After abandoning the Jefferson City and being replaced by a pro-Union Provisional Government, Claiborne Fox Jackson called Missouri’s legislators into assembly in September 1861. The Assembly met at the Newton County Courthouse in Neosho, Missouri, on October 21 with the mission to formally secede from the Union.
The gathering at Neosho was surrounded by controversy. The legality of the assembly, and thus, its resolution to secede, hinges on the presence of a quorum of legislators. Little documentary evidence from the assembly exists. Only this Senate Journal survives, and it does not include a roll of members present. On October 21, M. C. Goodlett, (a senator representing the 15th District of Jefferson, St. Genevieve and St. Francois Counties and later colonel in the Missouri State Guard) motioned to dispense with the roll call. The only motions the following day were to fill vacancies in committees. The legislature spent a full week organizing itself, no doubt trying to assemble enough members to make their proceedings legal while failing to record the roll call.
Regardless, legislators passed an ordinance of secession on October 28, citing numerous constitutional violations committed by Union authorities. The Assembly elected representatives to the Confederate Congress, and sent papers to Richmond. On November 28, 1861 Missouri became the twelfth state to enter the Confederacy.
The original Senate Journal includes entries from October 21 through November 7, 1861.
