We return now from this peculiar and important transaction, unexpectedly thrust upon the attention of the Convention from without, to notice that, by the time it had fairly begun its work in St. Louis, the secession legislature which had created it, repented of what it had unwittingly wisely done, and began to agitate the question whether it had the power to repeal the ordinance that called the Convention into being, and thus permanently dissolve it. They saw of course that the Convention was not of their way of thinking. They refused to vote the necessary means for the publication of its proceedings. Mr. Foster of the Convention said in debate, “Although the legislature of Missouri called this body into existence, yet, sir, its complexion so very materially differs from the complexion of the legislative body, that, if they had the power, in my judgment, they would crush us out of existence to-day.” To the Union men of St. Louis and the State this growing antagonism of the two law-making bodies was a cheering symptom. The legislature, however, soon learned from its legal advisers that it could not efface the wisdom into which it had blindly blundered; that the chicken which it had so fondly hatched and fostered into maturity could not be put back into the shell again; that, in short, there was no political power in Missouri superior to the sovereign Convention which it had evoked into being, and which was now calmly and wisely deliberating in the great commercial city of the State. All parties were finally convinced that though the legislature had created the Convention, it could not destroy it. So the work of this sovereign body moved on undisturbed. On the eighth day of its sittings the Committee on Federal Relations reported through its chairman. In their report the Committee, with but partial success, detailed the political events which led to the secession of the Cotton States, and had raised the question of secession in the remaining slave States. But they presented with cumulative force many cogent reasons why Missouri should not follow her erring sisters in seceding from the Union, and finally crystallized their recommendations on the whole subject of secession in seven resolutions, the first and chief of which was, “That at present there is no adequate cause to impel Missouri to dissolve her connection with the Federal Union.” This resolution seems to us now tame and timid. But a more sweeping and positive resolution could not have been carried through the Convention. Its very weakness was its strength. Its apparent obeisance to the doctrine of secession made it acceptable to many conditional Union men. When the loyal men of St. Louis heard it, they were lifted up with hope.