Claiborne Fox Jackson (D)

Overview

At a Glance

• Governed Missouri at the beginning of the Civil War (1861)
• Called for special session of the General Assembly at which state lawmakers passed an ordinance of succession (1861)
• Declared Missouri an independent and sovereign state (1861)

Personal History

Claiborne Fox Jackson was born on April 4, 1806, in Fleming County, Kentucky. He was one of Dempsey and Mary Jackson’s 10 children, and his extended family included a cousin who became Missouri’s 13th governor.

Jackson only received minimal formal education before moving in 1826 with several older brothers to Franklin, Missouri. He worked in his brothers’ general store and then became a partner in the business.

In 1832, Jackson was elected captain of a company of Howard County volunteers who served in the Black Hawk War in Illinois and in Michigan Territory. Upon his return to Missouri, he gave up his share of the brothers' business and moved to Missouri’s Saline County, where he purchased and operated a similar establishment. While there, he married a daughter of John Sappington, a well-known local physician. Sappington proved to be an influential and well-connected relative, having personal acquaintances with political luminaries such as Andrew Jackson and Thomas Hart Benton. The connection gave Jackson entree into elite social and political circles. Twice widowed, Jackson eventually married three of Sappington's daughters.

First elected to the Missouri General Assembly in 1836 as a Democrat, Jackson served one term before moving to Howard County, a center of power in Missouri state politics. During the next four years, he worked at the Fayette branch of the State Bank of Missouri, developing valuable personal connections and party alliances.

Upon the death of his father-in-law in 1856, Jackson inherited a large portion of his in-laws' estate, including the Sappington home in the Arrow Rock area of Saline County. Consequently, in 1860—the year Jackson won the gubernatorial election—Jackson owned 38 slaves and real estate worth nearly $50,000, placing him among the planter elite.

Soon after the Civil War began, Jackson's health began to fail, and he and his family retired to Little Rock, Arkansas, and he died on Dec. 6, 1862. Jackson was buried in the Sappington family cemetery in Arrow Rock.

Political History

Jackson served multiple terms in the state’s General Assembly. In the mid-1840s, he was named Speaker of the House, a position of influence. In the Missouri House of Representatives, Jackson allied himself with pro-slavery politicians known collectively as the "Central Clique." The group consisted of delegates from slaveholding counties around Fayette.

In this era, Thomas Hart Benton, a U.S. senator, was the state’s Democratic bellwether, or leader; nevertheless, Jackson broke ties with Benton when the elder statesman aligned himself with the Free Soil Party, which opposed slavery in western territories acquired after the Mexican-American War. Led by Jackson, the anti-Benton faction was introduced in 1848, and became known as the Jackson Resolutions. These asserted that Congress had no authority to limit slavery in the territories and upheld the doctrine of popular sovereignty.

Benton's influence remained strong enough to thwart Jackson’s runs for Congress in 1853 and 1855. Despite these setbacks, Jackson maintained strong political ties within the Democratic Party, and he was appointed Missouri's first state bank commissioner in 1857. In this position, Jackson orchestrated a reorganization of the state's banking system after a nationwide economic panic.

Stymied in his attempts to get elected to Congress, Jackson began actively campaigning for the Democratic nomination for governor. Although he remained staunchly supportive of Southern rights, his moderate stance earned him more broad-based support. In August of 1860, Jackson won a narrow victory over Constitutional Unionist Sample Orr and two other candidates.

Historical Significance

With Abraham Lincoln's presidential victory in 1860, Jackson's moderate stance changed. He believed the new federal government to be firmly opposed to slavery's extension and hostile to Southern rights. In Jackson’s inaugural address in January 1861, he defended the actions of seceded states, labeled Northern states as aggressors, and called on Missouri to stand by its Southern neighbors.

A state convention proposed by Jackson decided against seceding and adopted resolutions calling for state neutrality. Delegates also made it clear that this stance could change in the face of coercion.

With secession not yet a dead issue, Jackson organized the state militia, proposed a bill to give the governor sweeping powers to arm the state, sent agents to the Confederate government to procure arms, and arranged for militia members to raid the federal arsenal at Liberty, Missouri.

The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. In response, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers. Shortly thereafter, Jackson wrote privately to the president of Arkansas's state convention to say that Missouri would be ready to secede in 30 days.

Jackson ordered the state militia to assemble on May 3, 1861, in encampments throughout Missouri. Seven days later, on May 10, 1861, Capt. Nathaniel Lyon broke up one such assembly on the outskirts of St. Louis. Using federal troops, Lyon captured the militia and its officers, which resulted in two days of rioting in St. Louis (the so-called Camp Jackson Affair). In response, the legislature immediately passed Gov. Jackson's long-debated military bill, dividing the state into military districts and authorizing enlistments for the new Missouri State Guard. Gov. Jackson named Sterling Price, a military hero and former governor, as commander.

Urged by several of the state's leading moderates, Gov. Jackson and Price requested a meeting with Lyon and Francis Preston Blair, Jr., a Union supporter and U.S. congressman from Missouri. The meeting failed to result in a compromise; in fact, Lyon peremptorily ended the meeting by declaring war on the state. Believing that Missourians would now see the federal government as coercive aggressors and that a new secession convention would authorize withdrawal from the Union, Jackson hastened back to Jefferson City.

Within 24 hours of Jackson's call on June 12, 1861, for men to defend the state, Lyon captured Jefferson City, forcing Jackson and other pro-Southern legislators to flee to Boonville. When Lyon pursued, Gov. Jackson ordered his troops to fight. In a brief engagement, the federal troops easily routed the new Missouri State Guard, sending them in a headlong flight toward the southwestern corner of the state.

Gov. Jackson soon left Missouri to secure support from the Confederate Army and government. When Confederate Pres. Jefferson Davis promised financial aid for Missouri troops, Gov. Jackson returned to Missouri, and on August 5, 1861, issued a proclamation declaring Missouri an independent and sovereign state. After the Battle of Wilson's Creek several days later in southwest Missouri, Jackson called a special session of the General Assembly in Neosho. Delegates passed a provisional ordinance of secession and authorized relations with the Confederacy. In November 1861, the Confederate government formally recognized Missouri as its 12th state, but the state remained in Union control for the remainder of the war.

In the spring of 1862, Jackson accompanied Price and the Missouri Army into Arkansas, where they fought at the Battle of Pea Ridge. The Confederate defeat ended the chance of reclaiming Missouri, and Jackson retreated.

Although Missouri is not generally included among states that seceded, the state did attempt to secede from the Union. However, both the proclamation declaring Missouri a sovereign state as well as the ordinance of secession passed in November 1861 have raised legal and historical questions.

After Jackson and other elected officials fled Jefferson City, their seats were declared vacant, and Hamilton Gamble was installed as the new governor. This occurred before Jackson declared Missouri a sovereign state, raising the question of whether Jackson had the legal authority to make the declaration. Furthermore, accounts differ about whether a quorum was reached at the special session in Neosho, which resulted in the ordinance of secession.