parley or prevaricate. We must have a settlement.Our claim is just, and overdue.” * * * *

“It is for you to decide whether we are to havejustice peaceably, or by violence, for, whateverconsequences may follow, we are determined to haveit, one way or the other. Do you aspire to become thevictims of white non-slaveholding vengeance by day,and of barbarous massacres by the negroes at night?

“Would you be instrumental in bringing uponyourselves, your wives, and your children, a fate toohorrible to contemplate? Shall history cease to cite asan instance of unexampled cruelty the massacre of St.Bartholomew, because the South shall have furnisheda more direful scene of atrocity and carnage? Now,sirs, you must emancipate them, speedily emancipatethem, or we will emancipate them for you.”—Pages126, 128.

“The great revolutionary movement which wasset on foot in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, NorthCarolina, May 20, 1775, has not yet terminated, norwill it be, until every slave in the United States isfreed from the tyranny of his master.”—Page 95.

“But we are wedded to one purpose, from whichno earthly power can divorce us. We are determinedto abolish slavery, at all hazards, in defiance of allopposition, of whatever nature which it is possiblefor the slaveocrats to bring against us. Of thisthey may take due notice, and govern themselvesaccordingly.”—Page 149.

“The pro-slavery slaveholders deserve to be atonce reduced to a parallel with the basest criminals

that lie fettered within the cells of our publicprisons.”—Page 158.

“No opportunity for inflicting a mortal woundin the side of slavery shall be permitted to pass usunimproved. Thus, terror-engenderers of the South,have we fully and frankly defined our position. Wehave no modifications to propose; no compromises tooffer; nothing to retract. Frown, fret, foam, prepareyour weapons, threat, strike, shoot, stab, bring oncivil war, dissolve the Union. Sirs, you can neitherfoil nor intimidate us; our purpose is as firmly fixedas the eternal pillars of heaven; we have determinedto abolish slavery, and, so help us God, abolish it wewill.”—Page 187.

As early as 1837, Mr. Lincoln seemed as soundon some of these propositions as Helper. He wasthen a member of the Illinois Legislature; and on the12th of January Mr. Ralston introduced the followingresolutions:

“Resolved by the General Assembly of theState of Illinois, That we highly disapprove of theformation of abolition societies, and of the doctrinespromulgated by them.

“Resolved, That the right of property in slavesis sacred to the Slaveholding States by the FederalConstitution, and that they cannot be deprived of thatright without their consent.”

Mr. Lincoln voted against them. (See HouseJournal, p. 243.) In 1839, still a member ofthe Legislature, he voted against the followingresolution:

“That the General Government cannot doindirectly, what it is clearly prohibited from doingdirectly; that it is the openly declared design of theAbolitionists of this nation to abolish slavery in theDistrict of Columbia, with a view to its ultimateabolishment in the States;” * * * * “and that,therefore, Congress ought not to abolish slavery inthe District of Columbia.”—House Journal, Page126.

Such votes, such expressions, by the Presidentelect and his party, leave us no longer in doubt as totheir intentions; and what Mr. Clay said of the anti-slavery party in 1838, is true of the Republican partyin 1861. We have only to insert New Mexico, in placeof Florida, to make the application complete.

“With the Abolitionists, the rights of property arenothing; the deficiency of the powers of the GeneralGovernment are nothing; the acknowledged andincontestable powers of the States are nothing; civilwar, a dissolution of the Union, and the overthrowof the Government in which are concentrated thefondest hopes of the civilized world, are nothing.A single idea has taken possession of their minds,


and onward they pursue it, overlooking all barriers,reckless and regardless of consequences. Withthis class the immediate abolition of slavery in theDistrict of Columbia, and in the Territory of Florida,the prohibition of the removal of slaves from Stateto State, and the refusal to admit any new Statescomprising within their limits the institution ofdomestic slavery, are but so many means conducingto the accomplishment of the ultimate but perilousend at which they avowedly and boldly aim, are butso many short stages in the long and bloody road tothe distant goal at which they would finally arrive.Their purpose is abolition, universal abolition—peaceably, if they can; forcibly, if they must.”—Appendix Globe, vol. 7, p. 355.

I know that many of the Republican partyshrewdly disavow any intention to interfere directlywith slavery in the States. It would be too great astrain of the higher law, even, to justify so flagrantan outrage. But the same object can be accomplishedindirectly. Admit no more slave States. Then,according to MR. SUMNER, “slavery will die,like the poisoned rat, of rage, in his hole.” Createdissatisfaction among the slaves in the border States:induce them to seek refuge in the free States; preventtheir recapture and return, by personal liberty bills;and slave property will be thus rendered so insecure,unprofitable, and even dangerous, in the borderStates, that they will rid themselves of it; and oncefree, it is expected that those States will cooperate inmaking an amendment to the Constitution, providingfor the ultimate extinction of slavery throughout theland.

Abolition of slavery, directly or indirectly, isdemanded by the people of the North. Men highin authority, leaders of party, preachers, teachers,editors, judges, lawyers, law-makers, State andnational, openly avow it; and no scheme has yet beensuggested, however unconstitutional; no plan has yetbeen attempted, however wicked and infernal, whichlooked towards the freedom of a negro, which hasnot met with approval in the ranks of the Republicanparty. Many of that party believe that the design ofJohn Brown was founded in the deepest wisdom andbenevolence, and executed in unrivaled heroism,integrity, and self-forgetfullness; that his life was acomplete success, his death an unparalleled and mosthonorable triumph; that the blood of John Brownappeals to God and humanity against slaveholders;that the heart of this nation, and of the civilizedworld, will respond to that appeal in one defiantshout: “resistance to slaveholders is obedience toGod.”

John Brown was a true, practical Republican.He considered the negro an equal of the white man.He believed slavery a sin against God, and a crimeagainst man. He believed in the insurrectionary andbloody schemes promulgated by the distinguishedmembers of this Congress. He believed with theRepublicans of Natick, “that it was the right and theduty of slaves to resist their masters, and the rightand duty of the people of the North to incite them toresistance, and to aid them in it.” Theodore Parkersays:

“John Brown sought by force what theRepublican party works for with other weapons; thetwo agree in the end, and differ only in the means.”

I know that there are many members of theRepublican party who blame John Brown. Of such Imay say:

“They know the right, and they approve it, too;Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.”The Republican party has one million eight

hundred and fifty-eight thousand two hundred votersin the North, and only twenty-seven thousand andthirty voters in the South. It could hardly be moresectional. They have gained possession of theGovernment. As to what will be their policy, we canjudge only from the sentiments expressed by theirleaders and their party organs.”

On the 13th day of August last, MR. SEWARDused the following language, which, from him, andunder the circumstances, is full of meaning:

“What a commentary upon the wisdom of manis given in this single fact that, fifteen years onlyafter the death of John Quincy Adams, the people ofthe United States, who hurled him from power andfrom place, are calling to the head of the nation, tothe very seat from which he was expelled, AbrahamLincoln, whose claim to that seat is that he confessesthe obligation of that high law which the sage ofQuincy proclaimed, and that he avows himself, forweal or woe, for life or death, a soldier on the side offreedom in the irrepressible conflict between freedomand slavery.”

He afterwards said:“I tell you, fellow-citizens, that with this victory

comes the end of the slave power in the UnitedStates.”

Helper, on Page 183 of his book, reduces thissentiment of his distinguished leader into a morepractical shape. He says:

“Once for all, within a reasonably short period,let us make the slaveholders do something like justiceto their negroes, by giving each and every one ofthem his freedom and sixty dollars in current money.”


The wheels of Government are to be moved witha high hand. For years we have been warned of thisintention. MR. SEWARD said, in the Senate, March3, 1858:

“Let the Supreme Court recede. Whether itrecede or not, we shall reorganize that court, andthus reform its political sentiments and practices, andbring them into harmony with the Constitution andthe laws of nature.”

Massachusetts, through one of her distinguishedSenators, [MR. WILSON,] sustained this doctrine:

“We shall change the Supreme Court of theUnited States, and place men in that court whobelieve, with its immortal Chief Justice, John Jay,that our prayers will be impious to Heaven while wesupport and sustain human slavery.”

Through one of her Representatives, [MR.BURLINGAME,] she has gone even further:

“When we shall have elected a President, as wewill, who will not be the President of a party, but thetribune of the people, and after we have exterminateda few doughfaces from the North, then, if the slaveSenate will not give way, we will grind it between theupper and nether millstones of our power.”

From these and many like expressions ofthe leaders of the Republican party, the southernpeople have concluded that the administration ofMr. Lincoln will abolish slavery in the District ofColumbia; that they will prevent inter-slave trade,restrict slavery in all the Territories, reorganize theSupreme Court, and put the Government actually andperpetually on the side of freedom.

I know that it is claimed that the only object ofthe Republican party is to prohibit slavery in theTerritories. And, according to the gentleman fromOhio, [Mr. SHERMAN,] no sane man would for amoment suppose that slavery could ever go northof the 36° 30, and hence the only practical issuewas, as to the existence of slavery in New Mexico.This, then, is a statement of the case. Two differentforms of labor exist in the country, bond and free.The Constitution does not prescribe, or proscribe,either, for the Territory of New Mexico. The peopleof the South claim the right to take their bondmeninto New Mexico. The people of the North deny theexistence of any such right. Upon a fair submissionof this question to the voters of the country at theelection November last, there were, in the free states,1,574,091, and in the slave States, 1,257,195,—total2,831,286 voters, who were of opinion that a citizenof the United States had a right to take his bondmeninto New Mexico, or any other Territory of theUnited States; while there were in the free States1,858,200, and in the slave, 27,032, voters—total,

1,885,232, who were of a different opinion. Thisopinion of the South had already been sustained by adecision of that august tribunal, the Supreme Courtof the United States, which, by the very Constitution,is a coordinate branch of this Government, andits decisions are final, and the supreme law of theland. There are not more than seven slaves now inNew Mexico, and such are in its climate and soilthat it cannot possibly be a free State; and yet, thegentleman from Ohio considers the question ofslavery in New Mexico the all-important one uponwhich, as he says, the Union is being disrupted, andState after State is going out.

Was it the whole end aim of the Republicanparty to make this Territory free? Was it for thisthat nearly three million people placed themselvesupon sectional ground, and arrayed North againstSouth? Was it for this that they went through with aprotracted, expensive, and laborious canvas? Was itfor this that they brought about a sectional agitation,a hostile feeling, which threatens the very existenceof the Union? Was it for this that they sought thepossession of the General Government, and thereorganization of the Supreme Court? I deny thatsuch a respectable number of Republicans even,however excited, however prejudiced, could be sogreatly moved by so pitiful an object. If the positionof the gentleman from Ohio be correct, the existenceof the Republican party is dependent upon the statusof New Mexico on the slavery question, and thedetermination of that would, as a matter of course,put an end to the politics of that party, and to theparty itself.

The gentleman from Ohio is not the onlydistinguished Republican who believes that the soleobject of his party is the prohibition of slavery in theTerritories; nor do I stand alone in the opinion that,if that be true, the party must soon cease to exist. Mr.Bates, of Missouri, a prominent candidate before theChicago convention for President, thus spoke in therotunda at St. Louis, August 10, 1856:

“The Republican party is not a mere array ofmen. It is a hasty agglomeration made up of the oddsand ends of every other party that ever existed atthe North. MR. SEWARD, ever an eminent Whigand unquestionably a man of ability, is one of itsleaders. He was that distinguished Whig, he is thatdistinguished Republican. At the North, whole slabsof the American party have united with the neworganization, and it is now animated by an ardententhusiasm which furnishes proof of its transitorynature. In proportion to its ardor will be the shortnessof its life. Its only aim is the prohibition of slavery


in the Territories; and even if it should succeedin accomplishing its object by a congressionalenactment, its whole force and vitality would beexhausted in the effort, and it would decline.”

Of this party, MR. H. WINTER DAVIS, thedistinguished member from Maryland, and acandidate for the Vice Presidency in the Chicagoconvention, spoke as follows, in this House, January6, 1857:

“The Republican party was a hasty levy enmasse of the northern people to repel or revenge anintrusion by northern votes alone. With its occasionit must pass away. Within two years, Kansas must bea State of the Union. She must be admitted with orwithout slavery, as her people prefer. Beyond Kansas,there is no question that is practically open. I speakto practical men. Slavery does not exist in any otherTerritory, it is excluded by law from several, and notlikely to exist anywhere; and the Republican partyhas nothing to do, and can do nothing. It has nofuture. Why cumbers it the ground?”

Sir, the restriction of slavery in the Territoriesis but one of the means. The great end to beaccomplished is, as Mr. Lincoln says, the ultimateextinction of slavery. At any rate, the South fearsthat this is the object, and that the whole power andpatronage of the Government will be used in itsaccomplishment; and moved by this fear, and byactual wrongs, the cotton States, exercising the rightclaimed by Massachusetts in 1814, and afterwardsupon the annexation of Texas, have thrown off theirallegiance to this Government and declared theirindependence.

It is not to be denied that the seceding States,yea, the whole South, have been subjected to a longtrain of abuses by the anti-slavery party. An incessantwar has been made upon them, because slaveholders;their constitutional rights have been denied them;their slaves constantly interfered with; and laws madefor their protection have been purposely obstructed;and now, it would seem to be the purpose of thisanti-slavery Republican party, not only to destroy thevalue of $4,000,000,000 worth of their property, butto convert it into the means of their own destruction.In vain have they warned the northern people againstthis unholy crusade; in vain have they remonstratedagainst the obstruction of the laws; in vain havethey appealed to the generous sympathies of theirbrethren, asking only for the peaceful enjoymentof rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Theirwarnings, remonstrations, and appeals, have beenanswered only with repeated injuries. Wrongs likethese, if inflicted by the Government, would be justcause for revolution. Such grievances could only be

redressed by a resort to arms. But this Governmenthas done no wrong. There is no complaint against theGovernment. On the contrary, all unite in the opinionthat it is the best form of government ever institutedamong men. The southern confederacy have adoptedit; and now, after our dismemberment, it is the onlyplan of government upon which there is the slightesthope for a reconstruction.

But besides, the Government has provideda mode of redressing the grievances which thissectional minority has imposed upon the South.The very election which raised a sectional Presidentinto power, manifested the existence of a nationalconservative element which insured a constitutionalcheck upon his administration, and its certaintermination at the end of four years. An oppositionwhich, if united, could have defeated that election,could surely have protected themselves, underthe Constitution and in the Union, against theaggressions of any sectional minority.

Under these circumstances, I now enter mysolemn protest against the action of the secedingStates. It was, in my opinion, unwise and selfish,an irreparable injury to themselves, an act of cruelinjustice to the middle and border slave States, and tothe General Government, and of gross ingratitude toa million and a half of gallant men of the North, whohave made every sacrifice and dared every dangerin support of the Constitution and in defense ofsouthern rights. Has it ever recurred to our precipitatebrethren of the South that those northern friends,like themselves, owe allegiance to their respectiveStates, and that, by secession, they leave a noblearmy of northern conservatives, with all their valorand devotion, to be swept down by the assaults ofresistless numbers, to rise no more forever? By thishasty act, they have forced upon the border States thefearful alternative of submission, on the one hand,to a power which could at any moment override alltheir rights; or rebellion, secession, and civil war, onthe other, which in their exposed position, would betheir utter ruin. In my judgment, such a respectablenumber of States, so vast in extent, with a populationso large, and an interest so great, were entitled tosome consideration at the hands of those Statesfor which, in all their struggles against northernaggression, they had been a cloud by day and a pillarof fire by night.

But this disunion, while it may bring upon thecountry the direst of all calamities, is a remedy forno evil, real or imaginary. It cannot render slaveproperty more secure, or in any manner perpetuateit. It yields up forever the equal participation in theTerritories by the slave States, while it furnishes


no greater protection for slavery where it exists. Inthe Union, the South, with a minority North, werestronger than even a united South could possibly beout of the Union, with or without arms. The cottonStates should, therefore, have remained in the Union.Then, if this northern party—formerly Abolition,now Republican—should attempt to reorganize theSupreme Court, and make of it a machine to sustaintheir bad morals and worse politics; if they shouldfasten upon the Government the doctrine of thehigher law, and employ all its patronage and power inan organized and direct attack of the higher law, andemploy all its patronage and power in an organizedand direct attack upon slavery, then would we makewar, not against the Government, but against itsenemies; then might we fight, under the Constitution,against those who would subvert it; fight for thisbeautiful capitol, hallowed in its very name, location,and in all its associations; fight for the archives, theflag, the honor of this great nation.

But, whether secession, disunion, revolution—call it what you will—be right or wrong, is not nowthe question. It exists; it is all around and aboutus. It has shocked and unsettled every departmentof Government, and paralyzed business in all itsbranches. Its baleful influence has spread sorrow andgloom, disaster, and destitution, over the whole land.

The question now is: what shall be done torestore peace, happiness, and prosperity? Who can,who will save the country from the threatened doom?

The gentleman from Ohio [MR. SHERMAN]appealed to the border States to “arrest the tide,which, but for them, would in a few days place us inhostile array against each other.” Believing that theborder States, free and slave, understood practicallythis question of slavery, about which the pestiferousStates of South Carolina and Massachusetts onlytheorize, I took upon myself the responsibility ofcalling those States together, that they might counselwith each other.

The committee appointed by those States agreedalmost unanimously upon a plan of adjustment; butwhen that plan was in substance proposed in theHouse of Representatives, the gentleman and hisparty voted unanimously against its consideration.At that time the border slave States occupied aposition for effective interference; but the rejectionof a proposition so reasonable, so just, weakenedtheir confidence in their northern brethren. And thatconfidence was not in the slightest restored by thegentleman from Ohio, when, in a speech “alternatelygentle as the dews and as boisterous as thethunder,” he accompanies his pleas for peace with arecommendation of war, and meets all propositions of

conciliation with promised adherence to the Chicagoplatform.

It is difficult to tell what these border States willdo. The elections lately held are no proper indices oftheir intentions. Having large interests involved, theytake time for consideration. Although not consultedby the cotton States, they choose to consult oneanother. But let the North be assured of one thing:that those border States are unanimous in the opinionthat this is a proper occasion for the settlement of thispest question of slavery, now and forever.

But, sir, while I can speak for no other, I can saybut little even for my own State. Missouri occupiesthe geographical center of this nation; she lies in thevery highway of civilization, and in the march ofempire. She now contains a white population equalto that of Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, andMississippi, combined; and for her future greatnessshe looks to the North, to the South, to the East, andto the West. Sir, Missouri was born of the Union; shewas rocked in the cradle of the Union; she has grownup, lived, and prospered in the Union, and she lovesthe Union with unceasing devotion; but not a Unionof all the States in one grand and glorious Republic.Thus situated, thus interested, Missouri claims theright to criticise the conduct of her sister States,North and South. But, if the doctrine of coercionobtain, and the attempt be made to whip the cottonStates into self-government, then Missouri will befound side by side with the other border slave Statesin armed resistance. And I now say to our northernfriends, beware. And I say this not in a spirit ofmenace, but of solemn warning.

Long before the 6th of November, SouthCarolina declared that she would not submit to theelection of a sectional President. This was treatedas an idle threat; and the taunting reply was, thatSouth Carolina could not be kicked out of the Union.When Congress assembled, and it became evidentthat she would secede, and would, most likely, befollowed by all the other cotton States, the countrywas suddenly awakened to the real danger, and wasat once convulsed with fear. In the Senate, and inthis House, committees were constituted, of ablemen, and the many propositions looking to the safetyof the country were laid before them, but nothingof a practical nature was accomplished. In theemergency, all eyes are turned to the distinguishedSenator from New York, believing that he who hadraised could easily rule the storm. After many longweeks of painful anxiety, that Senator comes forwardand coolly tells us that all this is nothing morethan might be expected; that in two or three years,when the lightening-flash and the thunder-clap have


subsided into a perfect calm, he may recommendsomething in the shape of a small Franklin rod forthe protection of the people. Like a physician calledto see a patient, writing, almost, with the agonies ofdeath, he furnishes no remedy for relief, but deliversa very learned lecture on the subject of pathology inthe sick room. The danger increases; State after Stategoes out; “The Union must and shall be preserved,”is the borrowed eloquence of every Republicanorator. The Government is disrupted, and civil warthreatens the destruction of thirty million peopleand to cover the whole land with desolation. Ourrulers tell us that they wish to test the strength ofthe Government; that they wish to see whether wehave any Government at all. Commerce is destroyed,manufactures ruined, and business of all kindsprostrated; until the people, the rightful sovereigns ofthe nation, the makers of Government, and its rulers,are reduced by desperation to the humble positionof petitioners, and, by thousands and by tens ofthousands, they earnestly ask their own servants forconcession, for compromise, for peace; to all which,they receive the slighting reply that it is very likelythat Mr. Lincoln will adhere to the Chicago platform.And now, when the dreadful issue is forced upon us,and the question is: “Union or no Union; Constitutionor no Constitution; Government or no Government;country or no country,” the President elect says that“there is nothing wrong,” that “nobody is hurt,”“keep cool;” “there’s no crisis; and if there is, it isall artificial;” while his Premier amuses himself andentertains the Senate by spinning cunning rhetoricinto pointless platitudes and useless generalities.

Republicans, I once more give you warning.You have complete control of Congress, and inyour hands rests the destiny of this nation. YourChicago platform is not a panacea for all the illswhich now afflict us. It was made in time of peaceand prosperity, and not in time of revolution andadversity. It was intended only as a basis of partyaction, and admirably adapted to party ends. Whatif it should now be abandoned, utterly destroyed?Your Greeleys, your Sewards, your Giddingses,could easily make for you another, and far bettersuited to the times. And now let me remind you thatthe election of your candidate for President was notthe adoption of your platform. The disruption ofthe Democratic party, the dissatisfaction with thepresent Administration, and that restless spirit whichalways desires change, contributed to your success inprocuring a plurality of the votes of your candidate,while there was a majority of nearly a million againstyour platform.

But you say that the flag has been dishonored,

the Constitution violated, the Union endangered, theGovernment defied; and you cry for war, and invokethe potential arm of Federal power to avenge allwrongs and enforce obedience. You forget that this isnot a Government of force. The Union, so necessaryto the establishment of the Government, wasfounded in the affections, which are stronger to binda people together than any written Constitution orconfederated authority. While this Government thusformed is all-powerful for good, it is impotent forevil. It was made for common defense and generalwelfare; but the Constitution does not provide frommaking war upon the very power that gave theGovernment existence. What if the misguided peopleof Charleston, in a moment of precipitation andexcitement, did open a fire upon their portion of acommon flag? What if they had blotted out the starwhich represents their own State—South Carolina?You now tolerate in your ranks hundreds of menwho, but a few years ago, marched under a flag withonly sixteen stars. Your Vice President elect hasmade speeches under such a flag. Your respect for theConstitution has greatly increased of late. It was adistinguished Republican who, but a short time ago,pronounced that Constitution the fountain of all ourevils. And for years your party has taught obedienceto a higher law, and not to the Constitution of theUnited States.

But, all at once, you have become great lovers ofthe union. You abuse disunion in others, while youtolerate men in your ranks who were willing to letthe Union slide; men who have declared that theyconsidered the Union a lie, an imposture, a covenantwith death and an agreement with hell. If you so lovethe Union, why will you not do something to saveit? Since there is no longer a question in regard toslavery in the Territories, the Republican party wouldhave to fall back upon its abolitionism but for thisUnion question. And now, while they regard disunionas the best move ever made towards abolition, theyfind it necessary, for political effect, to pretend muchdevotion to the Union. But the other day, one of theRepublican leaders said, “We can win on Union, butwe cannot win on compromise.” Have we come tothis? Our difficulties are not to be adjusted, the Unionis not to be saved, because the party in power wishesto convert the very distresses of the country intopolitical capital.

Sir, we have indeed fallen upon strange times.But yesterday we were told that Governmentswere instituted among men, deriving all their justpowers from the consent of the governed. That,inasmuch as the negro had not given his assent to thisGovernment, his enslavement is a sin against God,

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and a crime against man. Now, this is a Governmentof force, of supreme power, of which even theconsent of the white man forms no constituentelement. But a short time ago we were told by theSenator from New York that, between free and slavelabor, there was irrepressible conflict; now he says,“that the different forms of labor, if slavery was notperverted to purposes of political ambition, need notconstitute any element of strife in the Confederacy.”But a short time ago we were told that it wasnecessary to protect the Territories from slavery, andto drive back the slave power which was threateningthe invasion even of the free States. Now, says thegreat leader of the Republican party, “there is nofear of slavery anywhere; and the protection of theTerritories from slavery has ceased to be a practicalquestion.”

Gentleman of the Republican party, this is notime for trifling; no time for diplomacy; no time forpromoting political dogmas, and advancing partisaninterests; no time for trying to preserve doubtfulpolitical consistency. Questions of grave momentforce themselves upon you. Shall a sacrifice be madeof our house, race, lineage, and blood, for those ofa strange clime? Shall every seven white men cuteach other’s throats for the sake of one negro? Willyou disregard all ties of consanguinity, and use allyour endeavors to ruin then millions of the noblestrace on earth, under the pretext of benefiting aboutone third that number of the most degraded? Shallthis free, glorious, happy America throw away allher grand achievements, and tear from her brow thewreath of science, commerce, politics, and war, andno longer stand forth the loveliest of all the nations?Shall this model Republic, having no model on earth,cease forever to be an example worthy of study andimitation? These are important questions, and youalone can decide them. As I have before said, youhold in your hands the destiny of this great nation.

The formation of the Union by the adoption ofthe Constitution was celebrated with deep, passionateenthusiasm throughout the original colonies. “Tisdone, we have become a nation,” was the exultantboast of the whole people. And that was but thedawn of the day which promised glory and happinessto all our America. A few months ago that daywas at noontide, and we in the full realization ofall its blessed promises. If now, in our calamity,the same spirit of concession, compromise, andpatriotism, which formed the Union, should secure itspreservation and its establishment for all time as thepalladium of our political safety and prosperity, andif that proud bird of liberty should once more take hisflight, bearing the sacred motto of “E Plurbis Unum,”

in letters of ever-living light, the whole earth wouldbe illuminated with joy and gladness. The loud shoutof a freeman’s exultation would break from the deepplains of California. Thirteen infant colonies rejoicedover the birth of this nation; thirty-four grown upStates, empires within themselves, with their thirtymillion people, will rise up in one grand, nationaljubilee over its preservation. But if, in spite of allappeals, and regardless of all obligations, partisanfeeling and small politics shall overrule concession,compromise, patriotism, be assured that wholecolumns of curses, rising from the bosoms of anagonized and outraged people, will ascend to Heavenagainst those who would not save, as against thosewho would destroy, a nation’s happiness, a nation’sprosperity.

Mr. Speaker, there are many propositions in thehands of the committee of thirty-three which wouldrestore peace to this country, and I have done all inmy humble power to secure their adoption. I havehad the honor of being taunted by men from theNorth, and men from the South, as a Union-saver.Would that it were in my power, by a word, by a vote,by any act, by any sacrifice, to save this beautiful andholy house of our fathers; and that I could thus winthis proud title, which, though bestowed in derision,is a title worth dying for; worth having lived for.

Source: Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 36thCongress, 2nd Session, pages 246–50.


1 Ulysses S. Grant, letter to “Mr. Davis,” August 7,1860. Spellings are in the original. Quoted in John Y.Simon, ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 1:1837–1861 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University,1967), 357.

2 Richard Edwards and M. Hopewell, Edwards’s GreatWest and the Commercial Metropolis, Embracing aGeneral View of the West, and a Complete History ofSt. Louis (St. Louis: Trubner & Co., 1860), 450.

3 Ibid., 453.4 William E. Parrish, Clarence T. Jones, Jr., and

Lawrence O. Christensen, Missouri: The Heart ofthe Nation (Wheeling, Ill.: Harland Davidson, Inc.,2004, 3rd edition), 106, 132, 134–35; Benton quotedin Louis S. Gerteis, Civil War St. Louis (Lawrence:University Press of Kansas, 2001), 56.

5 Parrish, et al., Missouri, 132–33.6 Missouri General Assembly, Journal of the House

of Representatives of the State of Missouri, at theExtra Session of the Seventeenth General Assembly(Jefferson City: James Lusk, Public Printer, 1852), 35;“The Speaking at Carondelet,” Missouri Republican,July 8, 1858.

7 Journal of the House of Representatives of the Stateof Missouri, at the Extra Session of the SeventeenthGeneral Assembly, 99–100, 116–21.

8 Ibid, 519–21.9 William E. Parrish, Frank Blair: Lincoln’s

Conservative (Columbia: University of MissouriPress, 1998), 50–51; Barret quoted in U.S. Congress,Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress,1st Session. (Washington, D.C.: Government PrintingOffice, 1860), 400.

10 Missouri General Assembly, Journal of the House ofRepresentatives of the State of Missouri at the FirstSession of the Eighteenth General Assembly (JeffersonCity: James Lusk, Public Printer, 1855), 6–7, 68; M.Hopewell, Report of the Third Annual Fair of the St.Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association ofSeptember, 1858 (St. Louis: George Knapp & Co.,Book and Job Printers, 1859), 7–8, 211.

11 Hopewell, Report of the Third Annual Fair of the St.Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association, 222.

12 Parrish, et al., Missouri, 153; Parrish, Frank Blair,60–69.

13 Blair quoted in Parrish, Frank Blair, 68, 71.14 Parrish, et al., Missouri, 112; Gerteis, Civil War St.

Louis, 67.15 Benton quoted in Parrish, Frank Blair, 67.16 Blair and Benjamin Gratz Brown established the

Missouri Democrat in 1852 to promote pro-Bentonpolitics in St. Louis. Barret quoted in U.S. Congress,Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress,1st Session. (Washington, D.C.: Government PrintingOffice, 1860), 400.

17 “The St. Louis Nationals,” Glasgow Weekly Times,June 17, 1858. For more on the concept of popularsovereignty, see Michael F. Holt, The Fate of TheirCountry: Politicians, Slavery, and the Coming of theCivil War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004).

18 A third candidate, Samuel Breckenridge, ran as ananti-immigrant Know-Nothing against Blair andBarret. The local newspapers offered scant coverageof his speeches, and at one point Breckenridge evencomplained that the two other candidates behavedduring the debates as if he wasn’t there. Nevertheless,he finished with a respectable 5,668 votes, roughly1,500 behind Barret, the winning candidate.

19 “Public Speaking at Laclede Station,” MissouriDemocrat, July 2, 1858; “Hon. J. Richard Barret,”Missouri Democrat, July 3, 1858; “The Canvas,”Missouri Democrat, July 5, 1858; Thomas HartBenton, Historical and Legal Examination of that Partof the Decision of the Supreme Court of the UnitedStates in the Dred Scott Case (New York: D. Appletonand Company, 1857).

20 [Illegible Headline], Missouri Republican, July 2,1858; “The Speaking at Carondelet.”

21 “The Speaking at Carondelet”; “The Canvas–TheDiscussion at Manchester,” Missouri Republican, July12, 1858.

22 “The Meeting at Allenton,” Missouri Democrat,July 8, 1858; “Why the Free Democracy Should beSustained,” Missouri Democrat, July 8, 1858.

23 “The Canvas–The Discussion at Manchester,”24 Ibid.25 “Democratic Meeting at Bridgeton,” Missouri

Republican, July 14, 1858; “The Canvas–TheDiscussion at Creve Coeur,” Missouri Republican,July 17, 1858.

26 Parrish, Frank Blair, 73.27 Barret also unsuccessfully lobbied to have the St.

Louis Armory moved to nearby Jefferson Barracksduring the first session, arguing that its location in thedowntown area made it “a nuisance.” U.S. Congress,Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st Session(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,1860), 2327, 2419, 2474, 2605; Barret’s speech can befound in Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 36thCongress, 1st Session, 362–65.

28 Parrish, Frank Blair, 73; Congressional Globe,36th Congress, 1st Session, 2249, 2673, 2678–2681,2761–73; Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 36thCongress, 1st Session, 396–401.

29 “Public Reception of Mr. Barret,” MissouriRepublican, June 30, 1860.

30 Ibid.31 Ibid.32 “Helperism and Blairism,” Missouri Republican, July

29, 1860; “Barret Meeting at North Market,” Missouri

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Republican, July 31, 1860; “Meeting of Candidatesat Bridgeton,” Missouri Republican, August 1, 1860;Hinton Rowan Helper, The Impending Crisis of theSouth: How to Meet It (New York: Burdrick Brothers,1857).

33 “Barret and Blair,” Missouri Republican, July 29,1860; “A Word to the Wise,” Missouri Republican,August 4, 1860.

34 Parrish, Frank Blair, 86.35 That Barret, Jackson, and Douglas found themselves

campaigning on the same ticket as “DouglasDemocrats” was remarkable. Governor Jackson wasone of the leading authors of the famous “JacksonResolutions” of 1849 that Barret opposed while inthe Missouri State Legislature. Jackson campaignedas a unionist during the 1860 gubernatorial election,but would later hint at his support for secession in hisinaugural speech in January 1861 and lead the effortto take Missouri out of the Union as the Civil Warbroke out. Douglas, meanwhile, agreed with FrankBlair that the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas wasa fraud, although he remained committed to popularsovereignty and the Democratic party. See ChristopherPhillips, “Claiborne Fox Jackson,” Civil War onthe Western Border. Accessed June 3, 2017, http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/jackson-claiborne-fox; Norma L. Peterson, Freedomand Franchise: The Political Career of B. GratzBrown (Columbia: University of Missouri Press,1965), 84–85.

36 Robert G. Gunderson, “The Washington PeaceConference of 1861: Selection of Delegates,” TheJournal of Southern History 24, no. 3 (August 1958):347–58.

37 U.S. Congress, Congressional Globe, 36th Congress,2nd Session (Washington, D.C.: Government PrintingOffice, 1861), 476–77.

38 Parrish, et al., Missouri, 173–74; Journal andProceedings of the Missouri State Convention, Held at

Jefferson City and St. Louis, March, 1861 (St. Louis:George Knapp & Co., 1861).

39 All forthcoming quotes from Barret’s address canbe found in Appendix to the Congressional Globe,36th Congress, 2nd Session, 246–50, and reprintedfollowing this article.

40 “The Proposed Amendment to the Constitution,”Alexandria Gazette, March 2, 1861; for more on theCorwin Amendment, see Daniel W. Crofts, Lincolnand the Politics of Slavery: The Other ThirteenthAmendment and the Struggle to Save the Union(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,2016).

41 United States War Department, The War of theRebellion: A Compilation of the Official Recordsof the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II,Volume I (Washington, D.C.: Government PrintingOffice, 1894), 122, 542, 554, 559; United States WarDepartment, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilationof the Official Records of the Union and ConfederateArmies, Series II, Volume III (Washington, D.C.:Government Printing Office, 1894), 932.

42 George E. Rule, “Tucker’s War: Missouri andthe Northwest Conspiracy,” Civil War St. Louis.Accessed June 7, 2017. http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/History2/tuckerswar.htm#_ednref53; “Orderof American Knights.” The Civil War in Missouri.Accessed June 7, 2017. http://www.civilwarmo.org/educators/resources/info-sheets/order-american-knights; Ulysses S. Grant letter to Edwin Stanton,June 25, 1864. Quoted in John Y. Simon, ed., ThePapers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 11: June 1–August14, 1864 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University,1984), 128–29.

43 James L. Harrison, Biographical Directory of theAmerican Congress, 1774–1949 (Washington, D.C.:Government Printing Office, 1950), 818.

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ThePin-UpBoyoftheSymphony

St. Louis and theRise of Leonard Bernstein

B Y K E N N E T H H . W I N N


In May 1944 25-year-oldLeonard Bernstein, riding atidal wave of national publicity,was invited to serve as a guestconductor of the St. LouisSymphony Orchestra for its1944–1945 season. The orchestraand Bernstein later revealed thatthey had also struck a deal withRCA’s Victor Records to make hisfirst classical record, a symphonyof his own composition, entitledJeremiah. Little more than a yearearlier, the New York Philharmonicmusic director Artur Rodzińskihad hired Bernstein on his 24thbirthday as an assistant conductor,a position of honor, but one knownmostly for its menial work. HisSt. Louis invitation and the recordagreement came in the wake of hisbrilliant service on May 13, 1943,as a last-minute stand in for the internationally knownconductor Bruno Walter, who was scheduled to substitutefor the vacationing Rodziński. When Walter suddenlyfell ill, Bernstein, the orchestra’s water boy, became thePhilharmonic’s maestro. His electric performance inspiredthe New York Times to run two stories, one of them on thefront page, and then a highly flattering editorial on thefollowing day. His triumph was even sweeter for havingbeen carried on national radio in that pre-television era.1

His spectacular rise had just begun. During the twoweeks after his conducting debut he was interviewed bymagazines such as Life, Time, Newsweek, Look, Harper’sBazaar, The New Yorker, and virtually every New Yorknewspaper, including the Times, Herald-Tribune, Post, andDaily News. Time compared him to another “boy genius,”Orson Welles, who had recently released his masterpiece,Citizen Kane. The miracle year continued into 1944 whenthe ballet he scored with choreographer Jerome Robbins,Fancy Free, received warm reviews. (Robbins would laterserve as his collaborator on the musical West Side Story).Fancy Free soon spun off a successful Broadway musical,On the Town. Achievements led to celebrity. He appearedon the radio as a panelist on the quiz show InformationPlease, and newspapers chronicled his comings and goingson their society pages.2 Topping Bernstein’s rise were hisromantic good looks, star-power charm, and flamboyantconducting style. He quietly liked his association withWelles, but balked at his bandied comparison to thelanguid crooner, Frank Sinatra. This demur aside, a widely

publicized story from a NewYork high school newspaper, hadbobbysoxers sighing over him asthe “pin-up boy of the symphony.”They, however, advised him to geta crew cut.3

For some of Bernstein’selders, it was too much, toofast. Many music critics wereskeptical, put off by the torrentof praise. “Glamourpuss,” theycalled him, the “Wunderkindof the Western World.”4 Theysuspected Bernstein’s performancewas simply a flash-in-the-pan.The young conductor was ridinga wave of luck rather than a waveof talent. For years his age would,in effect, serve as his last name,as in “Leonard Bernstein, 25, will. . .” One of the most suspiciousof his talent was St. Louis Post-

Dispatch music columnist Thomas B. Sherman who,upon learning of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’sinvitation to Bernstein, dwelt on Bernstein’s “luck” andgood “fortune,” noting that events had proven “favorable.”He acknowledged that Bernstein seemed to have the skillto “take up where his luck left off.” He also concededBernstein was a “gifted” and a “good-looking youngman,” if “thoroughly pleased with himself.” Bernstein’sunexpected rise, the columnist concluded, had come in “thebest traditions of romantic fiction,” but if the young manseemed to have taken “both the public and the critics bystorm,” it was still to be seen if it really was a storm or justa drizzle.5

Now, in the hundredth anniversary of Bernstein’s birth,things are much clearer. Bernstein went on to becomethe most important American conductor of the twentiethcentury. Within 15 years of his accidental Philharmonicdebut he had become, at age 40, the youngest permanentconductor in the New York Philharmonic’s history. Now,more than a quarter of a century after his death, most ofhis musical interpretations still retain their power. Heloved music and the adulation of his audiences, and hisvoluminous recordings far outnumber those made by hispeers. His prancing, his dancing, and his showmanshipon the podium are still enjoyable to watch, as if everysymphonic note moved him to ecstasy.6

But Bernstein was more than a conductor. Hisremarkable work with choreographer Jerome Robbins, fromFancy Free to West Side Story, made him the composerof enduring musicals. His more formal classical works,particularly those he wrote from Jeremiah in 1943 to hisChichester Psalms in 1965, are remarkable compositions.His best classical work has been absorbed into the canonof regularly performed American pieces. He was also anexceptional educator, demonstrated by his television seriesof Young People’s Concerts (1958–1972). His educationalwork also included college lectures. He wrote severalwell-received books on music that remain in print. He

ThePin-UpBoyoftheSymphony

St. Louis and theRise of Leonard Bernstein

B Y K E N N E T H H . W I N NJeremiah was the first of Leonard Bernstein’ssymphonies recorded by the St. Louis SymphonyOrchestra in the spring of 1944. (Image: Washing-ton University Libraries, Gaylord Music Library)

(Left) Bernstein rehearsing before the February 11 performance ofJeremiah at Kiel Auditorium. One review the next day noted Ber-nstein’s “conquests of Broadway and Carnegie Hall.” (Image: St.Louis Mercantile Library Association at the University of Missouri-St.Louis)


was a pianist of unusualtalent. He might have made amemorable career simply asa performer. He often playedpiano solos while conductingthe orchestra from the pianobench, just as he did in hisSt. Louis 1945 concerts. Forall of these skills and hisachievements, his admirershave frequently touted himas the Renaissance Man ofAmerican music.7

His significance as aconductor also lay in itssymbolic value. UntilBernstein’s rise, manyAmericans felt insecureabout the country’s ability toproduce high-caliber classicalmusic conductors of thequality of Arturo Toscanini,Leopold Stokowski, SergeKoussevitzky, or evenVladimir Golschmann, theFrenchman who conductedthe St. Louis Symphony fromthe 1930s to the 1950s. Largecities like St. Louis, NewYork, and Boston importedtalented conductors fromEurope by the hundreds.8

They still do. LeonardBernstein gave culturallyinsecure Americanssomething to crow about.He proved not only asgood as the Europeanimports, but better, andas his fame rose, hewas routinely invited toconduct concerts withorchestras from around theworld, developing in theprocess special relationshipswith highly esteemedorchestras such as theVienna Philharmonic.

For all of the praiseheaped upon him, however,Bernstein irritated, ordisappointed, many people.His failure to settle down toone task frustrated erstwhile

admirers. Some people thought he should conductless and compose classical music more, and someof his highbrow mentors, like Boston’s musicdirector Serge Koussevitzky, were not shy aboutexpressing their displeasure. Feeling the heat,Bernstein said during his 1945 stay in St. Louis,“I am probably through with musical comedy. Ihave done that now. I like to do everything once,just to see what it feels like.”9 Others said he couldhave been the savior of the popular musical in anage in which it was in decline. Instead of beinga Renaissance Man, his critics claimed he spreadhimself out so thin he could never realize hisfull musical potential. Bernstein wearied of thiscriticism, which dogged his entire career. Writing inthe New York Times he said: “I don’t want to spendmy life, as Toscanini did, studying and restudyingthe same 50 pieces of music. . . . It would . . . boreme to death. I want to conduct. I want to play thepiano. I want to write for Hollywood. I want towrite symphonic music. I want to keep on tryingto be, in the full sense of that wonderful word, amusician. I also want to teach. I want to write booksand poetry. And I think I can still do justice to themall.’’ What some saw as showmanship, others saw asshowboatmanship, and thought him vain and self-absorbed.10

There were also people with no interest in musicwho hated Bernstein for his politics. Bernstein hada strong cultural self-consciousness as the Jewish,gay outsider. He imbibed a heady whiff of the leftistpolitics of the Depression years. While never aradical, he skirted the edges of radicalism and was

5 Z3 Published Evertj Da in the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATC- H

PART FOUR ST. LOUIS, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1945 PAGES 1 4D

Lenny Bernstein AS onN. MAC AGSTHUi'S LIBERATED' MANILASuccess Has NotTurned His HeadBy Arthur W. Hepner

T 26, Leonard Bernstein has a wide collectionA of friends who can say, with justification"I knew him when." They include fellowswith whom he traveled in Harvard Yard; music

Students at CurtisInstitute of Musicwhere he studiedconducting or thaBerkshire Music-Festival- ;

and themusical coteries of

v'Mi-- '

both Fifty-sevent- h

street and Tin PanAlley.

After his phe-nomenal successlast year, some ofthem . turned sour

Sr-- y?' and said unkind '. . ' --ratf" up'-v- i rr-f-" 0 r ;, feo )

A group of Japanese prisoners and Filipino collaborationists, caught by the swiftthrust of the Yanks into Manila, being marched through the streets to a stockade,under guard of American soldiers.

Geh. DouglaSmilArthur's liberatinq forces that drove into the Philippine capital Saturday night and now are mopping up remnants ot thaJapanese garrison. I his photo and others ot the series are the tirsr to De receivea irom ins nueraieu uiy.

LEONARD BERNSTEIN things about him.The blame, however, must be placed on theirown heads, for the young conductor and com-poser is concerned, rather than arrogant, overhis rapid accomplishments.

My own recollections go back almost 10 yearsto a series of violent arguments and experiencesinvolving him; then a Harvard undergraduate.There was one warm evening when we added tothe temperature with a passionate debate onour own esthetic doxies his being heterodox,my being orthodox, as I saw it while walkingthe distance from Symphony Hall in Boston toHarvard Square. He made good sense and knewwhat he was talking about.

THEN 1 REMEMBER a spring afternoonwhen a group of enthusiastic young men andwomen leaned on an old upright, out-of-tu- ne

piano in an apartment overlooking HarvardYard with Bernstein at the keyboard whippinginto shape a performance of Marc Blitzstein'3play-oper- a, "The Cradle Will Rock." Blitzstein,who later sat next to me at the performance,was overcome with emotion at the remarkabletaging of his work by a youth. An-

other youth in his twenties, Orson Welles, hadstaged it on Broadway.I recall, also, the music which Bernstein wrote

s an undergraduate for a student performancef Aristophanes' "The Birds." It was simple,fresh, agreeable music and most of us wonderedwhether this lad would get anywhere.The news of his successive triumphs In thelast year must have doubtless evoked the samequestion in the minds of all his friends: wouldhe lose his uninhibited, earnest, energetic, crea-tive personality?

FOR ALL HIS harvests, Leonard Bernstein isno different from the person he was around Har-vard Yard. Primarily, he is a sincere and seri-ous musician whose fortune on Broadway withhis musical "On the Town" has been only a sidejaunt and one which he does not intend to repeat.

He finds it difficult to convince others thathe does not care to write another musical show,but he means it. He Is not sure whether he willbe principally a conductor err a composer; in anycase, his future will be in the field of seriousmusical endeavor.

But he is not a snob about jazz. Because realjazz is living and creative when it is based 'onimprovisation. What he abhors, as most seriousmusicians do, are the commercial tunes hackedout for the benefit of composers and publishers'pocketbooks.

HE IS REMARKABLY catholic in his tastes.The other day after he arrived in St. Louis and

Carrying hastily gathered belongings, Manila families race from their homes to points of safety as Japanese "suicide squads"set off demolition charges nearby, in the path of United States troops moving into the city from tho north and east.

M-- jL .v'vffEltvMrs. Sergio Osmena (center), wife of the President of the Philippines, stands withthree of their children at an undisclosed place in the islands after they escaped fromthe Japanese by walking 30 miles across mountainous terrain. Details were withheldat the request ot the War Department. Associated presr Wlrephotoi from U. S. Army Signal Corps.

was host at an unusual press conference, we heardhim rumble through passages of a Haydn sym

'r4. ifphony, some Debussy and then turn to playing, ' r iffboogie-woogie and the blues with the same con II

viction. We spent the evening listening to someof the jazz homemade in St. Louis and he enjoyed

4. Wit as thoroughly as if he were conducting or composing a new symphony.

r M 41& IWhat makes him most appealing as a person,and apparently as an interpretative and creativemusician, is exuberance, vitality and youth. Heperhaps summed it up most trenchantly when hesaid: "What's the good of making music, if itisn't fun?"

Give him a piano and he will play generously f ft . Juntil fatigue sets in anything from Bach preludes and fugues to excerpts from his "On the (77mIS1Town" or "Fancy Free" scores or spontaneousimprovisations. He is, as the St. Louis SymphonyOrchestra players discovered at his first re-hearsal with them, a musician's musician.

SOME PERSONS have taken Bernstein to taskbecause of his sharp critical tongue with respect

SCOUT BIRTHDAYto his contemporaries and elders. But what he Celebrating the thirty-fift- h anniversaryof the Boy Scouts at the St. Louis Coun.::i,,...v.; vr::.has to say about them is valid and carefullyreasoned. He has made a habit of doing things

cautiously, step by step, and each of his achieve

BIG STORE BURNEDA prewar view of Heacock's, Manila's largestdepartment store, destroyed by fire set bytha Japanese. The photo is from the EdwinF. Guth Co., 2615 Washington boulevard,which furnished lighting fixtures for the storefive years ago.

FRONT-BOUN- D YANKS MEET CAPTIVESYanks of the Third Army's Fourth Division (left), advancing to join their comrades inthe front lines, pause in the snow at the side of a road to witness the searching of

ments has been the outgrowth of years of hard,cil offices in the Chemical Building yesterday, Robert Rutishauser of WebsterGroves Troop 305 takes a big bite of the birthday cake, gift of St. Louis GirlScouts. Others, from left, are Col. H. D. McBride, St. Louis Council commis-sioner; Mrs. John W. Calhoun of the city and county Girl Scout Council andSharon Taylor of University City Troop 69. nj p0it-Ditc- surf Photorpti.

plugging work.He is the first to admit that he has had luck

at his doorstep. It was luck that brought him Nazi prisoners on the way to the rear.Associated Tms Wtn-phol-to play the piano at a party for Dimitri Mitro-poul-os

some years ago in Boston. Mitropouloswas the first to sense his dynamism and send aMyM w J m" w j mil r rni ' if"" iwmiwihim on to a conducting career. Honors for St. LouisansIt was luck that eot him the lob, at 25. ofassistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic--

Symphony Orchestra. It was luck thatBruno Walter became ill just on the eve of aPhilharmonic-Symphon- y broadcast and cata-pulted young Bernstein to national eminence.

THIS LUCK bothers him. Because it propelledhim into the spotlight before he had time toponder the emotional responsibilities he mustface. Could he be a conductor and at the sametime remain "Lenny Bernstein?" He confessesthat all conductors, including himself, are ego-maniacs. He doesn't like it and doesn't want tobe an egomaniac, even in a mild sense. Probablyhis greatest emotional problem is to solve thisriddle: how to continue conducting and remaina well-rounde- d personality.

While here to conduct the next two pair ofconcerts by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra,he will spend most of his time practicing thepiano and studying. With the St. Louis Sym-phony Orchestra next week, he will record, inci-dentally, his own "Jeremiah" Symphony andRavel's Piano Concerto.

What he seeks most is rest; time to sit andthink, and to plan ahead. He believes themusician is not an isolated phenomenon fromsociety: he has strong political convictions andstumped for President Roosevelt's lastfall. He wants now to absorb and correlate hisexperience and events about him with a view tohis personal and musical development. Mean-while, alertly aware of the many problems hefaces, he is fighting resolutely, and successfully,so far, to remain himself Lenny Bernstein.

The Bronze Star is awarded Pvt. John C McUonald, ' bUoAMaple avenue, by .MaJ. Gen. Withers A. Burress, commandingthe Seventh Armys 00th Division on the Western Front. Mc-Donald, son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph J. McDonald, was honoredfor evacuating wounded.

AssocUted Fresi riioto flora U. 9. Army.

Sgt. John J. Schaefer (right) of 1836 South Eighth street beingcongratulated by Ma. Gen. Ira T. Wyche, Seventy-nint- h Divisioncommander, after being awarded the Bronze Star medal at cere-monies on the southern flank of the Western Front in France.Sqt. Schaefer is the son of Mr. and Mrs. George C. Schaefer.

Associated Tress ftioto (torn U. 8. Army Siicl Carpi.

Maj., Arthur R. Schmidt, 24 years old, of 647 North Taylor avenue,Kirkwood, serving with an antiaircraft battalion, receiving the BronzeStar from Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark, Fifteenth Army Group commander,in ceremonies on the Fifth Army front in Italy. The award was foroutstanding service during the drive on Rome. He is the son of Mr.and Mrs. Arthur Schmidt. Associated Tress CMko from t". S. Army Signal Corps.

-! i

(Left) The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Everyday Magazine noted inearly 1945 that success had not changed Bernstein much, “for theyoung conductor and composer is concerned, rather than arrogant,over his rapid accomplishments.” (Right) Bernstein (left) workedwith Jerome Robbins (1918-1998) on the ballet Fancy Free, inwhich Bernstein wrote the musical score for Robbins’ ballet. (Im-ages: Washington University Libraries, Gaylord Music Library;Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library)


comfortable being among those who embraced it.By 1943 the FBI had begun a file on him that wouldtotal 800 pages. The bureau was, in fact, receivinga report on him at the very time he was in St. Louis.At the height of the Cold War, the State Departmentrefused to allow him to conduct concerts overseas.In a groveling affidavit, Bernstein slavishly admittedto some past political naiveté, but emphasized hispatriotism. The department relented. Later thatsame decade, he would play music for PresidentDwight Eisenhower, and he soon developed strongties to the Kennedy family. Still, his long-termcommitment to social justice for African Americans,already clear when he was a 1930s Harvard student,brought him trouble and eventual embarrassment. Hebegan giving active assistance to African Americancauses in the 1940s and had strongly supported theCivil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.The embarrassment came in January 1970 whenhe and his politically active wife gave a party as anACLU fundraiser on behalf of jailed members ofthe radical Black Panthers. The Panthers preachedself-defensive violence against white oppression andstockpiled weapons. While Bernstein later repudiatedthe Panthers, the party he and his wife gave on theirbehalf—complete with Puerto Rican maids servingcanapes to New York’s “Beautiful People”—made adelicious target. Unbeknownst to the Bernsteins, theflamboyant writer Tom Wolfe had crashed the partyand famously satirized the assembled socialites asindulging in “Radical Chic,” words that stuck toBernstein.11

But all of this is the epilogue to Bernstein’sSt. Louis story. It explains why he matters. Tounderstand what happened in St. Louis in 1945 andthe impression he made on the city and the city onhim, a brief prologue is needed.

Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence,Massachusetts, on August 25, 1918. His parentsobtained private piano lessons for him at age ten. Histeachers included Helen Coates, who later servedfor decades as Bernstein’s secretary. Bernsteinattended Boston’s elite Latin School and then wentto Harvard, where his brilliance and enormouspersonal magnetism were quickly recognized. Oneof Bernstein’s greatest skills as a young man wasrecruiting the assistance of older men who could helphim. But, if he was an opportunist, he was a sincereone, staying friends with these patrons long afterhe needed their help. In 1937 Aaron Copland wasalready a well-established composer, just reachingthe peak of his compositional power (AppalachianSpring, Fanfare for the Common Man). He was 18years Bernstein’s senior, but after meeting Bernstein,still an undergraduate, at a party in New York City,the two became lifelong friends. Bernstein later

repaid Copland by becoming perhaps the mostimportant champion of his work.12 At Harvard,Bernstein studied with the eminent composer WalterPiston and studied conducting with Fritz Reiner atthe Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Later Reiner, asthe conductor of the Pittsburgh Orchestra, gave theyoung Bernstein an early platform for his music.In 1940 Bernstein worked with conductor Serge

Koussevitzky at the Boston Symphony Orchestra’ssummer institute “Tanglewood” (then called theBerkshire Music Festival). Bernstein would wear thecufflinks Koussevitzky gave him at every concert heever conducted. Another early patron was DimitriMitropolous, whom he met in 1937, and whom hewould later succeed as the music director of the NewYork Philharmonic. Throughout his career he worea medal with Mitropolous’s image under his clothes.After one performance Bernstein fell off the podium

“Radical chic” was coined by Tom Wolfe in his article,“That Party at Lenny’s,” about celebrities and others withhigh profiles in society embracing radical causes. (Image:MacMillan)


and jabbed the medal into his chest, severely bruisingit. In the audience the young conductor LeonardSlatkin, the future music director of the St. LouisSymphony, had waited—now in vain—to meet hishero after the show.13

Thus, if unknown to the larger world, by early1943 the 24-year-old Bernstein was well-knownand well-liked by a surprisingly large number ofinfluential conductors and composers. The capstoneto his ability to woo older men—and what wouldeventually bring him to St. Louis—came in the formof Artur Rodziński. Rodziński was in his first year asthe conductor of the New York Philharmonic whenhe hired Bernstein as his assistant. Rodziński was amercurial figure, prone to paranoia, who sometimescarried a gun in his back pocket while conducting.His relationship with Bernstein soon became fraughtwhen he became jealous of his assistant conductor’sheadline-snatching fame that began to overshadowhis own. At one point he even grabbed Bernstein bythe throat in a hallway.

This jealousy was provoked by the freakcircumstance that pushed Bernstein into prominencein 1943. Rodziński had left on vacation and thePhilharmonic had invited the eminent internationalconductor Bruno Walter to lead the orchestra. Notlong before the concert Walter fell ill with the flu. Onshort notice, Bernstein was told that he would haveto conduct the orchestra. Ever the diligent student,Bernstein had learned the evening’s concert programwell. His performance blasted him from obscurityinto fame.14

Bernstein quickly capitalized on his newprominence, revealing he had written a symphony:Symphony No.1, Jeremiah. After his fabledperformance with the philharmonic, many orchestraswere interested in debuting it. Bernstein was a“hot item,” and his old teacher Fritz Reiner, nowthe conductor of the Pittsburgh Orchestra, half-coaxed and half-bullied him into taking his baton.The Pittsburgh Symphony debuted Jeremiah onJanuary 28, 1944. The symphony is loosely basedon the experience of the biblical Jeremiah. It iscomposed of three movements: “Prophecy,” in whichJeremiah warns Jerusalem of its ruin if the peopledo not turn away from idolatry and wickedness;“Profanation,” which describes the destruction ofthe temple and the chaos inflicted on the city byBabylon when it fails to heed the prophet’s warning;and “Lamentation,” Jeremiah’s mourning of hisbeautiful city’s desolation, with a mezzo-soprano solosinging excerpts from the “Book of Lamentation”in Hebrew.15 If the work did not receive quitethe rapturous acclaim of his initial conductingperformance, it received positive reviews. Bernstein

soon performed the work again with the BostonSymphony Orchestra and then with the New YorkPhilharmonic. In May 1944 Jeremiah received theNew York Music Critics Circle’s annual award forbest new American symphony. When the successes ofFancy Free and On the Town followed, Bernstein wasa young man very much in demand.

Aaron Copland predicted to Bernstein that hewould be the most invited guest conductor of 1945.And so he was. The nation’s orchestras dutifully lined

up, hoping to bring the boy wonder to their city. Thatyear Bernstein would lead 14 different orchestras,including the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra twice,once at the year’s start and then at its close. The firsttwo-week residency was set for February. The visitwas announced four months after Jeremiah’s premierand the day after the announcement of the New YorkMusic Critics Circle’s award.16

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO),founded in 1880, is the nation’s second-oldest

Bruno Walter (1876—1962) was a noted conductor whofled Nazi Germany and ended up in the United States in1939. He declined to be music director of the New YorkPhilharmonic in 1942 due to his age, but he still substitutedfor them, which created an opportunity for Bernstein whenWalter fell ill. (Image: Library of Congress)


symphonic orchestra after the New YorkPhilharmonic.17 Over the years it had evolved intoa strong second-tier orchestra. RCA Victor Recordshad begun recording its performances in the 1920s.The Paris-born Vladimir Golschmann had become itsmusic director in 1931. He and his gregarious wifehad found a welcoming place in St. Louis society.If Bernstein was considered a human explosion onstage, Golschmann, with his unusually long batonin hand, was regarded as the essence of conductingelegance. Over the years Golschmann had moved theSLSO forward, winning the orchestra greater nationalrecognition. Musicians of international renownappeared with the orchestra. Guest performersincluded Sergei Rachmaninoff, Jascha Heifetz,Sergei Prokofiev, Vladimir Horowitz, Isaac Stern,

and Arthur Rubenstein, among others. World WarII inadvertently created the openings for St. LouisSymphony guest conductors when the symphonyagreed to “loan” Golschmann, part of the year, to theCleveland Orchestra while its own conductor servedin the military.18

Notice of Bernstein’s coming to St. Louis inFebruary 1945 caused great excitement. There hadbeen nothing like it in the city’s classical music life.Skeptics like Thomas Sherman aside, St. Louisanseven vaguely interested in classical music wereanxious to see Bernstein for themselves. An orchestrapress release and the attendant publicity hypedhis dramatic 1943 appearance with the New YorkPhilharmonic and 1944 New York Music CriticsCircle’s award for Jeremiah.19 St. Louisans wouldreceive large doses of Bernstein even before hisarrival. His musical, On the Town, which had openedin New York on December 28, 1944, received afavorable full-page syndicated review in the St. LouisStar-Times, noting: “Leonard Bernstein’s score isunhackneyed without being high-brow. . . .”20 TheSt. Louis Ballet Theatre, supported by the St. LouisSymphony Orchestra, presented his and Robbins’ballet, Fancy Free, in January 1945, only weeksbefore Bernstein’s arrival. The Star-Times gave ita spacious and friendly review, noting approvinglythat its “juke box score tears jazzily along, with anoccasional dip into circus music.” The review mademuch of the fact that the ballet’s musical composerwould soon be in the city.21 Predictably, however,Sherman hated the ballet: “Bernstein’s score wasrhythmically eccentric and strongly percussive. Themelodic material was very slight and rather cheap. Itwas descriptive only on the surface of things.”22

Bernstein’s first public appearance with thesymphony was scheduled for February 10. Part ofbeing a conductor, at least an American conductor, isan endless round of socializing and promotion, oftenwith people and at events not of one’s own choosing,constantly smiling and being pleasant. Bernsteinsometimes complained of obligatory dinners and dullconversation in St. Louis, as he did elsewhere, buthe was a born socializer and could turn on the charmwhen he needed to. The Women’s Association of theSt. Louis Symphony Society invited its membersto have tea with Bernstein and Jennie Tourel, themezzo-soprano who accompanied him.23

All of that was duty. More important to Bernsteinwas the cultivation of the local press—somethingat which he excelled. While this was careeristcalculation, it was also a genuine pleasure. Bernsteintruly enjoyed hanging out with reporters, even ashe skillfully turned them into his friends. Positive

In early 1945, Bernstein as guest conductor alsoperformed as a piano soloist for the first time in St. Louis.(Image: Missouri Historical Society)


newspaper stories inevitably followed, carrying theflattery he craved. He pointedly wanted to be takenas a serious musician. No more On the Towns. It wasstrictly serious stuff from now on. But he also did notwant to seem like a stiff. He resisted the conventionalconception of a conductor as an aloof demi-god whoinhabited a celestial sphere inaccessible to meremortals. Bernstein knew he had been lucky to havesuccess so early, so he worked to demonstrate hishumility. He knew some reporters suspected hewould prove an arrogant prig. How many of themwere ready to write nice words about a tiresomeposeur half their age?

The SLSO facilitated Bernstein’s seduction of thepress by putting him up in a luxury suite with a pianoat the New Jefferson Hotel, which was originally builtfor the well-to-do guests attending the 1904 World’sFair. To woo over potential critics, Bernstein eschewedthe traditional pre-concert press conference and invitedreporters to join him in his rooms. In place of thetraditional question-answer session, Bernstein createda “clubby” atmosphere in which “the young maestro letdown his long hair.” With the barest feint of reluctancehe was persuaded to sit down at the piano, play a bit ofthe Haydn on an upcoming program and some Debussy,and then move into the “fun” stuff. According to a Star-

Times reporter, Bernstein “started having asgood a time aseveryone else,”playing “excitingrenditions of suchgut-bucket ariasas ‘Joe Turney’sBlues,’ ‘WeepingWillow’s Blues’and ‘Chip’sBoogie Woogie.’And these werenot polite, pseudo-symphonicversions,” thereporter gushed, but“done in authenticbackroom style.”After a whileBernstein declaredthe raucous playingneeded to stop orhe would ruin hisreputation with the

orchestra as a serious conductor. “But everyone,”continued the reporter, “assured him he was amongfriends.” Max Steindel, the symphony’s first cellist andconcertmaster, who was present, told Bernstein if hehad “his fiddle” he would play right along with him.

Bernstein’s time with the press was well spent. Thepre-concert articles could not have been warmer. TheSt. Louis Globe-Democrat proved even more exuberantthat the Post, describing “Lenny Bernstein [as] thehep-long hair who composes like Mozart, conducts likeToscanini, plays piano like Ammons and Johnson andlooks a bit like Frank Sinatra.” Bernstein, the article

The Symphony’s Women’s Society hosted a tea just twodays before the performance of Jeremiah, in which mem-bers could meet two of the rising stars in classical music,Jennie Tourel and Bernstein. (Images: Missouri HistoricalSociety)


said, had given an “uproarious press conference . . .that sent the enchanted press from here to there.”24

The story that appeared in the St. Louis Star-Timeswas equally enthusiastic, and accompanied by a largephotograph of Bernstein pounding out the “WeepingWillow Blues.”25 Though unsigned, the story wasprobably written by William Inge, soon a Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright. Bernstein and Inge rapidlystruck up a friendship and socialized when the youngconductor was in town. Though Inge’s articles werenot out of sync with those of other reporters, he wouldsubsequently write the kind of reviews of whichperformers dream.26 In the end, Bernstein largelyproved successful in being understood on his ownterms. In a fawning profile the Globe-Democrat’s HarryBurke wrote that the fair-haired boy of the symphonyturned out to be just a “bewildered brunette,” aspuzzled by his mysterious luck as anyone else.27

After the press conference ended, Bernstein hitthe jazz clubs with friends and probably some of thereporters as well. He was very happy. If St. Louisanswere excited to see Bernstein, Bernstein was veryexcited to see them, and he liked the orchestra. Writingon February 8 to his personal assistant, Helen Coates,he began talking about the New Jefferson Hotel: “Sucha gay suite, and a fascinating city! The orchestra isresponding ff [fortissimo], and I am having a goodtime—perhaps too good. Much jazz, so you can seefrom the papers. This is a very jazz-conscious town.But the ‘Blues Picture’ is good, isn’t it.” He later ends,“Keep your fingers crossed for the concerts.”28

That first concert was on Saturday evening,February 10, 1945, with a repeat performance Sundaymatinee. As the huge crowd of concertgoers waitedfor the show to begin, they could flip through theirprograms and discover a handsome and dreamyphotograph of Bernstein floating above a Baldwinpiano, “a magnificently sensitive” instrument thathe found “completely satisfying to me, both as apianist and conductor.” The program’s brief Bernsteinbiography cited his now familiar list of early triumphs,and added yet another wistful studio profile ofBernstein staring so soulfully into very high clouds—or probably a less distant ceiling—that he probablystrained his neck posing.29

Right before the concert began Bernstein, nervousyet exuberant, wrote Coates a hasty letter, concluding,“I’m just off to the first concert. It’s very exciting.” Thefirst half of the first concert would reassure any musictraditionalist. Bernstein conducted a fairly conventionalmix of baroque and romantic works: a C. P. E. Bachconcerto, Haydn’s Thirteenth Symphony, and JennieTourel singing some short pieces. But if the first half ofthe concert was fairly conservative, it was the secondhalf, in which Bernstein conducted his Jeremiah thatmost people had come to see. The concert ended

with a rousing suite from Igor Stravinsky’s TheFirebird.30 As the last notes of The Firebird wentdown, the audience’s roar went up. The concertreceived thunderous approval. After the concert anadrenalized Bernstein penned yet another letter toCoates. This one merely said, in large exuberantscript, “Doesn’t this beat them all?”31

Bernstein’s conducting was not only a popularsuccess but a critical one as well. Virtuallyeverything met with approval. Harry Burke, thecolumnist for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat,confessed that, given the mindless excitement overBernstein’s golden-boy reputation, he had initiallytoyed with headlines like “‘fakery fails,’” but if hehad come to scorn he left to praise. Jeremiah, hesaid, may have been expressed hebraically, but itshumanity touched his Irish-American soul. Andyes, the touted showmanship was there: Bernstein“dances the music. That is true. But he doesn’t doa dance for the hearers of that music. There isn’ta gesture but evokes its authentic response froman orchestral choir—and from the hearer. . . . Hepossibly forgets himself. But he never forgets, andyou will not forget the music he conjures from hisorchestra.”32 Inge wrote in the Star-Times: “TheOpera House at Kiel Auditorium has witnessedfew concerts as profoundly stimulating as thoseconducted by 26-year-old Leonard Bernstein.” Hegave very high praise to Jeremiah. He especiallysingled out Jennie Tourel for praise for her emotivesinging in the symphony’s third movement. Afterthat, “nothing but superlatives can be used for therest of the program.” Stravinsky’s Firebird suite,he said, “was the most dramatic and exoticallycolored performance the reviewer ever hasheard.”33 High praise indeed. Probably the greatestsurprise came from the Post’s Thomas Sherman.Writing under the headline, “Bernstein BrilliantConducting His Work,” Sherman said, “The focalpoint of the evening’s concert, in which Bernsteinand the orchestra had the notable assistance ofJennie Tourel, the Russo-French contralto, was theconductor’s own Jeremiah symphony. Even if thishad been the only number on the program it wouldhave established Bernstein’s qualifications, bothas a creative and an interpretive artist, beyond anyshadow of a doubt. His direction of the rest of theprogram made his gifts as a conductor all the moreapparent, though his judgment was sometimes opento question.” While he also praised Bernstein’sinterpretations of Bach and Haydn, if the conductorhad any notable flaw in his conducting, it washis mad love of emotional intensity. (This wassomething Bernstein would be accused of fordecades.) Sherman concluded, however, it wasthis obsession with power that made Stravinsky’sFirebird such a good match for him, noting that his


“dynamic and subtly colored performance broughtan enthusiastic ovation from the audience.”34

Before Bernstein came to St. Louis, ThomasSherman suspected that the young conductor wasa product of mere luck, whose popularity was atransitory fad. After the first concerts he wrote ameditative column, called “Second Thoughts onBernstein.” The St. Louis community had seen alot of guest conductors in the absence of VladimirGolschmann. Conductors use orchestras as theirinstrument in creating and molding music. “Thesuccessful performances conducted here byLeonard Bernstein were . . . not accidents . . . Theywere the results of knowledge and temperamentexpertly applied. . . .” Promotion is not usuallydistinguished for its accuracy, but it is possible,in this case, that the expression may have beenused advisedly. For Bernstein quite obviously hasmagnetism for both orchestra and audience.” WhileSherman said Bernstein needed to learn to keep his“natural brio” in check, he appeared to have themakings of a great career.35

Like most young artists, Bernstein was verysensitive about his reviews, and he read each oneupon publication. Two days after the concert heagain wrote Helen Coates. He was walking onair: “Here are the reviews and they are gorgeous.Everything seems to have been a huge successwith everybody. And I had the biggest audienceof the season,” as, indeed, he did. “I’m having awonderful time: dinners and parties every night . . . The orchestra is in love with me, and I thinkthe Ravel will be terrific.”36

“The Ravel” to which Bernstein referredwas Ravel’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra,which Bernstein intended as the signature piecefor the next set of concerts the following weekend.The piano concerto is strongly jazz-infused, andBernstein planned to conduct the orchestra whilesimultaneously serving as the piano soloist. Withthe exception of Beethoven’s Egmont, the concertwas mostly modern music. In addition to theRavel would be Roy Harris’ Third Symphony andShostakovich’s rousing Fifth Symphony, whichcomposed the entire second half.37 Again, theprogram was a hit with the critics, but this time theaudience simply exploded.

The Post’s Sherman found the concertexhilarating to the point of exhausting. Still, hegave the evening his ever-guarded approval. “Theprogram enabled the conductor to demonstrateonce again that he has tremendous driving force.”The Ravel was good, “the chief novelty of theevening,” though, while Bernstein did both well,

he wished Bernstein hadstuck with either conductingor piano-playing. Shermanmay have been exhausted,but not the audience, which“paid Bernstein the tributeof close attention throughoutthe evening and brought himback to the platform manytimes after each number.”38

Interestingly, William Inge,too, would have liked all ofthat stirring music mixedwith a quieter piece, buthe loved the jazzy Ravelconcerto as well. The hugeaudience’s reaction, however,fascinated him almost asmuch as the music itself. TheRavel concerto, he wrote,“was held together tightlyand tossed at the audiencewith a smack. The audienceliked it and insisted onthe third movement beingrepeated,” which Bernsteinobligingly did.39 The youngconductor was exhilaratedwith his whole St. Louisexperience. On February19, as he prepared to leave,he sent a postcard from St.Louis to his boyhood friendMildred Spiegel saying, inclipped, boastful, but accuratephrases—“Conductingwas wonderful, responsiveorchestra, audiences wild.”40

The two sets of concertsare what the public saw, butbetween them Bernstein andthe St. Louis SymphonyOrchestra recorded Jeremiah

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The St. Louis Post-DispatchEveryday Magazine noted inearly 1945 that success had notchanged Bernstein much, “for theyoung conductor and composeris concerned, rather than ar-rogant, over his rapid accom-plishments.” (Image: WashingtonUniversity Libraries, GaylordMusic Library)


for RCA’sVictor Records.LeonardBernstein hadbegun thesymphony thatwas to becomeJeremiah in1939, duringa period inwhich AaronCopland wastutoring him incomposition.The music layfallow, andhe completedit only afterextensiverewriting, andadding whatbecame the firstmovement in late1942. Copland’s influence is obvious, especially inthe second movement.41

Bernstein initially had doubts about recordingJeremiah with the SLSO. Just before the first St.Louis concert performance, he wrote Coates thatSLSO was “not the ideal orchestra for the Jeremiahrecords, but it will do, I guess,” but, he addedhopefully, “They certainly play with vigor.”42 Dayslater the orchestra recorded his Jeremiah over athree-day session and Bernstein quickly lost allqualms. Bernstein was right in believing that hehad won over the orchestra, though things beganon a peculiar note. Vladimir Golschmann, likemost European conductors, employed a minimaliststyle. At his initial orchestral rehearsal Bernsteinbegan with a dramatic downbeat that left thestartled musicians simply staring at him in muteincomprehension.43 As a young guest conductorBernstein had already been subjected to hazing byorchestra members. Players challenged visitingconductors by talking loudly while others played,deliberately hitting wrong notes, “accidently”missing entrances. Still, the Post reporter Sherman,who attended the recording sessions, laudedBernstein as great teacher with a total mastery overthe scores he conducted. Nowhere was this clearer,he said, than in teaching the orchestra his Jeremiah,a tricky piece of music that none of the orchestramembers had ever heard: “That the rehearsalscame off without loss of temper on either side was

an eloquenttestimonial”to Bernstein’scontrol. “It wasalso evidencethat a rapporthad beenestablishedwhich was tohave its effectat the publicperformance.”44

When therecording ofJeremiah wascomplete,the orchestramembers allstood andbeat theirinstruments intribute to his

conducting. Bernstein was so touched, he said, “Ijust stood on the podium and cried.”45

There was only one fly in the recordingointment. When it came time to make the album,RCA replaced Jennie Tourel as soloist with thebetter-known mezzo-soprano Nan Merriman. Butwhile Merriman was a highly talented singer,she was not Tourel’s equal, as both the Post-Dispatch and the Star-Times were soon to pointout.46 Despite this change, the whole session hadgone well and left everyone pleased. RCA VictorRed Seal released Jeremiah in early December

French-born conductor Vladimir Golschmann (1893—1972) servedas music director for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 1931until 1958. Bernstein got second-billing in this notice of forthcomingperformances. (Images: Library of Congress; Missouri Historical Society)


1945 as three 78 rpm albums ($3.68)47 and promotedit extensively with full page ads in nationalpublications, such as Life magazine.48

Despite the demurs about the loss of Tourel, thealbum received largely positive reviews. The St.Louis music critics took a natural interest and weregenerally enthusiastic for the recording, but theythought it lacking compared to the live performancethey had heard only months before. This waspartly excused because a mass-produced recordsimply could not have the sound quality of a liveperformance. At least that was what Thomas Shermanthought.49 An unsigned review in the Star-Times,after some similar minor fault-finding, concluded,“the recording is, in every way, excellent.”50 The NewYork Times was equally flattering: “The JeremiahSymphony is . . . a surprisingly substantial work. It isconcise, direct, dramatic and eloquent.”51

Today the 1945 recording seems like a periodpiece: good, but an old-fashioned monaural disc. Itsold reasonably well. Victor Records later reissued itunder its Camden label in 1956.52 In 1993 St. LouisSymphony music director Leonard Slatkin choseto reissue the 1945 recording again with a group oflater Bernstein compositions collective known asSongfest.53 The 1945 recording, as well as Slatkin’s,received kind words from national publicationsupon its reissuance.54 During 2017 and 2018, 74performances of Jeremiah have been played or arescheduled to be played across the world.55

In early September 1945, before Jeremiah’srelease, Bernstein paid a second visit to St. Louis,again staying at a suite in the New Jefferson Hotel.The purpose of the trip was not performing, butbusiness. This time he disliked his stay and wasoften lonely and bored. A dedicated social animal,he disparaged to Aaron Copland his companyand the want of late-night revelry: “Too manypeople & dinners & dullards here. Nice—butwhat happens after midnight.”56 A few days laterhe begged Copland to come pay him a visit. Hedid show a spark of enthusiasm, happily notingthat “The St. Louis Jazz Society is taking me on atour of old Southern jazz haunts tonight!”57 Whatall of the business entailed is not clear from hiscorrespondence, but shortly after he left, it wasannounced that would return again as SLSO’s guestconductor in late November and early December.58

Bernstein was enthusiastically welcomed backto St. Louis, and the audiences were large, but themania occasioned by his first visit was gone. Therewere no long newspaper profiles or queries aboutbobbysoxers. The ads, of course, still heralded himas the young genius of modern classical music, and

celebrated his earlier St. Louis appearances. Overthe past year the newspapers and the orchestra’spromoters had updated his resume with newaccolades and achievements: the Junior Chamber ofCommerce, for example, named him one of the tenoutstanding young men of 1944, along with NelsonRockefeller, the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, and Time-Life war correspondentJohn Hersey, who would soon pen the classic work,Hiroshima (1946). Bernstein had also followedLeopold Stokowski as the conductor of the New YorkCity Symphony Orchestra (not to be confused withthe Philharmonic).59

Upon his return to St. Louis, Bernstein wasrestless. A few days before the first concert, he againcomplained of loneliness and the poignancy of thescene. He wrote to his friend David Oppenheim: “Letme hear from you in this bleak, foggy place, where,of all things, a charming southern thunderstorm isnow raging. The streets are very dark and full oflonely faces. The hotel is very bright and full oflonely faces.”60 By the concert dates he had cheeredup. In the first pair of concerts, on November 30 andDecember 1, he conducted music by Beethoven,Carlos Chavez, Copland, and a Schumann symphony.For his second pair, December 8–9, he conductedClaude Debussy’s La Mer, over which he nervouslyfretted; music by Brahms; and he played as pianosoloist on Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto.61

In reviewing the first pair of concerts, ThomasSherman seemingly took pleasure that the audiencesize was down from the previous February, and theprogram more difficult. Perhaps without the carnivalatmosphere he could enjoy the music. After dutifullynoting his qualms, he concluded “that the concertwas a success by every standard and in a way thatproved once again Mr. Bernstein’s exceptionalquality.”62 Bernstein’s friend William Inge provedeven more effusive: “The word ‘brilliant’ gets a lot oftossing around in describing musical performances,but it appears so apt to Leonard Bernstein’sconducting of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestrayesterday afternoon that it can’t be avoided.”63

For the second pair of concerts, Globe-Democratcolumnist Harry Burke, who had written a flatteringprofile of Bernstein earlier in the year, could nothelp but gently fault the conductor for “put[ting]too much energy in Debussy’s dreamy La Mer,”but called it valid–“youth must have its ‘assertivefling.’” He thought Bernstein’s work as the soloist onBach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto was magnificent.(Bernstein “modestly” called it “immaculate.”)64

This essay began with Thomas Sherman’sskepticism, quite Harry Burke’s opposite. Let us


end with his approval. Sherman never lost his headover Bernstein, but by December 1945, he hadbecome a firm convert. After offering his usualcommentary on each piece, he praised Bernstein’scomplex methodology. He appreciated the youngconductor’s approach to Brahms, and he noted howBernstein showed the Brandenburg Concerto couldbe expressive without being dry. But he reservedhis highest praise for Bernstein’s interpretation ofDebussy’s La Mer: “Every detail was observed inthe performance. Every graduation of dynamics wascaptured, the color combinations were right, therhythmic as well as the dynamic accents were all inplace, the whole thing was on a grand scale . . . It

was, in fact, a thoroughly satisfying and effectiveconcert and one in which the concentration bestowedupon the young conductor by the audience wasalmost as great as that of the musicians.”65

Let us give Bernstein, himself, the final word.A sweet and generous correspondent to others,Bernstein had an unusual talent for complimentinghimself without seeming offensive. After receivingone of these letters about his St. Louis experience,Aaron Copland said that “St. Louis seems to haveaccorded the familiar L.B. triumph.” Two weeks laterBernstein was still basking in his golden time in thecity, writing David Oppenheim, “St. Louis was a joy.What a La Mer!”66


1 See Olin Downes, “Bernstein Shows Mastery ofScore; Youthful Conductor Carries Out an ExactingProgram in Sudden Emergency,” and the unsignedarticle, “Young Aide Leads Philharmonic, Steps inWhen Bruno Walter is Ill,” both New York Times,November 15, 1943; Editorial, “A Story Old andEver New,” New York Times, November 16, 1943.Bernstein’s rise from obscurity is probably the mostchronicled aspect of his career. The biographicalnarrative that follows is a distillation of the manysecondary works and primary sources about hissudden fame. If something is unique to a source,I have so noted it. The volume of writing aboutBernstein is prodigious and generally of high caliber.Bernstein never wrote his autobiography, but heinadvertently came close. He was a remarkablelife-long letter saver, as were many of his friends.This makes his collected letters very biographicallyilluminating. See Nigel Simeone, ed., The LeonardBernstein Letters (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UniversityPress, 2013). Bernstein gave the whole of his archivesto the Library of Congress, which has placed muchof it online: https://www.loc.gov/collections/leonard-bernstein/about-this-collection/. Initially restricted,the collection is now open to all researchers. Therestriction was meant to benefit Humphrey Burton,a long-time associate of Bernstein’s who wrote adetailed and responsibly objective biography, LeonardBernstein (New York: Doubleday, 1994). Culturalhistory biographer Meryle Secrest, who was deniedaccess, nonetheless produced a biography that is wellwritten, has its own unique sources, and is worthreading: Leonard Bernstein: A Life (New York: A. A.Knopf, 1994). A shorter, more manageable biography,which sometimes relies heavily on other publishedbiographies, is Allen Shawn, Leonard Bernstein:An American Musician (New Haven, Conn.: YaleUniversity Press, 2014). Joan Peyser, an earlybiographer who had Bernstein’s support, never shiedaway from some unflattering judgments in Bernstein:A Biography (New York: William Morrow, 1987).Bernstein’s younger brother, Burton, a staff writerfor the New Yorker, put together an appreciativeanthology of original essays by well-known historians,musicians, and composers. See Burton Bernsteinand Barbara B. Haws, eds, Leonard Bernstein:American Original. How a Modern Renaissance ManTransformed Music and the World during His NewYork Philharmonic Years, 1943–1976 (New York:Collins, 2008). Jonathan Cott’s slim volume has itsflaky moments, but it contains interesting material:Dinner with Lenny: The Last Long Interview withLeonard Bernstein (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2013). The elaborate official Bernstein websitealso contains useful biographical information: https://leonardbernstein.com/at100. Readers who want aquick guide to the music he conducted or wrote might

begin with Peter Gutmann’s “Leonard Bernstein: ATotal Embrace of Music,” http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/bernstein.html. Diligent researcherswill find much more biographical work elsewhere,including in the notes that follow.

2 Magazines like Life, Look, and Time had a nationalreadership. Even if St. Louisans missed some of theNew York press, it was hard to miss Bernstein, even insmall ways. The readers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatchwere reminded that the conductor/composer LeonardBernstein would be the guest expert on KSD’ssyndicated show, Information Please, the followingnight at 8:30. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. May 28, 1944.By the time he arrived in St. Louis, the newspaper andpromotional efforts had reached a saturation point.

3 Unsigned article, “Bernstein to Be Guest Conductorwith Symphony,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 21,1944. Unsigned article, “Symphony Conductor GetHep, Beats Out Blues and Boogie-Woogie,” St. LouisGlobe-Democrat, February 6, 1945; Unsigned article,“‘Pin-Up Boy of Symphony’ Has a Passion of JazzMusic,” St. Louis Star-Times, February 6, 1945.

4 Donal Henahan, “Leonard Bernstein, 72. Music’sMonarch, Dies,” New York Times, October 15, 1990.https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0825.html Ratherthan a standard obituary, this is a remarkable piece oflong-form journalism, offering both a useful summaryand a reflective evaluation of the conductor’s career.

5 Thomas B. Sherman, “Guest Conductors,” St. LouisPost-Dispatch, November 12, 1944.

6 It was not only Sherman who had been skeptical.Bernstein’s father, Sam, had fought his son’sbecoming a musician at every step: “How could Iknow my son was going to grow up to be LeonardBernstein?” he said later. As quoted in Burton,Leonard Bernstein, 122. Much of his exuberantconducting was captured on film, leaving him with apermanent visual legacy, much of it available on theinternet.

7 Henahan, “Leonard Bernstein, 72.” See also Bernsteinand Haws, eds., Leonard Bernstein.

8 St. Louis did not have an American-born conductoruntil Leonard Slatkin became the music director in1979. The second was David Robertson, 2005–2018.In between were Dutchman Hans Vonk, and Robertsonis to be followed by the Frenchman Stéphane Denève,who officially takes up the directorship in 2019.https://www.slso.org/en/musicians/conductors/past-music-directors/; http://www.stephanedeneve.com/about-stephane/

9 Quoted in Burton, Leonard Bernstein, 138–39; HarryR. Burke, “More About Bernstein, the ‘White-HairedBoy of Symphonists,’ the Bewildered Brunette,” St.Louis Globe-Democrat, February 15, 1945.

10 They similarly questioned his relations with hisorchestra members. Even as the music director

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of the New York Philharmonic in the 1960s, hedemocratically put up with disagreements and backtalk from musicians that amazed Seiji Ozawa, whoserved as his assistant conductor. Haruki Murakami,Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa(Vintage, 2017), 29–30. Later in life he was criticizedfor publically dressing down performers when hedisliked their playing. Some musicians grumbledabout his unorthodox musical interpretations, claimingthat when they were supposed playing Beethoventhey were really playing Bernstein. Although he couldstill charm when he wanted to, by the last decadeof his life he had become the imperious maestro, atoo long over-scheduled man who had lost patiencewith ordinary courtesies and inevitable obstacles,often acting imperious and entitled. Henahan,“Leonard Bernstein, 72”; Charlie Harmon, On theRoad and Off with Leonard Bernstein. My Yearswith the Exasperating Genius (Watertown, Mass.:Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc., 2018).

11 Barry Seldes is illuminating about Bernstein’s politicalactivities. See Leonard Bernstein: The Political Sideof an American Musician (Berkley: University ofCalifornia Press, 2009). See especially 21, 32–33,114–16. Bernstein confessed to some political naiveté,but he noted he had never voted for a politicalcandidate who was not a Democrat or a Republican.The lengthy affidavit is reprinted in its entirety inSimone, Bernstein Letters, 299–309. Tom Wolfe,Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (NewYork: Picador, 2009, rpt.). For Bernstein’s commentson the party and Wolfe’s book, see Cott, Dinner withLenny, 85–86. Wolfe reflected on the party for Secrest,Bernstein, 321–23. Wolfe said that he personally hadno particular interest in the Black Panthers, but ratheran interest in the Beautiful People’s interest in theBlack Panthers.

12 Howard Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Workof an Uncommon Man (New York: Henry Holt andCompany, 1999), 193–94.

13 Leonard Slatkin, Conducting Business: Unveiling theMystery Behind the Maestro (Milwaukee: AmadeusPress, 2012), 141–42.

14 Burton Bernstein provides an interesting perspectiveinside the family point of view of these events inFamily Matters: Sam, Jennie, and the Kids (Lincoln,Neb.: An Authors Guild Backinprint.com Edition,2000, 2nd ed. rev.; Originally, Summit Books, 1982),143–51.

15 An English translation was provided in program forconcertgoers. For more on the connection betweenthe music and the biblical text, see Secrest, Bernstein,105–7; A King James biblical translation of the textmaybe found at: https://perryjgreenbaum.blogspot.com/2017/11/leonard-bernsteins-symphony-no-1.html. One, of course, need not know Hebrew (or KingJames’s English) to appreciate the singing.

16 Burton, Leonard Bernstein, 139–40; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 21, 1944, p. 56.

17 The New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842, theSt. Louis Symphony in 1880, the Boston Symphony in1881, the Chicago Symphony in 1891, the CincinnatiSymphony in 1895, and the Pittsburgh Symphony in1895 (though the last later disbanded for 16 years);the rest of the major urban symphony orchestras werefounded in the twentieth century.

18 Andre Kostelanetz followed Bernstein as guestconductor in 1945.The Golschmann years are coveredin Katherine Gladney Wells, Symphony and Song. TheSt. Louis Symphony Orchestra: The First HundredYears: 1880–1980 (Taftsville, Vt.: The CountrymenPress, 1980), 55–79; see also the 1927 Victrola ad,noting SLSO recordings and the discography up to1980, 217–21, and Richard Edward Mueller, “TheSt. Louis Symphony Orchestra, 1931 to 1958,” Ph.D.Diss., Saint Louis University, 1976.

19 The young and seemingly vigorous Bernstein,had received a “4F” deferment from the military,but he carefully noted in programs his pleasurein playing “boogie-woogie” music for the troops,citing a performance at Fort Dix. While chronicasthma plagued Bernstein, it is very rare to find anon-conducting photograph that does not show himsmoking. It would kill him in the end. Unsignedarticle, “Bernstein to Be Guest Conductor,” St. LouisGlobe-Democrat, May 21, 1944. Unsigned article,“Four Guest Conductors Signed for Next Season.” St.Louis Post-Dispatch, May 21, 1944.

20 “And his songs. are fun,” the reporter said. “‘ComeUp to My Place,’ ‘I Get Carried Away, and ‘You’veGot Me,’ with the help of very amusing lyrics, are allshow-stoppers; and there are pleasant romantic tuneslike ‘Lucky to Be Me.’” Louis Kronenberser, “AlongBroadway,” St. Louis Star-Times, December 30,1944; Unsigned article, “Ballet in Jazz and Jive,” St.Louis Post-Dispatch, December 10, 1944. The articleincludes a full page of rehearsal photographs.

21 Unsigned article, “Jive Music Accents ‘Fancy Free’Ballet,” St. Louis Star-Times, January 3, 1945.

22 Thomas B. Sherman, “Toumanova Exciting in BalletDances,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 6, 1945.

23 St. Louis Symphony Program, 65th Season, 1944–1945, 420; Saint Louis Symphony Society Records,1897–1983, Missouri Historical Society Archives,Box 17A.

24 Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson were AfricanAmerican musicians famed in the 1940s for theirBoogie-Woogie piano virtuosity.

25 Arthur W. Hepner, “Success Has Not Turned HisHead,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 9, 1945,part 4, p. 1; “Symphony Conductor Get Hep,” p. 3B;“‘Pin-Up Boy.’”

26 Many of Inge’s plays would become staples of the1950s and later movies: Bus Stop, Picnic, Splendor


in the Grass, and Come Back Little Sheba, writtenduring a stint as a Washington University professor.For a biographical sketch of William Inge and his lifein St. Louis, see Lorin Cuoco and William R. Gass,eds., Literary St. Louis: A Guide (St. Louis: MissouriHistorical Society Press, 2000), 203–7. Bernsteinloved drinking and carousing. During his stays in St.Louis he made a friend of Dr. Bertram Slaff, a young,and poorly paid, medical intern, who earned $32.50a month. Even before the meal, Slaff began frettingover the expense of a costly restaurant. His secretconsternation deepened when Bernstein unexpectedlyappeared with his friend Inge. Sensitively, Bernsteincorrectly intuited the pinch of such an extravagancefor Slaff and paid for all, telling him he had to spendhis On the Town royalties on something. Slaff toSecrest, July 11, 1991, in Secrest, Bernstein, 154.

27 Burke, “More About Bernstein.” Bernstein was a veryself-confident young-man-in-hurry, but his humilitywas not all fake. While he knew he was both charmedand charming, he was considerate to others. See alsoMurakami, Absolutely on Music, 29–30.

28 Leonard Bernstein to Helen Coates, February 8, 1945,Bernstein Papers, Library of Congress.

29 Baldwin ad, St. Louis Symphony Program, 65th

Season, p. 466; Bernstein biography, 410. Not nearlyas much fuss had been made over his supportingmezzo-soprano, Jennie Tourel. Her program biographymostly strung together positive quotes about hersinging and left it at that. Tourel was born into aJewish Belarus family in 1900. The family fled Russiafollowing the Revolution, eventually settling in Paris.There she won fame as an operatic singer, but justahead of the 1940 Nazi occupation, she immigratedto the United States. She rebuilt her career, singingwith Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski, amongothers. In 1943 she included some of his “KidsSongs,” I Hate Music, into her well-received NewYork City Town Hall debut. Bernstein subsequentlyinvited her to sing the mezzo-soprano role at thePittsburgh Symphony debut of Jeremiah, and shecontinued to do so at its live performances thereafter.Her professional relationship with Bernstein wouldlast decades. St. Louis Symphony Program, 65th

Season, p. 447; on Tourel’s background, see https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/5506600; Peyser,Bernstein,118–19.

30 St. Louis Symphony Program, 65th Season. p. 427.31 Bernstein to Coates, two letters dated February 10,

1945, Bernstein Papers.32 Harry R. Burke, “Bernstein Impressive as Conductor,”

St. Louis Globe-Democrat, February 11, 1945.Four days later Burke obtained a special interviewwith Bernstein and published a highly flatteringprofile of the young conductor. Burke, “More AboutBernstein.” The article notably begins by Bernstein’sdismissing his success with an “aw-shucks, it was justluck.” Bernstein then outlines an insanely ambitiouscatalogue of all the books, poetry, and serious music

he intended to write. But Bernstein said he couldnot plan to specify because the most important thingwas being fully in the present. Burke takes all ofBernstein’s monumental aspiration at face value.

33 William Inge, “Bernstein Brilliant in Two Concerts.”St. Louis Star-Times, February 12, 1945.

34 Thomas B. Sherman, “Bernstein Brilliant ConductingHis Work,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 11,1945.

35 Thomas B. Sherman, “Second Thoughts onBernstein,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 18,1945.

36 Bernstein to Coates, February 12, 1945, BernsteinPapers.

37 St. Louis Symphony Program, 65th Season, p. 467.38 Thomas B. Sherman, “20th Century Music at Bernstein

Concert: Symphony Program Proves to Be MoreExciting Than Exalting,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch,February 18, 1945.

39 William Inge, “Bernstein Applauded on ModernWorks,” St. Louis Star-Times, February 19, 1945.

40 Leonard Bernstein to Mildred Spiegel, February 19,1945, in Simeone, ed., Bernstein Letters, 583.

41 Curiously, Copland warned him of the perils of beingpigeon-holed as a Jewish composer, like ErnestBloch, and admonished for his addiction to musicalemotionalism. He was soon compared to Bloch,foreshadowing Bernstein’s later obsession with GustavMahler. On Copland’s tutoring and the writing ofJeremiah, see Secrest, Bernstein, 139; Pollack, AaronCopland, 194, 522.

42 Bernstein to Coates, February 8, 1945, BernsteinPapers.

43 Henahan, “Leonard Bernstein, 72.”44 Sherman, “Second Thoughts on Bernstein.”45 As quoted in Secrest, Bernstein, 137–38.46 Biographer Joan Peyser even wondered if Bernstein’s

jealous fiancé Felicia Montealegre torpedoed Tourel’sinclusion on the album. Peyser, Bernstein 440–41.This seems unlikely because Bernstein would continuehis professional relationship with Tourel for decadesuntil her death. A more likely explanation is that NanMerriman already had a Victor Records contract.Tourel might also have had a conflict, as she recordedan album for another label a couple of weeks later.On Nan Merriman, see https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/classic/nan-merriman; http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-passings-20120802-story.html.

47 See the ad in St. Louis Star-Times, December 13,1945.

48 Life Magazine, vol. 29, no. 19, May 13, 1946, p. 28.49 Thomas B. Sherman, “Off the Records,” St. Louis

Post-Dispatch, January 6, 1946.50 Unsigned review, “Record Album,” St. Louis Star-

Times, January 3, 1946, p. 16.51 Mark A. Schubart, “Records: Bernstein’s ‘Jeremiah,’”

New York Times, January 6, 1946.52 RCA’s Camden reissue of Bernstein and the St.

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Louis Symphony’s Jeremiah is readily availableon the internet. The YouTube recording includesperiod pictures, some with people mentioned inthe essay. First movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQJxlCaTt8Y; Second movement:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQvBc7jq55g;Third movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQvBc7jq55g.

53 Bernstein recorded Jeremiah later in life with boththe New York Philharmonic and the Israel SymphonicOrchestra, but it was not the same as the originalrecording. Recording methods have obviouslyimproved over the years, but he never regarded hismusic, or anybody else’s, as sacrosanct. Jennie Tourelgot her opportunity to sing the mezzo-soprano partwith the NYPO. As he aged, Bernstein was both proudof his symphony and somewhat embarrassed by it asjuvenilia. Both views have merit. Other symphonicorchestras have recorded it since 1945.

54 See, for example, Joseph McLellan, “ClassicalRecordings,” Washington Post, June 27, 1993; PeterG. Davis, “West Side Glory,” New York, vol. 26, no.27, July 12, 1993, 56–57.

55 https://leonardbernstein.com/search?page=4&s=event&q=Jeremiah

56 Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland, dated Saturday[September 1, 1945], Simeone, ed., Bernstein Letters,179.

57 Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copland, [undated,September 1945], Simeone, ed., Bernstein Letters,179–80.

58 Unsigned article, “Golschmann Sets First ElevenConcert Pairs,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September30, 1945.

59 Associated Press, “Nelson Rockefeller Named U.S.Young Man,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 17,1945; Unsigned article, “Leonard Bernstein GuestConductor with Symphony,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, November 25, 1945; Unsigned Article,“Bernstein on Podium Friday and Saturday,” St.Louis Post-Dispatch, November 25, 1945; St. LouisSymphony Program, 66th Season, 1945–1946, 223;Saint Louis Symphony Society Records, 1897–1983,Missouri Historical Society Archives, Box 17A.

60 Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim, postmarkNovember 27, 1945, Simeone, ed., Bernstein Letters,189–90.

61 St. Louis Symphony Program, 66th Season, pp.223, 267; Bernstein to Coates, December 1, 1945,Bernstein Papers.

62 Thomas B. Sherman, “Leonard Bernstein Concert aSuccess,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. December 1, 1945.

63 William Inge, “Leonard Bernstein Brilliant asConductor of Symphony,” St. Louis Star-Times,December 1, 1945.

64 Harry R. Burke, “Bernstein Wins Ovation inAppearance with Symphony,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 9, 1945; Leonard Bernstein toDavid Oppenheim, postmarked December 18, 1945.Simeone, ed., Bernstein Letters, 192.

65 Thomas B. Sherman, “Bernstein Conducts in FinePerformance,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 9,1945.

66 Aaron Copland to Leonard Bernstein, Tuesday[December 4, 1945], Simeone, ed., Bernstein Letters,190; Leonard Bernstein to David Oppenheim,postmarked December 18, 1945, Simeone, ed.,Bernstein Letters, 192.


Letter Froma St. LouisBarroom,

March 1849B Y C H R I S T O P H E R A L A N G O R D O N


It had rained nearly every day for at least a week,turning the unpaved streets of St. Louis into a muddy,rutted mess. Taking refuge from the damp, a youngman resigned himself to spending the day withinthe comfort of the barroom of the Virginia Hotel,located on Vine Street near the levee. It was Sunday,March 11, 1849, and Edwin P. Hollister, a 22-year-old traveling apiarist and salesman, could do little onthat wet Sabbath but relax and hope for drier weather.It would prove to be a long wait as the continuousrain foreshadowed the beginning of a very wet yearin the city. The lingering showers would contributeto problems throughout that spring and summer, butHollister had more immediate problems. The roadsand streets of St. Louis and the region had become asoupy mess, and as was all too often the case in thistime of primitive thoroughfares nearly all forms ofland transportation were rendered useless. Hollisterwas stuck in St. Louis.

While sitting in the bar that afternoon, hetook the opportunity to pen a letter to his cousin,William M. Black, of Vandalia, Illinois. This frankand sometimes humorous letter, preserved in thecollections of the Missouri Historical Society, vividlyreflects Hollister’s abilities as a keen observer. Withprecision he describes the events he had witnessedin the days since his arrival in the city. For Hollister,these observations seemed like good fodder for a

letter, but now, nearly 170 years later, this singlecorrespondence acts as a snapshot of history. Hisaccount of the condition of the city, his descriptionsof the curious arrival of new immigrants and goldrush travelers to the levee, and his comments on theAmerican political climate of the period make for afascinating narrative of life in St. Louis in 1849. Hollister had arrived in St. Louis a week earlierand signed into the Virginia Hotel. To announce hisarrival in the city, he took out an advertisement inthe Missouri Republican seeking the attention of“farmers, capitalists, and all persons interested in theculture of the Honey Bee.” According to the ad copy,he was the first to introduce the patented Dofler BeePalace to the farmers of the west. This product had“superceded all other hives” since its introductionto the market in 1843 by its ability to protectvulnerable honey bees from the dreaded bee worm.The west’s emerging farm fields seemed the perfectplace to sell such a product, but with the roads out ofcommission he could only lament his present state.1

“I suppose you have noticed my advertisement in theRepublican,” his letter begins,

and become aware of my return to this city of“mud.” . . . My prospects are not very flatteringas yet on account of the state of the roads whichseem to have effectively closed up all avenuesof communications between the city and theinterior.2

He was not alone in his frustration with thestate of the area roads. Throughout the winter andspring of 1849, city newspapers like the MissouriRepublican frequently commented on the poorconditions of the streets. The complaints werecertainly nothing new. City and county officials wereactively taking measures to pave and macadamizestreets and roads, but it was an expensive and slowprocess. The city engineer’s report for the periodOctober 1847 to April 1848 states that the totalamount spent for street contracts for improvementswas $54,941. This was a considerable sum, but asa steady stream of new residents entered the city,pressure to keep up with improvements grew. The previous spring, Mayor John Krum hadaddressed the St. Louis Board of Aldermen andurged them to undertake a more aggressive stanceon improving city streets. He told the aldermen,“The improvement of streets will necessarilyoccupy a large share of your attention. Extendingas our city is in every direction, the demand forstreet improvements is very great.” The goodnews, according to Krum, was that a considerable

(Left) First page of a letter by Edwin Hollister, penned inearly 1849 at the Virginia Hotel in St. Louis. A transcriptof the full letter appears below. (Image: Missouri HistoricalSociety)

The levee in St. Louis, with some three miles of riverfront,was a bustling hub of activity in 1849. Steamboats lined theriverbank faced by warehouses and merchants. Hotels likethe Virginia Hotel, advertised here, were convenient for visit-ing businessmen. (Image: Missouri Historical Society)


sum had been set aside in 1848 for street and alleyimprovements. The bad news, however, was that anystreet improvement was probably not going to beenough. He warned them, “You will find it difficult tosatisfy the various interests of your constituents.”3

The condition of St. Louis’ streets was suchthat any work done on them would be a measureof improvement, noted Krum: “The mere gradingof a street without any additional improvement, isa very great convenience.” The constant traffic ofdray wagons, omnibuses, and every other manner ofconveyance took its toll on the largely dirt and gravelstreets. Much of the problem, Krum believed, wasthe type of materials used to cover road surfaces.Subpar soft limestone easily became powder underthe intense weight of traffic, which resulted in cloudsof fine dust in dry weather and sticky, glue-like mudin the rain. He urged the aldermen to investigate newoptions and pointed out that a newly discovered “bedof boulder and cobble stone” in the region should beconsidered as an alternative as paving material. Nodoubt referring to the granite deposits in the countiesof Missouri’s mineral district, he proclaimed that“there is no better material than boulders for paving.”

The aldermen only had to look at the recent efforts toimprove the landing on the wharf to see the benefitsof laying cobblestone.4

In rural areas, pressure to build and maintain roadswas no less than in the city, as new settlers enteredthe county and sought to improve lands for farming.Existing roads were often no more than paths, andbetter access to markets demanded better roads.Petitions to the County Court to lay out new roadspoured in to the courthouse from all points of St.Louis County during this period. Most often, the responsibility for roadimprovement fell to the property owners whoseland included thoroughfares like Manchester Roador the St. Charles Road. The County Court oftenappointed farmers and landowners “road supervisors”and provided them with a contract to provide roadmaintenance or construction. The minute book ofthe County Court reads like a directory of St. Louisarea roads, as familiar names such as Musick,Sappington, Dorsett, and Rott show up as appointedlocal supervisors. For their services, these menwere paid either by road bonds or a direct paymentfrom township funds. For example, George Hume


of Florissant was “appropriated the sum of twentydollars out of the road fund . . . for the purpose ofbuilding a culvert on the south St. Charles Road”near his residence.5

As the demand for better roads increased,shortcuts were sometimes taken. Critics chargedthat St. Louis County road engineers were reactingto the need to build roads by employing haphazardmethods. “It is now said that the County Court havecommenced and gone on to grade and macadamizethe main roads leading from the city, without havingthe whole line of the roads, from the city to theirterminus on the county line surveyed and located,”stated the Missouri Republican. It further declared,“It is certainly injudicious policy . . . without havingfirst surveyed and marked out the whole work, andestimated the cost.”6

The Missouri General Assembly was also gettinginto the act. Creating new roads to link marketcommunities was the legislature’s chief aim, butthis was hampered by technological and financiallimitations. Macadamizing roads—the process oflaying and compacting a gravel surface—was costlyand labor-intensive over long stretches. The solutionin 1849 for creating less costly stable roads was amethod employed in many parts of the eastern UnitedStates: plank roads. This involved laying woodenslats or planks end-to-end to create an even surface.It was cheaper than quarrying stone, and costs wereto be offset by establishing many of them as tollroads. Bills were introduced to fund the constructionof roads by means of incorporating plank roadinvestment companies. The Natural Bridge PlankRoad Company in St. Louis County, for example,

When the steamboat White Cloud set fire on May 17, 1849, it set in motion the most devastating fire in St. Louis history.After burning through its moorings, the White Cloud drifted downriver that evening, burning almost two dozen other craft.The fire quickly moved inland, burning wide swaths of the city, completely burning five city blocks and destroying more than400 buildings. It was commemorated by both noted daguerrist Thomas Martin Easterly and popular engravings like the oneon the left. (Images: Missouri Historical Society)


was incorporated in 1852. The resulting single-laneplank road was built for $120,000 and operated forfive years before being sold to St. Louis County. Butwhile it seemed a novel solution at first, the inherentvulnerabilities of using wood for road constructionproved too much. The planks sank in the mud androtted quickly. Traveling them was also exceptionallyuncomfortable as the wagons bounced along fromplank to plank like, as one traveler noted, “a shipriding ocean waves.” Ultimately, across the state, theroad investment companies proved to be unprofitable,and they had all but disappeared by the start of theCivil War.7

As a prisoner of road conditions, Hollister had tospend his time in St. Louis doing what many personsoften do—people watching. As an observer in 1849,he had no better place to do it than a city that was atthe crossroads of westward expansion. A short walkfrom the Virginia Hotel to the levee was all that heneeded to watch the world pass by. Thousands ofimmigrants, particularly from central Europe, andeastern families headed to the Oregon Country werein town, as well as companies of California-boundgold miners who entered the city with each arrivingsteamboat from New Orleans, Cincinnati, andLouisville.

As luck would have it, on the day previous topenning his letter, Hollister observed the arrival of agroup of immigrants who epitomized the changingcultural and political landscape of the world inthe late 1840s: a utopian commune of the FrenchIcarians. “I went down to the [steamboat] MarshalNey this morning to witness a rather novel sight,”Hollister notes in the second page of his letter.“Some 300 French people just arrived from ‘La BelleFrance.’” He seems surprisingly familiar with thegroup’s origins and intentions, which are outlined

Etienne Cabet (1788–1856) grew up and came of ageduring heady times in France. Born just a year before theFrench Revolution, he grew to adulthood and developed hispolitical views during the Napoleonic Era, playing a role inreplacing Charles X with the constitutional monarch, LouisPhilippe, in 1830. Like a group of other intellectuals duringthe 1830s, Cabet’s thinking turned to ideas about reorganiz-ing society around more communal ideals, referred to asIcarian. Cabet thought that the United States would be morereceptive to his ideas, and he set his sights on moving toAmerica in 1847; subsequent colonies arose in Iowa, Texas,Illinois, Missouri, and (later) California. He and a groupof Icarians left Nauvoo, Illinois, for St. Louis in late 1856,where Cabet died just two weeks after arrival. His originalgravestone, pictured here, was in the Old Picker’s Cemeteryin St. Louis. (Images: Missouri Historical Society)


in his comments. “They were under the guidance ofMons. Capet (pronounced Coopa),” he continues,“an author of considerable celebrity of the Fourieriteschool and on their way to Fort Madison Iowa—intending to colonize there.” Perhaps he had read ofCabet before or simply learned much about him theday of his arrival. Whatever the case, the Icarians’unorthodox approach to life would have certainlyattracted the attention in the patriarchal society of the1840s.

Seeking a lifestyle based on the equality of thesexes and shared labor, the Icarians were a productof the turbulent politics of a Europe struggling toadapt to the change brought about by the IndustrialRevolution and a growing educated European middleclass. The German states, France, and much of centralEurope, as well as Great Britain, saw the emergence

of groups pushing for political reforms or seekingalternative ways of life. In 1848, Karl Marx andFriedrich Engels released the pamphlet CommunistManifesto as a way of encouraging revolution amongdisaffected workers; the following spring, Fredrich

Hecker and 800 fellow revolutionaries led an armedrebellion in the Duchy of Baden in an effort toestablish a democratic republic. Hecker and many ofhis followers, known as the Forty-Eighters, wouldalso arrive in St. Louis in 1849, but in 1847, Frenchsocialist Etienne Cabet decided that he and membersof his La Societe Icarienne should emigrate to theUnited States in hopes of finding more fruitful landand stability. They first attempted to establish acolony near Denton, Texas, in 1848 but failed dueto disease, dissension, and inexperience. Now Cabetwas returning with more followers and a betterunderstanding of the challenges facing an experimentin communal living.8

Although Hollister notes in the letter that Cabet’sintention was to proceed to Ft. Madison, Iowa, hisfinal destination was actually Nauvoo, Illinois. On anearlier reconnaissance, Cabet had purchased the townsite once occupied by Joseph Smith and his Latter-Day Saints. It was here that the French utopian hopedto establish his dream of a self-sustaining egalitariansociety. In addition to equality among the sexes, theIcarians practiced communal ownership of propertyand an emphasis on hard work and mechanization.Hollister’s descriptions of Cabet’s Icarian followersclearly confirms what is generally understoodabout the group in terms of its consisting mainly ofmembers of the French and German working class.“The men looked a little on the Dutch side with abroad phleganatic [phlegmatic] physiognomy. Thefemales generally small—well formed—and themerry look so commonly attributed to the Frenchnation. The company consist mainly of mechanics.”He ends his description by commenting that theylooked “very well indeed” considering their longsteamboat trip from New Orleans as deck passengers.

In the days since his return to St. Louis, Hollisterwas also taken with those suffering from what hejokingly referred to as “yellow fever.” The “afflicted”were young men headed to the California goldfields. His words convey what seems like humorousfascination coupled with mild annoyance at theirbehavior. “The hotels are crowded with victims ofyellow fever—who mostly buy up their necessaryarticles here causing most kinds of Business toalready receive a share of the expected Harvest.”He had no doubts that St. Louis merchants benefitedtremendously from gold-seeking Easterners.Merchandise meant to appeal to potential goldminers filled the merchants’ columns of the city’snewspapers. According to the Missouri Republican,St. Louis furniture and upholstery makers Scarrit& Mason introduced a “bedstead or cot for theuse of emigrants that is eminently useful. It is so

The Icarian Colonies founded in five states after Cabet’sarrival in America were popularized by a wider movementto create utopian societies in the United States. The Icarianslived in communal societies—they lived in communalhousing, their children were raised collectively, and theygave their worldly goods and assets to the community.Like some other utopian societies, they also gave men andwomen equality in community affairs and elections. (Image:Missouri Historical Society)


constructed, by hinges, that it shuts up and occupiesbut little space, and is very light. It may, in one way,be used as a table, another as a bed . . . as a benchor settee.” All manner of businesses tailored theirproducts to appeal to the gold-crazed consumers,everything from wagons to guidebooks and everyform of mining equipment. Even Hollister’s beehives attracted attention, but for the wrong reasons.“In nailing up my advertisements (having drawingsof my Hive) in Bar Rooms—the general query was Isthat a gold washer?” But sadly for him, “nothing willattract the least attention to wares of any kind unlessCalifornia! Important to Gold Diggers!” He then askshis cousin, “Have you any premonitory symptoms!If not your wife must have been the ‘detergent.’” Asa sideline conversation to William’s wife, Lizzy, hewarns her not to let William go to St. Louis alonefor fear that, he, too might be overtaken by the urgeto buy provisions and head to California. “I fear,”Edwin tells Lizzy, “he will be borne away by thetide.” Of his own thoughts on going to California, heassures William that of the “contagion,” he has “not abit of it.”9

Hollister may have tried his best to ignorethe urge to go west, but he did not ignore national

politics. In November 1848, General Zachary Taylor,the Whig party nominee, was elected president. Theelection reflected the growing sectional differencesbrought on by the widening divisions over thequestion of slavery and its expansion into the newAmerican territories of the west. The southernslaveholding elite eyed land recently ceded tothe United States with the defeat of Mexico inthe Mexican-American War as new territory forthe expansion of the plantation system. Northernpoliticians and their abolitionist allies saw this asa blatant attempt to disrupt the balance of powerbetween free and slave states. Tensions mounted asdebates over the fate of slavery in America becamenearly constant on the floor of Congress and withinthe homes of American voters. Consequently, thepolitical parties faced growing shifts and dissentwithin their ranks. In the general election of 1848,Taylor faced not only his Democratic opponentSenator Lewis Cass but also Free-Soil candidate,former president Martin Van Buren. Just as Hollister was arriving in St. Louis, Taylorwas taking the oath of office. There is no mention ofTaylor’s inaugural address in Hollister’s letter, butdespite his assurances to his cousin that “politics isnot my element,” he held fairly strong opinions onTaylor and the state of the American voter. Edwin’scousin William was apparently a Taylor supporter, acondition they did not share. But, ironically, it wasEdwin who had the opportunity to meet the president-elect when Taylor was traveling east on his way to

St. Louis merchants scurried to find goods to respond to thesudden influx of Argonauts traveling to California for theGold Rush starting in 1849. Published emigrants’ guides allrecommended that people headed for the gold fields pur-chase their supplies in St. Louis rather than pay to transportthem from, say, New York or Ohio (the two states besidesMissouri with the most Argonauts traveling overland). Natu-rally, local merchants tried to find goods they wanted andmarketed existing products like folding beds for their needs.And the market was huge; some 50,000 traveled overlandto California annually between 1849 and 1854, all lookingfor the same goods recommended by emigrants’ guides, asthese ads attest. (Images: Missouri Historical Society)


the White House. “I had the honor (as you woulddeem it) of shaking the Hand of Genl. Taylor,” writesHollister. “I had just got off from the CincinnatiPacket and hurried up to the hotel. Arriving just as herose from the table.” “None of the current likenesses resemble him,”notes Hollister. “He is small—very little taller thanmyself—with small eyes—nose etc. If you shouldsee him on a load of hay taking it to market youwould imagine him perhaps—a farmer—worth agood substantial property. But for scholarship—statesmanship or any other pursuit requiring ahigh order of intellect—he must be destitute.” Hedoes allow a small concession by declaring thatthe general’s “eye is the only thing noticeable. Itindicates considerable firmness and keenness ofperception.” Whatever unfavorable opinion he had of Taylorprior to the meeting, it did not improve with theencounter. “My curiosity was satisfied in fiveminutes,” he states. Taylor’s fast rise from a nobodyin Hollister’s eyes to the leader of the nation was,in his opinion, a sad commentary on the Americanpublic. He believed that finer, more deservingmen were pushed aside by the fickleness of voters.Hollister bemoaned that “when I think that four shortyears ago probably not one in five thousand of ourpopulation knew of his existence and that such menas Clay—Webster—Corwin, and a host of other truly

great men are forgotten by the crowd.” He feared thatchoosing unqualified “Political Idols” would leadto no good and might cause “this great country [to]retrograde from the lofty position from whence shelaunched forth the tide of Nations.” Hollister’s political intuitions were not far offbase. Taylor’s short time in office was markedprimarily by his inaction. He was a man determinedto maintain the status quo and fight the growingsectional dissension by avoiding the issues. Onlysixteen months after taking office, a stomachinfection proved fatal to the man who was knownpopularly as “Old Rough and Ready.” Vice PresidentMillard Fillmore assumed the presidency andembraced the controversial Compromise of 1850, anaction deemed as an impetus for the Civil War. Beyond Edwin Hollister’s take on the worldaround him, his letter displays the hallmarks ofsomeone who missed his family and friends. Thereis true affection in his words to William and hiswife, Lizzy. He recounts old acquaintances and askswhether William’s sisters are still staying with himin Vandalia. “I may be pardoned for expressing thesentiment that should they remain with you thisspring—it would but add another motive for a visitfrom me.” Edwin mentions “Miss Catherine” inparticular. This inquiry allows him to include one laststory.

The Whig Party nominated Mexican War hero ZacharyTaylor (left), a career army officer who had never held office,for his name recognition in 1848. After Taylor’s death inJuly 1850, his successor Millard Fillmore signed the bills thatcomprised the Compromise of 1850. Taylor and Fillmoreconstituted the last Whig ticket to win a national election.(Images: Missouri Historical Society)


He tells of his run-in with a fortune teller inLouisville. It is yet another revealing example ofthe times in which he lived. In 1849, the spiritualistmovement was just gaining steam in America.Only a year earlier, two teenage sisters in westernNew York, the Fox sisters, became a nationalsensation when they claimed to have the ability tocommunicate with the deceased. Imitators quicklyemerged throughout the country, and many took upresidence in hotels, including those in St. Louis.Tarot card readers and others claiming divine powersreaped the benefits of a populace eager to witnessextraordinary powers. But Hollister’s opinions ofsoothsayers seem to differ little from his take onTaylorite politics.

“While at Louisville a gentleman came in oneevening to the bar room . . . stating that he had hadhis past life recalled with wonderful accuracy etc.—My room mate went up the next day and returnedwith a similar statement.” This definitely fed hiscuriosity, and he went to see things for himself. “Ifound a lean sallow—keen eyed woman—MadamSomething about 50 years of age—who with theaid of a pack of cards began to reveal my destiny.”The woman, he says, described things with “greatclearness” and noted many specifics, whichapparently, despite the detail, were not accurate.

These revelations proved her to be a “false prophet,”but none so much as when she described a woman hewas destined to meet. It was someone, she claimed,whom he had previously met, “a lady with light hairand complexion.” He said he could not apply it toanyone he had recently met, but “perhaps she onlymade a slight mistake as to the color of the hair.” Shedescribes two other women that Edwin and Williamapparently knew and whom Hollister had recentlyseen during his travels. Here the letter concludes: “So with a kiss to thebaby for me–I wind up this rainy sabbath day epistle–Respectfully, E.P.H.” Unfortunately, this letterremains as Hollister’s only known communication.His success or failure with his beehive operation islost to time, and sadly the record appears to indicatethat Edwin Hollister died only four years later. He isburied in Geneva, Illinois, the town where his familysettled after leaving Massachusetts. While history books attempt to explain the detailsthat existed in the growing and turbulent Americaof 1849, primary sources such as Edwin Hollister’sletter make it all real. We have the luxury of hearinghis voice across time and seeing a changing nationthrough his eyes. Fortunately, he possessed aneloquence and mastery of words to preserve thosemoments in time for us.

Transcript of ALS Edwin P. Hollister toWilliam M. Black, March 11, 1849


Virginia Hotel St. LouisCousin Wm

I have a rather indistinct recollection of havingwritten you a letter several weeks since fromCincinnati and although it may argue a very feeblememory I must acknowledge that this recollectiondim though it be is impressed in far more vivid colorson my memory than the answer it received. I trusttherefore that you will deem this a sufficient apologyfor not alluding further to its contents as I candidlyacknowledge that I have not the [apprehedotist]inkling of an idea of their character “Requiscat inpace.” I suppose that you have noticed my advertisementin the Republican and so become aware of myreturn to this city of “mud” and of my entranceupon my Bee Hive operation. My prospects are notvery flattering as yet on account of the state of theroads which seem to have effectually closed up allavenues of communication between the city and theinterior. I have had to content myself with hearingthe flattering encomiums bestowed on my Hive bythose under whose notice it has fallen which provesfar more gratifying to my feelings than weight tomy purse. I shall succeed however on getting itintroduced to use by some of the citizens here whosefavorable opinion I have won and which will be ofgreat value to me another season—after they haveseen its plausible theory a tangible shape. As soon asthe weather and roads allow—I shall go north for myown neighborhood where little attention is paid to thecultivation of the Honey Bee.

Will it be worth my while to visit Vandalia withmy Hive? If you think it would pay expense I willagree to visit you as soon as the roads are passable. I had a letter from Father last week. The folkswere all well—they had had fine sleighing most ofthe winter. He had hauled most of his grain to marketand was ready to take up his note for the Horses.

He wishes me to find out how you wished themoney sent, and sent the love of the family to yourown. Mr. Kimball and family had ‘emigrated’ toMilwaukie–which item I put down for the benefit ofGeorge. I suppose he can do up coffee according toEuclid [?] by this time. I went down to the Marshall Ney this morning towitness a rather novel sight viz—some 300 Frenchpeople just from “La Belle France.” They were

under the guidance of Mons. Cabet (pronouncedCoopa) an author of considerable celebrity ofthe Fourierite school and an on their way to FortMadison Iowa—intending to colonize there. Themen looked a bit on the Dutch order—with a broadphleganatic [phlegmatic] physiognomy—the femalesgenerally small—well formed—and the merry lookso commonly attributed to the French nation—Thecompany consist mainly of mechanics—and lookvery well indeed—considering the unfavorableposition they occupy (on main deck) for cleanlinessand comfort.

When at Madison Ia. I had the honor (as you woulddeem it) of shaking the Hand of Genl. Taylor. I hadjust got off from the Cincinnati Packet and hurriedup to the Hotel—arriving just as he rose from thetable—to start for Frankfort. None of the currentlikenesses resemble him.

He is small—very little taller than myself—withsmall eyes—nose etc. If you should see him on a load

Etienne Cabet as he appeared when developing his ideasabout communal living. He publicized his ideas in his novelTravel and Adventures of Lord Willam Caridall in Icaria in1840. His works on communal societies influenced otherthinkers’ including Karl Marx. (Image: Missouri HistoricalSociety)


of Hay—taking it to market—you would imaginehim perhaps—a farmer—worth a good substantialproperty. But as for scholarship—statesmanship orany pursuit requiring a high order of intellect—hemust be destitute of unless Lavater and Combe areutterly at fault. His eye is the only thing noticeable.It indicates considerable firmness and keenness ofperception. My curiosity was satisfied in five minutesand when I think that four short years ago probablynot one in five thousand of our population knew ofhis existence and that such men as Clay—Webster—Corwin and a host of other truly great men—areforgotten by the crowd—who tomorrow will hunt upa new Political Idol—before which to prostrate—inthe same ratio will this great country retrograde fromthe lofty position from whence she launched forth thetide of Nations—But enough of this Politics is notmy element. California—the lone star—is in the ascendant.The Hotels are crowded with victims of the yellowfever—who mostly buy up their necessary articleshere causing most kinds of Business to alreadyreceive a share of the expected Harvest. In nailingup my advertisements (having drawings of my Hive)in Bar Rooms—the general query was Is that a GoldWasher? And nothing will attract the least attentionto wares of any kind unless California! Importantto Gold Diggers! is connected therewith. Have youany premonitory symptoms? If not your wife musthave been the “detergent” How is it Lizzy? Don’t letWilliam come to St. Louis to buy goods unless youare along. Or I fear he will be borne away by the tide.Perhaps you imagine by this that I am infected bythe contagion myself. Not a bit of it. I keep perfectlycool by the constant use of the ‘douche’ bath andintend to “Pursue the even tenor of my way” throughthe Sucker state this coming season—lookingafter the welfare of the Fathers-Brothers—I wish Icould add the rest of the Gold Fever “case.” It willgive me great pleasure—if in my peregrinations—Vandalia falls in my way. In the meantime anacknowledgement of our relationship in Black andwhite will be thankfully received.

Your aff. Cousin

Edwin P. Hollister

P.S. 1 oclock P.M. raining hard—I managed to fillthree pages—the ennui of a Hotel Bar room on theSabbath is insupportable.

I called at Mr. Simmons the other day to learnwhether your sisters had returned to Pa. Mr. S. hadnot seen or heard from you since last fall—andinferred that they were yet at Vandalia. If so—I

can not close without tendering to them my bestwishes—I may be pardoned for expressing thesentiment that should they remain with you thisspring—it would but add another motive for a visitfrom me. And I just think how that fortune tellercheated me in supposing that I was to have thepleasure of seeing Miss Catherine in Cincinnati. Iwill explain.

While at Louisville—a gentleman came in oneevening to the Bar room of the Taylor House statingthat he had had his past life recalled with wonderfulaccuracy etc—My room mate went up the next dayand returned with a similar statement—So for thecuriosity of the thing I went myself—I found a leansallow—keen eyed woman—Madame Somethingabout 50 years of age—who with the aid of a packof cards began to reveal my destiny—She explainedthings with great clearness such as my destination—kind of business—our family affairs at home—anda great variety of things—which to say the leastwas very singular—Among other things in whichshe proved a false prophet—was the fact I attendedto—She told me that I was soon to meet a lady withlight hair and complexion whose acquaintance I hadrecently made and for the life of me I could not applyit to any other person than Miss Dale—Perhaps sheonly a slight mistake as to the colour of the hair—for at Madison—I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs.Barbor formerly Henrietta Hinman of Lee—whomyou no doubt well remember.

So with a kiss to the baby for me I wind up thisrainy sabbath day epistle.

RespectfullyE.P.H.


A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S

Christopher Alan Gordon is Director of Library and Collections for the MissouriHistorical Society and the author of Fire, Pestilence, and Death: St. Louis, 1849.Released in February 2018, the book has won both the 2018 Independent PublishersAssociation Silver Medal for Best Regional Non-Fiction—Midwest and the IndieExcellence Award for Regional History. Gordon attended Missouri State University andgrew up in the Springfield, Missouri area.

Nicholas W. Sacco is a Park Ranger with the National Park Service at Ulysses S. GrantNational Historic Site in St. Louis, Missouri. He holds two Bachelor’s degrees fromLindenwood University in History Education and Music Performance, along with aMaster’s degree in history from IUPUI. Nicholas is also on the Board of Directorsfor the Missouri Council for History Education and an active member of the NationalCouncil on Public History.

Kenneth H. Winn is the former State Archivist of Missouri and the former Director ofthe Library and Public Services at the Missouri Supreme Court. He received his PhDfrom Washington University in St. Louis and subsequently taught history there and atthe University of Missouri-Columbia. Winn is the author or editor of a number of booksand articles, including Exiles in a Land of Liberty: Mormons in America, The Dictionaryof Missouri Biography, and Missouri Law and the American Conscience: HistoricRights and Wrongs. He is currently working on the history of the St. Louis slave trade.


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