Missouri's courts, like the rest of the state, underwent much upheaval during the turbulent years of the Civil War. From 1861 through 1863, government officials who sympathized with the pro-secessionist southern states were replaced by those who were Unionists.

In February 1861, the legislature called for a state convention, which decided Missouri would stay in the Union. Missouri's governor at the time, however, sympathized with the southern states. After the Civil War broke out in April 1861, and despite the state convention's decision otherwise, the governor decided Missouri should secede from the union and attempted to take over the armory at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. Following a series of skirmishes, the governor fled the state capitol in June 1861, just ahead of Union troops occupying Jefferson City. Two additional state conventions followed that year – one beginning in July and another beginning in October. 

The July 1861 convention declared the governor had forfeited his right to office by resisting federal forces, removed the members of the executive and legislative branches of state government, and established a Union-backed provisional government to be led by Hamilton Gamble, a former state Supreme Court judge and convention leader.

During the October 1861 convention, delegates adopted an ordinance "testing the loyalty of civil officers" and authorizing Governor Gamble to appoint new officials to replace any who did not file the new required oath. During this time, courts were suspended, government buildings were burned, and a number of judges – including the Supreme Court’s three judges at the time, Ephraim Brevard Ewing, William Barclay Napton and William Scott – vacated their offices after refusing to take the new loyalty oath within the designated time required.

In January 1862, Governor Gamble appointed three new judges to fill the vacancies on the Supreme Court of Missouri: Barton Bates, William Van Ness Bay and John D.S. Dryden. Five months later, during yet another state constitutional convention, delegates defined the qualifications of voters and civil officers in Missouri and, again, required them to take a loyalty oath. The following summer, another constitutional convention called for an election to be held in November 1863. During this election, Judges Bates, Bay and Dryden were elected to serve full terms on the Court.

Beginning early 1865, delegates to another constitutional convention drafted a new state constitution, ratified by voters in June 1865, that took a hard line on the issues that had divided the nation during the Civil War. As part of their process, the convention delegates adopted several ordinances into the new constitution, including two passed in January 1865. The first abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in Missouri and, for all persons being held as slaves, declared them free. The second ordinance prohibited anyone from binding emancipated persons into apprenticeships. 

The 1865 state constitution also included an “ironclad” loyalty oath required of all Missourians who wished to vote, teach, be trustee of a corporation – or hold public office – to swear they never had supported the Confederate States in any way or even spoken in favor of it. Specifically, the oath stated:

There were clear consequences for refusing to take the "ironclad oath." In addition to losing the right to vote, the 1865 constitution required that everyone holding public office in the state "shall take and subscribe to said oath" within 60 days of the constitution taking effect and that, if anyone failed to do so, "his office ... shall ... become vacant." The constitution further prohibited anyone from assuming the duties of any state, county, city or other office – or to practice as an attorney, religious leader or teacher – without first taking the loyalty oath.

To help enforce the provisions of the constitution and its "ironclad oath," the state convention passed a third ordinance stating that all judicial offices – from the Supreme Court of Missouri through all local court judges, and their clerks – along with the offices of all circuit attorneys and their assistants, all sheriffs, and all county recorders "shall be vacated" on May 1, 1865, with the remaining terms of office to be filled by appointment of the governor.

Of the three Supreme Court judges appointed and then elected to replace those ousted under the prior loyalty oath, Judge Bates resigned early, in February 1865. Despite the ordinance vacating their offices as a matter of law, Judges Bay and Dryden refused to leave. In June 1865, Governor Thomas C. Fletcher demanded they vacate their positions under the ousting ordinance. When they refused to do so, they were removed by force and taken to the St. Louis recorder's court, where the governor issued a complaint against them for "disturbing the peace by interference with the Supreme Court." 

The United States Supreme Court eventually found such oaths unconstitutional, and in 1870, Missouri voters adopted an amendment removing the loyalty oath requirement from their state constitution. 

All images: Cover of and excerpts from the Constitution of the State of Missouri, as Revised, Amended and Adopted in Convention, 1865, Together with the Ordinances of Said Convention (Jefferson City, Missouri: Emory C. Foster, Public Printer, 1865). Google Books.