Enforcing a Vision of Community: The Role of the Test Oath in Missouri's Reconstruction

Enforcing a Vision of Community: The Role of the Test Oath in Missouri's Reconstruction Martha Kohl From June 1865 t? December 1870, before being allowed to cast a ballot, every Missouri voter had to swear that he had never engaged in armed rebellion against the United States, given "aid, comfort, countenance or support to persons engaged in any such hostility," or, "except under overpowering compulsion , submitted to the authority ... of the so-called 'Confederate States of America.' " Enforced with a strict system of voter registration, this test oath disfranchised an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 Missourians, a quarter to a third of the voting population of the state.' Enacted by an 1 865 constitutional convention dominated by Radical Republicans , Missouri's test oath was one of the most severe and comprehensive disAversion ofthis paper was given atthe Missouri Conference on History, Columbia, Missouri, April ??-i ? , 1992. The paper was completed during a three-month leave, granted to me by the Missouri Historical Society, St Louis. I am grateful for their support. The staffs of the Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia (WHMC), the Missouri State Archives, and the Missouri Historical Society all went out of their way to help me, especially MSA's Patsy Leubbert and MHS's Martha Clevenger, who doubled as a translator. I am also grateful to the following people: Iver Bernstein, Daniel and Seena Kohl, Lynn Johnson, Vicky Vaughn Johnson, Jonathan March, William Parrish, Rose Passalacqua, Gerda Ray, Ania Wertz, LeeAnn Whites, Kenneth Winn, and Geoffrey Wyatt. Most ofthem read at least one version ofthis paper, and all ofthem offered valuable advice, which was recognized as such, even when it was not taken. 'Constitution of the State ofMissouri, 1865, art. 2, sect. 3, Washington University, St. Louis (hereafter cited as WU). According to Thomas S. Barclay, The Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri, 1865-1871 (Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1926), Democrats insisted that from 50,000 to 70,000 men were excluded from voting, while Liberal Republicans estimated the number was closer to 25,000 (206); Barclay believed the editor ofthe St. Louis Missouri Democrat 's estimate of 35,000. William Parrish estimates the number to be closer to 50,000. (History ofMissouri, Volume 3: 1860-1875 [Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1973], 245). In 1868, the year registration was most strictly enforced, 154,080 voters cast their ballots. William Parrish, Missouri Under Radical Rule, 1865-1870 (Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1965), 307. On the use oftest oaths generally, see Harold Hyman. The Era ofthe Oath: Northern Loyalty Tests During the Civil War and Reconstruction (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1954), 37. Civil War History, Vol. XL, No. 4 © 1994 by the Kent State University Press THE ROLE OF THE TEST OATH293 franchising measures in the nation. Explanations for the disfranchisement of Confederate sympathizers in Missouri have emphasized the Radicals' desire for power and vengeance, portraying them as vindictive men of "a highly partisan bent . . . [who] seized power with the determination to hold on to it by any and every means at their disposal." Certainly, Radical politicians found the oath an effective means of retaining power. Only disfranchisement allowed them to keep control of state government in 1866 and 1868. Moreover, some Radical Republican supporters of the test oath did seek vengeance. In many areas, where once had stood farmhouses and well-cultivated fields, travelers found nothing but scorched earth, and the war's victors blamed the losers for the desolation oftheir towns and the deaths of their family members and friends.2 However, the denial of suffrage was more than a punitive, partisan act. Radical Republicans were also engaged in a project to transform Missouri into a truly Northern state, and disfranchisement was one mechanism they believed would help them do so. They hoped to use the test oath to excommunicate from the political community those who had supported secession. Exiled from the world ofpolitics, Confederate sympathizers would leave Missouri. At the same time, industrious immigrants from the northeast United States and western Europe, attracted by Missouri's repudiation of the South—as symbolized by Confederate disfranchisement and the elevation of African Americans from slavery to citizenship—would flock to the state...