When Lincoln's Secretary of War Simon Cameron requested Missouri Governor Claiborne Jackson provide troops for the Union invasion, this was the Governors reply:
"Sir, Your dispatch of the 15th instant, making a call on Missouri for four regiments of men for immediate service, has been received. There can be, I apprehend, no doubt that the men are intended to form a part of the President's army to make war upon the people of the seceded States. Your requisition, in my judgement, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, inhuman, diabolical and cannot be complied with. Not one man will the State of Missouri furnish to carry on any unholy crusade."
An epic response.
