Stewart As Governor
Governor Stewart championed the founding of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad in northern Missouri, which resulted in the creation of the Pony Express and the rise of Kansas City, Missouri as a metropolitan region. He also had to deal with the Bloody Kansas border skirmishes of that time.
When Stewart left office in January 1861, he urged Missouri to adopt an armed neutrality in the impending Civil War and not to provide men or arms to either side, though his own preference was for preserving the Union. In his final message as governor, he said:
- As matters are at present Missouri will stand by her lot, and hold to the Union as long as it is worth an effort to preserve it... In the mean time Missouri will hold herself in readiness, at any moment, to defend her soil from pollution and her property from plunder by fanatics and marauders, come from what quarter they may... She is able to take care of herself, and will be neither forced nor flattered, driven nor coaxed, into a course of action that must end in her own destruction.
Read more about this topic: Robert Marcellus Stewart
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