Charles Scheppers
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
Missouri's Bicentennial is 2020. If you wait until 2021, you'll be a year late to celebrate. The date is worthy of study as it directly affects current events, the direction and continuity of a nation. The controversy over Missouri's admission to statehood was based on principles which to this day are wholly misunderstood and therefore cause unending civil unrest.
Missouri had fully complied in 1820 with the procedure set out by Congress for admission as a state. Missouri sent its senators and representatives to Congress in the fall of 1820; however, Congress refused to seat them. Correspondence went back and forth, Congress demanding and Missouri contesting. Nothing in Missouri's origin was inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the nation as it existed. Nothing was inconsistent with the constitutions of her sister states. Nothing of any substance in the heated dialog changed from 1820 to 1821. Only Congress' interference with the sovereignty of those who created government in the first place casts doubt on the date of origin of Missouri as a state.
Picking one year or the other shows the perspective one has on the sovereignty of a people and the role of government. People back then knew where this issue was heading. Missouri rejected the 1821 date of admission within a short time. Prima Facie evidence of this exists, can be seen quite often and in many places. If only the brain perceived what the eyes see. Can you find it?
Socialists get up every morning and work on their agenda all day. What puzzles me, the people who have the most to lose, civilization itself, do not care to study who they are, what they had, why it is important and how it is slipping away. Has anyone ever read the Constitution of the State of Missouri (1820)? Where is the "free and independent republic, by the name of The State of Missouri" going? Your personal investigation makes the lesson better learned.