The greater part of the population of those States was radically opposed to the secession movement, but became powerless under the noisy, political leaders who assumed the control.

Many of these men, who were Unionists in the beginning, were drawn into the Rebel ranks on the plea that it would be treason to refuse to do what their State Government had decided upon.
The delegates to the Missouri State Convention were elected in February, 1861, and assembled at St.Louis in the following April.
Sterling Price, afterward a Rebel general, was president of this Convention, and spoke in favor of keeping the State in the Union.

The Convention thought it injudicious for Missouri to secede, at least at that time, and therefore she was not taken out.

This discomfited the prime movers of the secession schemes, as they had counted upon the Convention doing the desired work.

In the language of one of their own number, "they had called a Convention to take the State out of the Union, and she must be taken out at all hazards." Therefore a new line of policy was adopted.
The Governor of Missouri was one of the most active and unscrupulous Secessionists.