Postbellum Career
Marmaduke returned home to Missouri and settled in St. Louis. He worked briefly for an insurance company, whose ethics he found contrary to his own. He then edited an agricultural journal, and publicly accused the railroads of discriminatory pricing against local farmers. The governor soon appointed Marmaduke to the state's first Rail Commission.
Marmaduke decided to enter politics, but lost the 1880 Democratic nomination for governor to former Union general Thomas T. Crittenden, who had strong support and financial backing from the railroads. Undeterred, Marmaduke campaigned four years later for Governor of Missouri at a time when public opinion had changed, and railroad reform and regulation became more in vogue. Marmaduke conducted a campaign which apologetically emphasized his Confederate service, emphasized alleged abuses of Missourians by Union troops during the Civil War, celebrated the activities of pro-Confederate "partisan guerrillas" such as William Clark Quantrill, claimed that the Republican Party in Missouri a tool of "Carpetbaggers" to oppress "native" Missourians, and made overt appeals to white racism. Ironically, considering Marmaduke's "Confederate-focused" campaigning, he was elected on a platform (officially) focused on cooperation between former Unionists and Confederates, promising an agenda which would produce a "New Missouri".
He settled potentially crippling railroad strikes in 1885 and 1886. The following year, Marmaduke pushed laws through the state legislature that finally began regulating the state's railway industry. Marmaduke also dramatically boosted the state's funding of public schools, with nearly a full third of the annual budget allocated to education. He never married, and his two nieces served as hostesses at the Governor's Mansion.
Like his great-grandfather, Marmaduke died while serving as governor. He contracted pneumonia late in 1887 and died in Jefferson City. He was buried in the City Cemetery.
Marmaduke, Arkansas, in Greene County is named for John S. Marmaduke.
His younger brother, Henry Hungerford Marmaduke, served in the Confederate Navy, was captured and was imprisoned on Johnson's Island. He later served the federal government in negotiations with South American nations. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Two other Marmaduke brothers died in the Civil War.
Read more about this topic: John S. Marmaduke
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