Hamilton Rowan Gamble

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lincoln's Resolute Unionist: Hamilton Gamble, Dred Scott Dissenter And Missouri's Civil War Governor by Dennis K. Boman

Hamilton Rowan Gamble (November 26, 1798 - January 31, 1864) was a chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court who issued a dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott Decision and the provisional governor of Missouri after Union forces captured Jefferson City, Missouri during the American Civil War.

[edit] Dred Scott Decision

Gamble was born in Winchester, Virginia. In 1818, Hamilton Gamble joined his brother Archibald Gamble in St. Louis, Missouri. He became prosecuting attorney of the Circuit Court of Howard County, Missouri.

In 1824 he was appointed secretary of state by Frederick Bates he moved to the first capital at St. Charles, Missouri.

Hamilton Gamble married Caroline J. Coalter from Columbia, South Carolina, in 1827. She was sister to the wife of Edward Bates who was later President Abraham Lincoln’s attorney general during the Civil War.

In 1846, he was elected to the Missouri Supreme Court (Whig Party) where he became chief justice almost immediately. Although a slave owner he dissented in the Missouri portion of what went on to become the Dred Scott Decision being quoted at the time that he did not feel courts should legislate.

He resigned his judgeship in 1855 due to failing health, and in 1858 moved to Pennsylvania.

[edit] Provisional Governor

When the Civil War began, Missouri stuck to a policy of armed neutrality in which the state vowed not to support either side in the war and stay in the Union (a policy which was agreed to by both sides in the Price-Harney Truce). However, the policy changed when Union General Nathaniel Lyon replaced William Harney as commander of the Department of the West.

Lyon began military actions to evict elected Governor Claiborne Jackson after Jackson refused to send troops to the Union cause. Lyon captured Jefferson City, Missouri in late July forcing Governor Jackson and the state government to flee. Lyon then convened a puppet constitutional convention in the state capital.

The convention declared the governor's office vacant and elected Gamble governor of the provisional government of Missouri on August 1.

Although Gamble was considered by pro-Southernors as an unelected puppet of the Union, he did fight against harsh treatment of the state particularly the Fremont Emancipation which freed the state's slaves in 1861 and imposed martial law on the state. Abraham Lincoln was to agree to Gamble's requests to rescind the emancipation and removal of Fremont.

Gamble was to die in office due to complications from a broken arm and resulting infection after an earlier fall.

[edit] References

Mohistory.org profile
Lincoln's Resolute Unionist: Hamilton Gamble, Dred Scott Dissenter And Missouri's Civil War Governor by Dennis K. Boman ISBN 0-8071-3164-4 Louisiana State University Press (June 2006)