Background
Hamilton Rowan Gamble was born on November 29, 1798, in Winchester, Virginia. He was the son of Irish immigrants, Joseph Gamble and Anne Hamilton.
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Hamilton Rowan Gamble was born on November 29, 1798, in Winchester, Virginia. He was the son of Irish immigrants, Joseph Gamble and Anne Hamilton.
Gamble was educated at Hampden-Sidney College.
Admitted to the Virginia bar at eighteen, Gamble followed the familiar course westward, arriving in the Territory of Missouri in 1818.
After successful administration of a judicial office, he served as secretary of state but retired to devote his entire time and attention to his profession.
Reentering politics in 1846, he served one term in the legislature, refusing a second term.
From 1851 to 1854, he served as the presiding justice, his opinions being marked by brevity, learning, and conservatism. In the case of Scott, a Man of Color vs. Emerson, Dred Scott’s first unsuccessful suit for freedom, he rendered a dissenting opinion, holding that “a master who takes his slave to reside in a State or Territory where slavery is prohibited, thereby emancipates his slave”.
This view was in accord with eight earlier Missouri precedents. In 1854, he resigned because of ill health and definitely retired from political and professional life, removing to Norristown, near Philadelphia.
Early in 1861, the political situation became so critical in Missouri that Gamble returned to that state and declared that “going out of the Union would be the most ruinous thing Missouri could do. ”
He was elected in February a member of the state convention, called to consider the relation of the state to the Union. In this body, he was the leader of the Conditional Unionists, those who favored compromise and who refused to pledge the state to secession.
He was chairman of the committee on federal relations, whose report declaring that “there is at present no adequate cause to impel Missouri to dissolve her connection with the Federal Union” was adopted by the convention.
In June 1861, upon the flight of the secessionist state officials, the convention assumed constituent powers, declared vacant the administrative and legislative offices, and selected Gamble as provisional governor.
He organized two separate forces of the militia and secured from the Lincoln administration money and equipment to sustain them.
His health had long been frail, and in January 1864, after a short illness, he died.
Gamble was a recognized authority in important land and title suits and had extensive practice before the state and federal appellate courts. Despite obvious mistakes, his administration of the provisional government had succeeded in its chief objectives. The supremacy of the federal government had been maintained in Missouri; the state had been saved for the Union; free labor had definitely triumphed over slavery.
The Whig state convention of 1850, insisted upon nominating Gamble for the supreme bench, and Gamble was elected by a large majority in a Democratic state.
Despite the dangerous conflicts of opinion over military policy, he was able in 1863 truthfully to say that no successful invasion of the state had occurred and that lawlessness and disorder had been materially reduced.
He was unable, however, to solve the most difficult problem with which the provisional government had to deal, that of emancipation. By the end of 1862, the Unionist party in Missouri had divided into two bitterly hostile factions which respectively advocated and opposed the immediate abolition of slavery.
Gamble, essentially conservative, in his message of December 30, 1862, discussed in general terms a plan for gradual, compensated emancipation which he recommended to the consideration of the legislature.
When in the following year the convention adopted a gradual emancipation plan, the Radicals, open in their opposition to Gamble, denounced it and demanded the Governor’s resignation.
He was willing to resign, but would not be forced out of office, and he was supported by men of moderate views.
In 1827, Gamble was married to Caroline J. Coalter.
21 May 1755 -17 January 1833
21 May 1760 - 15 September 1840
14 January 1794 - 12 September 1866
13 April 1788 - 27 August 1861
27 March 1800 - 12 June 1864
31 March 1843 - 19 April 1924
11 November 1837 - 11 April 1877
16 September 1844 - 4 May 1909
