For those who don't know, Claiborne Fox Jackson was Missouri's 15th Governor from January 3, 1861 to July 31, 1861. He and Lt. Gov. Thomas C. Reynolds conspired with the Confederate President Jefferson Davis to plan a secret coup and make Missouri secede from the Union against the orders of President Lincoln despite Jackson's campaign promises not to leave the union in 1860.
However, Commander Nathaniel Lyon, who was in charge of the Union arsenal in St. Louis suspected Jackson of attempting the coup when a state militia was camped outside of the city and building up their own weapons cache. Lyon had arrested members of the militia that supported the governor. Members of the militia were marched through the city where a riot broke out when Confererate sympathers attacked the Union captors only to be arrested or killed themselves.
After the Camp Jackson Affair in May 1861, Lyon was not going to put up with anymore of Governor Jackson's sh*t, and neither was the majority Unionist Missouri State Legislature.
Jackson declared Missouri a "free republic". In July 1861, the MoLeg voted to remove him from office, but Jackson refused to cede his power. In fact, when he found out Lyon was out to get him, he ordered the railroad tracks on the train he was escaping on to be destroyed.
However, Lyon took a steamer ship up the Missouri river and occupied the state capitol without a fight on June 13, 1861.
The Missouri State Convention declared the offices of Governor and Lt. Governor "vacant", but eventually appointed former Missouri Chief Justice Hamilton Gamble to Governor and Willard Hall as Lt. Governor as part of Missouri's provisional Unionist government.
Lyon was promoted to Brigadier General of the Army of the West on July 2, 1861, but sadly he was killed at the Battle of Wilson's Creek near Springfield on August 10, 1861.
Jackson exiled himself to Arkansas, a Confederate State, where he died of cancer in December 1862.
Meanwhile, Reynolds who as also in exile, was working with Confederate Generals Sterling Price, William Harney, and Ben McColloch. Price and McColloch were at the Battle of Wilson's Creek where Lyon was killed.
I could probably go on about Missouri Civil War History, but I want to wrap this up.
By 1865, Reynolds had fled to Mexico, along with Price and a few others, where he worked as as a railroad commissioner under Mexican Emperor Maximillian von Habsburg. While America was strugling with itself in the Civil War, France, the UK, and Spain though now was a good time to invade Mexico again because Napoleon III was like "Monroe Doctrine, Schmonrote doctrine" and wanted Mexico back in European hands. But this is an entirely different story.
Reynolds returned to the United States in 1868 to practice law, and for some reason got elected in the Missouri State House again in 1874 (WTF?!). He later worked for the federal government as a representative for South American trade?! (Oh, wait, Andrew Johnson was president around this time...It's not like they were going to impeach him or anything, amirite?!)
Eventually his past would come to catch up with him because his mental health was deteriorating. And on March 30, 1887, Reynolds committed suicide by jumping down an elevator shaft at the U.S. Custom House and Post Office, or as we know it today as the Old Post Office at 8th and Olive.
Missouri's part in the history of Civil War was the result of people less concerned about the welfare of Missourian's and more interested in their hold of political power. Masquerading as a "states' rights" issue when really it was about control by people with inherited wealth, the Governor used his powers to organize his supporters to attack the heart of the country's commerce and defense.
Had Lyon not died at Wilson's Creek, there's a good chance he could have been encouraged to stay in Missouri and run for governor.
So what does this story have anything to do with current events?
Just as Claiborne Fox Jackson and Thomas Reynolds had chosen to fight the Federal Government and declare their insurrection upon common sense, Parson, Kehoe, Ashcroft, Schmitt, and Hawley have worked to rebel against the Federal Government from providing the financial assistance Missourians needed; they had collaborated to oppose the acceptance of the election even though Tr*mp still won it anyway, lawsuits were being held on behalf of Pennsylvania and Texas diverting state resources for problems that are not our state's concern such as elections and immigration; They left our state's cybersecurity vulnerable and more than likely had themselves a little document barbeque Monday night in Jefferson City to cover it up, but for some reason still want to charge a reporter with cybercrimes he didn't commit; they have kept Josh Hawley as our representative despite his support of the insurrection as well as several state level legislators who had supported or gone to Washington DC on January 6 even though they deny being at the riot; Missourians DID NOT RECEIVE FEDRAL STIMULUS MONEY because Mike Parson denied its distribution opting to tell Missourians to "get a job"; He's let disinformed parents part of his voter base go to school board meetings, municipal meetings, and county council meetings eschew the required mask mandates and vaccine requirements we need to end the pandemic by promoting false information that he knew was wrong even when he and his wife were infected with the virus.
Therefore, Missourians should oppose this executive order! It not only endangers Missourians, it also handicaps their right to Federal funding, a safe, secure environment at work, school, church, and other places, and pretends this is a "civil rights" issue when a 65 year old white man from rural Missouri who was a county sheriff doesn't even have the head space to speak to us about "civil rights" when there are people of color, people in poverty, and people with disability who have had their civil rights either ignored or violated over the years including the upheavals that occurred during the George Floyd protests of 2020.
WE WILL NOT ABIDE BY THIS EXCUTIVE ORDER WHICH IS INTENDED NOT TO COMPLY WITH REASON BUT WITH POLTICAL CONVEIENCE!
