RICE UNIVERSITY

WITH HESITANT RESOLVE: MOVES TOWARD SECESSION AND WAR

BY

JAMES WOODS

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE

MASTER OF ARTS

Dr.. Frank E. Vandiver

Houston, ABSTRACT

This work surveys the history of ante-bellum Arkansas until the

passage of the Ordinance of Secession on May 6, 186i. The first three

chapters deal with the social, economic, and politicai development of

the state prior to 1860. Arkansas experienced difficult, yet substantial

.social and economic growth during the ame-belium era; its percentage of

population increase outstripped five other frontier states in similar stages

of development. Its growth was nevertheless hampered by the unsettling

presence of the on its western border, which helped to

prolong a lawless stage. An unreliable transportation system and a ruinous

banking policy also stalled Arkansas's economic progress. On the political

scene a family dynasty controlled state politics from 1830 to 186u, a'situation

without parallel throughout the ante-bellum South.

A major part of this work concentrates upon Arkansas's politics from 1859

to 1861. In a most important siate election in 1860, the dynasty met defeat

through an open revolt from within its ranks led by a shrewd and ambitious

Congressman, Thomas Hindman. Hindman turned the contest into a class

conflict, portraying the dynasty's leadership as "aristocrats" and "Bourbons."

Because of Hindman's support, Arkansans chose its first governor not hand¬

picked by the dynasty. By this election the people handed gubernatorial

power to an ineffectual political novice during a time oi great sectional

crisis. In the Presidential race of 1860, Hindman and the dynasty joined

in an uneasy alliance to carry Arkansas for Breckinridge, the most radical -ii- pro-southern candidate. In voting for Brecxinridge, the state expressed its belief in slavery and its legitimate expansion into the territories.

With Lincoln's election, the question of secession rearranged traditional political alignments , and a geo-political division between a secessionist- southeastern Arkansas against a Unionist northwestern region emerged. These new alignments became evident in February, 1861, with the election •*. of delegates to the Secession Convention. So heated did these geo-political differences become that there was talk of splitting Arkansas in half. Until Fort Sumter the state refused to secede, but once war became inevitable, Arkansas's cultural, geographical, economic, and political ties to the South proved too strong to ignore. Arkansas became the ninth state to secede from the Union on May 6, 1861. While narrating Arkansas's political history until secession, particular attention is given the regional, racial, and class antagonisms present within the state during the great national crisis of 1860-61. James Woods ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While I do not know if acknowledgments are proper academic

etiquette m a Master's thesis, I feel compelled to express my gratitude

to a few oi the many people who have nelped me on this project. I

would like to thank Dr. Frank E. Vandiver, Dr. Sanford Higginbotham,

-.and Dr. Allan J. Matusow, all of Rice University, for their advice and

suggestions.

Special thanks are also due to Dr. John B. Boies, now of Tulane

University, and Dr. C. Fred Williams of the at

Little Rock. Dr. Walter L. Brown of the University of Arkansas at

Fayetteville gave me some valuable information on Arkansas from the

Census. Dr. June R. Welch of the University of Dallas encouraged'me

early in this project and throughout my academic career.

Outside academia, many people have aided in the completion of

this thesis. My mother laboriously typed the early drafts. Mrs. Kerry

Harrison typed its final form. My father was a sharp and constructive

critic of my writing style. John W. Sanders III and Fred Sexton nelped

me with my calculations. Mrs. Margaret Ross of the Arkansas Gazette

Foundation Library gave advice and loaned me rare materials. Special

thanks should also go to the staff of the Arkansas History Commission

in Little Rock who were patient with my many requests and inquiries. • I also want personally to thank Miss Becky Williams for praying for me, encouraging me, and for preparing an illustration for the Appendix. I am also grateful to other friends and acquaintances who helped me in small ways throughout these many months.

James Woods TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Social and Economic Development of Ante- Bellum Arkansas Page 1

Chapter 2 Origins of Arkansas Politics: The Foundation of a Dynasty, 1819-49 Page 22

Chapter 3 Challenged, Yet Never Conquered: Family Rule, 1849-59 Page 35

Chapter 4 Beyond His Merest and Most Sanguine Hopes: Thomas Hindman and the Defeat of the Dynasty, 1859-1860 Page 50

Chapter 5 The People of Arkansas Are with the South: State Politics During the Presidential Election of 1860 Page 76

Chapter 6 Secession Splits the State: Arkansas Politics from Lincoln's Election to His Inauguration, 1860-61 Page 100

Chapter 7 "Coerced" into Secession: Arkansas and the Union, March - May 6, 1861 Page 122

Conclusion Page 147

Footnotes

Bibliography INTRODUCTION

In 1970 the noted historian, William Freehling, wrote a review of editor

George Reese’s Proceedings of the State Convention. In this essay

Freehling suggested themes of "internal conflicts" and "sectional-class division" within the seceding southern states. Freehling argued that disunion in the

South sprang from a "fear that the border planters would sell out, that non-slaveholding whites would turn against the institution if they had no freed Negroes to worry about, that the cotton South and border South were 1 two different lands." Freehling called for an "editorial revolution" by scholars in order to focus on "the social and class divisions of the Old

South . . . only such analysis can explain the profound suspicion between the Deep South and border South, between eastern and western Virginia, between planters and non-slaveholders which are so evident in the Virginia 2 Secession Convention."

Freehling's essay has apparently had some influence in historiography, for two works have appeared since 1970, one on the disunionism in the middle Atlantic states, and the other a major study of the secession 3 movement by Michael Johnson. Emory Thomas of the says, in a review of Johnson’s book: "Toward a Patriarchal Republic is an important book. Johnson's emphasis upon Georgia's internal conflict and its influence upon secession adds a necessary dimension to the understanding 4 of the secession process in Georgia and elsewhere." -II-

In this study of the secession movement in Arkansas, I have endeavored to follow the suggestions of Freehling and the example of Johnson in studying the internal conflicts within Arkansas's politics immediately before and during the great national crisis of 1860-1861. These political struggles reflected the social, cultural, economic, and class diversities present within Arkansas at the end of the ante-bellum era. Like states of the upper South, Arkansas experienced a plantation slaveholding regime in the lowlands, as well as a mostly non-slaveholding small farmer society in the mountains. While both Delta and upland Arkansas consistently supported the political and moral legitimacy of slavery, suspicious antagonisms persisted between the two *regions. These became most, acute after Lincoln's election in 1860, when the .... state finally faced the secession question head-on. Since historical movements have not been understood without background information on social, economic, and political factors, a substantial portion of this paper deals with these themes. In the half century before 1860,

Arkansas experienced steady but difficult growth. (See Chapter 1.) On the eve of the war, the state had begun to emerge as one of the major cotton

; producers, and a railroad and a telegraph line had made their appearance. Territorial Arkansas saw the rise of a political dynasty which controlled every branch of state government through statehood until the eve of the Civil War. (See Chapters 2 and 3.) -III-

The four remaining chapters focus on the two political crises in Arkansass politics between 1859-1861. Internally, the state's political dynasty faced a dangerous threat to its rule when a revolt broke out within its ranks led by the shrewd and ambitious Thomas C. Hindman. In these, the final stormy years oi ante-bellum Arkansas, Hindman always played a central role. Outside the state, the nation was splitting apart over slavery, forcing Arkansas to choose its true allegiance to the Union or to the South. Arkansas would not make her decision until three weeks after hostilities had begun. This work seeks to shed new light on Arkansas's road to secession by emphasizing the social and class conflicts and the geographical differences that played a major role in state politics just prior to.the nation's greatest ordeal. One final note of explanation is necessary with respect to the title of this work, "With Hesitant Resolve: Arkansas Moves Toward Secession and War." It is not easy to find an expression that can adequately and succinctly summarize the complexity of Arkansas's move out of the Union.

On the one hand, the word "hesitant" suggests doubt, caution, and un¬ certainty, while "resolve" infers strength, assurance, and determination. If these terms are contradictory, so too was the state's posture during the secession crisis of 1860-61. The state loved the old Union, and refused to secede because she did not want to precipitate its breaicup. At the same time, the state was fully resolved to preserve slavery, and the sacred ideal of state's rights. The latter was regarded as fundamental to the retention of "white-folks'" democracy in Arkansas. This state -IV- voted for Breckinridge in 1860 to express its belief in the legitimacy of slavery; it then refused to secede upon Lincoln’s election because of its great love for the Union.

When it became evident that hesitation would not bring resolution of the sectional conflict, Arkansas naturally followed in the footsteps of her seceding sister-states of the South. She did this without hesitation because of slavery and because of her economic and cultural links to the lower South. It must also be remembered that Arkansas, like Virginia, , and , did not move toward secession only, but to war as well. When these four states passed their ordinances of disunion, they, held no illusions about peaceful secession. They knew that war had already befalled this great nation. If this title suggests contradiction,-one must remember that Arkansas and the other states of the upper South contain contrasting regions which produced both lowland and mountain cultures. The road to secession in Arkansas was difficult and complex, but also understandable. CHAPTER 1

The Social and Economic Development of Ante-Bellum Arkansas

Near the end of 1860 the leading magazine of the old South, DeBow's

Review, based in , made note of the growth of Arkansas:

nThe census of 1860 is likely to present the state of Arkansas as a place whose progress in the last ten years has been remarkable. For a long period of time, the soil, climate, and vast resources of that state remained unknown. Rather for a species of savage chivalry and unlettered independence was it celebrated, than for anything which could make it 'specially attractive to immigrants. ... We rejoice in the evidences ot prosperity shown by our neighbor and have no fear she will advance in the future beyond any calculations based upon the past."*

Although the prophetic part of that statement remained unfulfilled for the

next century, the editor's comment accurately and succinctly summed up

the development of Arkansas during the latter part of the ante-bellum era.

Arkansas was and indeed is a land of fertile soil and congenial climate.

What would later become the state of Arkansas was first incorporated into

the as a part of the Purchase. The first census

in the area came in 1810 beiore Arkansas had become a separate territory.

At that time the Census Bureau found only two main areas of settlement:

the near the junction of the Arkansas and Rivers,

and the St. Francis and Hopefield settlements in eastern Arkansas, the latter

settlement just across the from the high bluffs of Memphis,

Tennessee. The census showed a white population within Arkansas of 924, 2 with 136 slaves and two persons who were free blacks. When Louisiana -2-

obtained statehood in i812, Arkansas became a district in the new territory and so remained until Missouri applied for sxatehood m 1819. On

March 2, 1819, President signed the bill creating the as of July 4th of that year . Boundaries for the new territory on the north, east and south make lip the present outline of the state of Arkansas. At first, Arkansas’s northern boundary was to be 36° 3u’ from the Mississippi River onward. Yet, through the influence of the New Madrid township and a wealthy and influential farmer, J. Hardeman Williams, the Missouri territorial legislature was persuaded to let the southeastern boundary of Missouri dip down to 30 degrees north. Thus Arkansas's northern boundary is 3 slightly irregular to this day. On the west, the Arkansas territory initially included almost all of the present state of Oklahoma, but treaties with the in 1825 and the Cherokee in 1828 reduced Arkansas to 4 its present size. Arkansas’s geographical features are worth noting, for they in¬ fluence its economic, social and political development. Arkansas is almost equally divided between a lowland region known geologically as the Gulf Coastal Plain, and an upland area called the Interior High¬ lands. About 52 percent of the land area of Arkansas is part of the coastal plain which is divided into the Mississippi Alluvial and west -3-

Gulf Coastal Plain. (See #9 and #8 in Fig. 1 in the Appendix.) Slicing through the Alluvial region is Crowley's Ridge, an uneroded section that once split the channel of the Mississippi River. The Father of

Waters eventually changed course, but now just west of Crowley's Ridge

is the St. Francis River Basin which is a remnant of a western channel 5 of the Mississippi. The mountainous regions are divided neatly into two main provinces, the and the Ouachita. The Ozark Province

covers the extreme north and northeentral portions of the state, while

the Ouachitas are in the central western section of the state. (See

Fig. 1 in the Appendix, Nos. 1-7). "Sandwiched between the two

provinces, but a part of the Ouachita's, is a gentle undulating plain 6 about forty miles in width, known as the Arkansas Valley."

These geophysical divisions molded the agricultural development of

Arkansas which would come to influence future political patterns. Flat

and fertile, eastern and southern Arkansas lured slaveholding cotton

farmers from the older regions of the lower South. Cotton commanded

high prices on world markets but it also rapidly depleted the soil,

sending ante-bellum Southerners westward in search of virgin lands.

Crossing the Mississippi, these migrants planted the cotton economy 7 and the institution of slavery into the . (The full

effects of cotton and slavery in ante-bellum Arkansas will be discussed

later in this chapter.) -4-

In the mountainous regions of Arkansas the story is different because those regions supported different crops and invited settlers from other mountain regions of the upper South. Frank Owsley, the eminent historian of the common people of the Old South, pointed out that the average immigrant sought out "a country as nearly as possible like the one in which he formerly lived in matters of soil, rainfall, tempera- 8 ture, and appearance." Such a disposition would be only natural, for humans look for new surroundings that resemble the land and environment they left. Into the Ozark and Ouachita mountains came settlers from the rugged 9 regions of Virginia, , North Carolina, and Tennessee. Those who settled in the mountains of the state were mostly poor subsistence farmers, isolated, raising few commercial crops. These men had little currency to purchase slaves, and due to their isolation, preserved the peculiar mountain culture they had brought with them from the southern Appalachians. Slavery was not completely foreign to northern and western Arkansas, but its effect and influence was never as great as it was in the lowland regions of the state. With the states of the upper South like North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, Arkansas shared a unique heritage of a plantation and a mountain culture. While this heritage was more similar than historical stereotypes have supposed, still the differences between the upland and lowland regions were real enough to be expressed m the politics of the upper South. -5-

The abundant rivers and streams provided easy access into the interior of Arkansas. In fact, one-half oi one percent of Arkansas is covered with 10 water, which is most bountiful for a landlocked state. The Arkansas 11 River snakes for more than 300 miles through the state's heartland.

"Through such a large network of rivers and streams, Arkansas was endowed with an easy way to markets and communications, both of which are so 12 essential for the development of any new state." One visitor commented that "it would oe difficult, indeed, to find another state whose entire surface 13 is so well supplied with natural waterways as that ot Arkansas." 14 Arkansas grew at a staggering rate. (See Table 1, Appendix.)

As these figures reveal, Arkansas's population ballooned during the ante¬ bellum period. The growth between 18IQ and 1820 reflected the rapid 15 expansion common in the frontier states and territories. But even after the initial period, Arkansas's population doubled every ten years, and during the 1830s it tripled. (See Table 1 in Appendix.) Arkansas's population increase greatly out-distanced the national growth, but this is to be expected from a frontier community. To obtain a better perspective on Arkansas's population growth, a comparison must be made of the state's expansion with other frontier communities. Arkansas became a state in 1836 and Table 2 records -6-

the percentage of population growth 01 Arkansas and five other widely scattered frontier states which developed between the years 1810 and 16 1860. To be sure, Louisiana was not as underdeveloped as Arkansas or Missouri, still it was a western state whose population was less than 17 a third of that of Georgia in i810. States like Missouri, Mississippi,

Michigan, and were all similar to Arkansas in that they were western states that developed and expanded after the year 1810. As is evidenced from Tables 1 and 2, the population growth of Arkansas was almost constant after 1820, and for three of the five decades between

1810 and 1860, Arkansas s average percentage of growth exceeded the average growth of the six other frontier states. During the 184l)s and

1850s, its percentage of growth was higher than any other frontier state in similar stages of development.

Using only population totals can be misleading, for each of these frontier states had within their borders slaves and Indians who were excluded from political power in pioneer societies. When whites only are considered (see Table 3), there is a slight alteration downward with Arkansas's population statistics. While state growth still out¬ distanced the average percentage of growth of these six states during three of the five decades, if slaves and non-whites are excluded,

Illinois edged out Arkansas m population growth during the 1850s.

Perhaps more important, the statiscics show that with or without -7- consideration of non-whites, Arkansas's population expansion was steady and most substantial. However, the simple percentages of growth are deceiving. While Arkansas's percentage of growth outdistances the other five frontier states surveyed, its actual population still lagged behind all of them. ,For example, Arkansas and Michigan had roughly the same population in 1830 and were admitted into the Union as twin states in 1836 and 1837; but within twenty years Michigan had almost twice the population 18 of Arkansas. As Tables 4 and 5 demonstrate, Arkansas's percentage of population increase was greater than the other five frontier states surveyed between 1810 and 1860, yet Arkansas ranked last in population in 1810, and fifty years of substantial growth had not changed that position. (See Table 5 in Appendix.) In 1810 Arkansas stood almost completely undeveloped; yet for the next half century, its percentage of population growth outstripped five other states on America's frontier. Interestingly, it was the mountains and hills and not the lush lowlands that first attracted most of the settlers, a trend which continued until the late 1850s. Arkansas's first state constitution required a census every four years, and these statistics tell of a boom that brought many inhabitants to the lowland regions in the late 1850s. By 1858 the lowland counties had 19 overcome the northwestern mountain counties in population. As one historian noted: "The highland counties continued to increase in popu¬ lation, but the attraction of the southeastern cotton lands, . . . proved 20 stronger and stronger." -8-

Before the late 1850s, Arkansas traditionally drew most of its population from the upper southern states of Missouri, Kentucky, 21 and Tennessee. Tennessee contributed so much of her population to the state that a historian of southern migration in the Old South 22 called the volunteer state ’’the mother of Arkansas." While the number of persons from Tennessee coming into Arkansas doubled between the years 1850 and 1860, Arkansas increasingly drew its population from such lower southern states as Texas, Louisiana 23 and Mississippi. This migratory shift to the lowlands of Arkansas, drawing population from the lower South, tied the state more closely 24 to the political ideology and cotton economy of the Deep South. A* historian of antebellum Arkansas once wrote that in the "chimerical world of the Old South, all Southerners were slaveowners, aristocrats and dueling cavaliers who lived in stately mansions presided over by fragile, jasmine-scented ladies. The South was no glamour world. Arkansas, 25 on the edge of the frontier . . . was certainly not." Throughout the whole ante-bellum period certain geographic, economic and cultural con¬ ditions all combined to make settlement in Arkansas hazardous and difficult. While it is true that the state was blessed with abundant waterways, none of them were reliable. "All rivers were notable 26 for their great floods and extended low water periods." A Union soldier in the Civil War wrote his wife that "the Arkansas River is -9- one of the changeablest rivers I ever saw, rising one day and falling 27 the next, and has been so all winter." On January 2, 1839, the

Arkansas Gazette situated in Little Rock, reported that for the last eignt months "we have been nearly cut off from all intercourse with the civilized world, owing to the river's being dependent upon for transportation of the 28 mails, while there was scarcely water sufficient to float a dugout." If not plagued by low water, floods ravaged the state periodically. In the summer of 1833 the Gazette reported "all the plantations on the north side of the Arkansas for several miles above and below this place 29 are under water." Other obstacles prevented Arkansans from using their many waterways. The Red River, for example, in southwestern Arkansas was bottlenecked for years by a 100-mile obstruction of driftwood.

Even after Shreve and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers cut through the obstruction, navigation on the Red River was still risky. The Red and Arkansas Rivers had the highest insurance costs of any stream 30 in the United States. Although steamboat lines traveled regularly up the 31 Arkansas River after 1840, travel was nevertheless extremely hazardous. A newspaper correspondent traveling up the river to Little Rock in 1861 wrote: "The Arkansas River is a graveyard of steamboats ... I should say from the number of wrecks we passed and places pointed out where 32 others have perished." An unreliable river system kept the northwestern section of the state isolated until the Civil War; it delayed further economic development of the state because of the uncertainities connected with deliverance of needed supplies. -10-

Inaccessible, treacherous waterways were not the only obstacles to Arkansas’s progress. Extremely low, and thus open to frequent flooding, eastern Arkansas was patched with swamps and bogs. Settlers crossing the Mississippi River at Helena or Memphis "heard great stories 33 about Texas while they saw only miles of swamps in Arkansas." Many potential Arkansans were thus steered toward Texas or other regions. Good roads were non-existent, and as late as 1851 the editor of the Ft. Smith Herald complained: "We have no roads of any kind except a few that are mainly cut out and not fit to travel over. It does appear to us that the people of this state manifest more apathy on the improvement of 34 the roads of this state than can be found in any other state of the Union.” The editor of the Gazette reported in 1837: "Emigrants continue to flock to this part of the country but they do it at the risk and cost of passing 35 the most disgraceful bogs, wilderness and swamps that can be found." Another important factor that hampered Arkansas' growth was the unsettling presence of the Indian territory on its western border. The

state would never be "mother of the West" like Missouri, because the west for Arkansas stopped at the 95th meridian. The presence of the Indian

territory had two unfortunate effects. In the first place it steered immi¬ gration toward the southwest into Texas because the Ozarks were formidable to cross and one could not settle further west than the border. Many residents witnessed a continuous stream of migrants through Arkansas to Texas or California. Little Rock, itself, proved to be an entrepot for settlers going -11- to the southwest, and one resident of the city complained that "not one 36 of twenty travelers stopped this side of Texas." Indeed, former Arkansans made up a major part of the bulk of immigrants to Texas before the Civil 37 War. When news of the discovery of gold in California arrived in Arkansas, Forty-Niner fever swept the state and depleted the population. So many Arkansans migrated to California that the United States Senator from Arkansas, , wrote an open letter to his constituents asking them not to 38 leave but stay home and diversify their crops. Besides diverting migration from the state, the Indian territory con¬ tributed to the prolongation of the frontier state of economic development, which in turn gave rise to an adverse impression of Arkansas. Travelers returning to the East circulated reports that Arkansas was peopled "by a race of semi-barbarians who would not hesitate to cut a Christian into 39 shoestrings . . . merely for the amusement it might afford them." Not just along the border of the Indian territory, but throughout the whole state, 40 "a rough lawlessness prevailed which lingered until the Civil War."

Traveling through Arkansas in the mid-to-late 1830s, British geologist Sir George Featherstonhaugh was told by a native of Helena that the city was where "negur runners,’ counterfeiters, horse-stealers, murderers and 41 sich-like took shelter agin the law." Featherstonhaugh reported also that Helena’s fame as a "sinkhole of crime and infamy has spread as far 42 away as Tennessee and throughout the upper Mississippi Valley." -12-

Lawlessness flourished not only in river towns but throughout most of the cities of Arkansas, including its capitol, Little Rock. Nevertheless, Featherstonhaugh obviously exaggerated when he estimated that there were not more than twelve citizens of Little Rock wno did not go around wearing "two pistols and a hunting knife a toot long and an inch and a half broad . . . 43 the Bowie knife." The Gazette's editor, Edward Cole, lamented in 1840 that "we are obliged to state that fist fights, frays, and other breaches of the law were becoming more common in the city than at any time since our residence 44 here, and when we first arrived the place had a name bad enough." As late as 1858 one court term in Little Rock brought out fifteen indictments, and 45 eleven were for murder. Cities on the western border were much worse. As late as 1860, the Ft. Smith Herald complained that "murder, vice, and rowdyism stalks our streets by night and by day with brazen effrontery, confident in the feeling 46 that there is no power to restrain them." Perhaps Sir George Featherstonhaugh best summed up the prevalent lawlessness in the state when he wrote: "Gentlemen who had taken liberty to imitate the signature of other persons, bankrupts who were not disposed to be plundered by their creditors, homicides, horse-stealers, and gamblers, all admired Arkansas on account of the gentle and tolerant state of opinion which prevails there. Violence was not restricted to only the criminal element. In the Ozarks family teuds erupted with some frequency, and one feud expanded until the citizens of Marion County were at war with each other. The governor -13-

48 was forced to call out the to quell the disturoance. Blood was shed even in the august halls of the Arkansas General Assembly. Offended by the remarks of a fellow representative, the Speaker of the Arkansas House walked down the aisle and stabbed the unarmed House member to death. A 49 later trial acquitted the Speaker of any wrongdoing. Though illegal, dueling thrived, and the founder of the state Democratic party lost his life in such a 50 violent encounter. Political rivalry usually turned into personal animosity and many an Arkansas political figure had to fight at least one or two duels during his career. Even as late as 1856 it was a widely accepted rumor that U, S. Senator Robert W. Johnson had attacked a political enemy with a Bowie 51 knife in the Sheriff’s office in Little Rock. Criminal and non-criminal violence reachèd such proportions that one man wrote in his diary: "If thé laws of this state respecting murder are not regarded nor enforced more stringently in the 52 future, no man in Arkansas can consider his life safe." Whenever justice was administered, it was usually of the vigilante variety. There was little hesitancy about lynching those convicted or accused of the most heinous crimes. The editor of the Arkansas Gazette observed that: "Arkansas is a place where no law is recognized except 52 lynch law, and no rights maintained except by brute force." Small wonder, then, that adverse publicity about Arkansas spread far beyond her borders. The Arkansas Intelligencer in Van Buren lamented that: -14-

"People at a distance easily come to the conclusion that Arkansas is only famous for private brawls and lynchings, and the bloodiest encounters in the annals of border warfare. Consequently a typical Arkansian is pictured as a person in a semi- barbaric state, half alligator, half horse . . . armed to ihe teeth, bristling with knives and pistols, a rollicking daredevel type of personage, made up of coarseness, ignorance, and bombast. . . ."54 Along with this unfavorable reputation, Arkansas foolishly plunged itself into debt with its banking policy. Soon alter statehood, the legislature charted two financial institutions, the Arkansas State Bank and a Real Estate Bank. Both opened in a year of national panic, 1837, and "after a short career marked by bad luck, folly, and embezzle- 55 ment, closed their doors m 1839." The whole affair is still shrouded 56 in mystery, yet the effect of the bank's closing eventually increased 57 " the state debt from $9,000 to over 2.7 million dollars by 1858. For the two decades before the Civil War, the banks' and the state's ensuing indebtedness provided a never-ending font oi political bickering and controversy. Anti-bank sentiment swept the state and many agreed with the state Senator who declared that banks are "unequal, uni air, and unjust, calculated ... to enrich the few at the expense of the 58 many." Responding to such feelings, the legislature passed laws for- 59 bidding future bank charters or circulation of bank notes. Unfortunately, a state saddled with a huge debt and no fluid currency provided little attraction for prospective settlers. Perhaps the Helena Southern Shield -15- in 1860 gave the best evaluation of Arkansas's ante-bellum banking disaster: "If we had not established banks when we did, our state would now, in all probability, be in a condition such as would rank her among the first of this glorious Confederacy. But a false step has burdened her with a debt which she cannot discharge for a quarter of a century. Her destiny must remain darkened for many years to come, notwithstanding, she had all the elements of greatness scattered in wild profusion about her."®® Despite a poor reputation and financial indebtedness, Arkansas managed to make incredible economic progress during the twenty years just prior to the Civil War. In 1836, the year Arkansas became a state, total revenue was only $10,546; within twenty-four years the revenue amounted to $170,078. Assessed property values were only $15,546,288 in 1838; by 61 1860 that assessment ballooned to $122,455,400. Migration into the state received an additional boost with the Arkansas Donation Acts of 1840 and 1850. The initial Donation Act gave tax-forfeited land away to anyone who would settle there and pay taxes on the land in the future. Ten years later, Arkansas expanded that law to give "a family as many 160-acre plots as there were members of the immediate family, 62 regardless of age or sex." , In other words, the more members of your family, the more land you could claim. In that same year, the U. S. Congress bequeathed to Arkansas 7,686,355 acres of swamp and overflow land. The state added on a bonus of tax exemptions for ten years, so any settler could gain rich bottom land by merely constructing a levee -16-

63 protecting his property from future overflow. Unfortunately, only the wealthier planters could alford to construct levees and thus gain more land. Nevertheless through the swampland grant alone, more than one-tenth of the state’s surface land area was reclaimed for farming in just nine 64 years. With such a liberal land policy, settlers flocked to the state, especially in the lowland regions of eastern Arkansas. As Tables 6 and 7 reveal, the value of livestock and the production of agricultural goods skyrocketed during the 1850s. (See Appendix.) Arkansas’s growth and development can also be seen through the jump in land values per acre of farmland. According to Table 8, out of ten states in the South, only four other states outranked Arkansas in land value per acre in 1860. A farm near 65 Little Rock which sold for $600 in 1856, went for $2,500 in five years. These years just prior to the Civil War were boom times for Arkansas. The state rolled into the seventh decade oi the nineteenth century with a buoyancy it had never known before. Prosperity was new and it was real, yet it was

inextricably linked to the ante-bellum cotton kingdom, a regime based on slave labor and world demand. During the last two decades of the ante-bellum period, especially in the 1850s, Arkansas rapidly linked herself to the cotton economy of the

lower South. In 1840 Arkansas baled and ginned over six million pounds of cotton. Within ten years that amount had increased to over twenty- -17- six million pounds; and that numoer further escalated to almost one 66 hundred and fifty million pounds in 1860. Optimism ran high as the state contemplated cashing in on the wealth from cotton. The editor of the Gazette in J.857 wrote: "We consider the fact that the cotton crop in almost all the older states of the Union are diminishing each year by the wearing out and the exhaustion of the soil. ... It does not take a prophet to foretell that, fere long, 67 Arkansas will be the Cotton State of the Union." More than any time previously, Arkansas in 1860 was bound up with the cotton kingdom and that regime was based upon slave labor. Slavery was no stranger to Arkansas, for it had been present within its boundaries from the 1720s. In 1810 the first census in Arkansas revealed 136 slaves in what would later become the state ot Arkansas.

From that time on slaves increased rapidly, more than any other portion of the state's population. (See Table 9 in Appendix.) Except during the decade between 1810 and 1820, slave population increases always out¬ stripped the percentage of white population growth. If the whites in

4 Arkansas between 1810 and 1860 multiplied by over 38,000 percent, the slave population doubled that percentage, with an increase of over 80,000 69 percent in the same span of time. Another important facet of slavery in ante-bellum Arkansas was the shift of slave population away from the upland to the lowland region. Before statehood in 1836, most slaves were in the mountainous regions -J.8- of the state, yet the 1840 census for the first time showed that there were more slaves, 52 percent, in the lowland counties of Arkansas. Within twenty years, 74 percent of the slaves lived in the flat delta region of eastern and southern Arkansas. Chicot County in the southeastern corner of the state had a population that was 81 percent slaves. Elisha Worthington lived in that county and enjoyed the distinction of being the only Arkansan to own more than five hundred slaves in i860. Worthington was a member of an elite group of only thirteen other slaveowners in the Old South who 70 had possession of more than five hundred human beings. Slave population did increase in all the northwestern mountain counties in the 1850s except one; yet the difference is the white population escalated more rapidly than 71 - the slave. Thus Arkansas slowly divided itself between growing slave and non-slave sections of the state. This intra-state division would play a crucial part in the question over whether Arkansas should secede. There can be no doubt that Arkansas became more and more linked with slavery in the 1850s; Table 10 (in Appendix) shows that slaveowners almost doubled in Arkansas during the 1850s. In every category of owner¬ ship over ten slaves, the number of slaveowners tripled or more than tripled. If owning twenty slaves classified one as a planter, then the numbers of that class grew from 512 in 1850 to 1,363 in 1860. Despite these increases, those whites who were directly involved with slavery, either as slaveowners or members of slaveowning families, amounted to less -19-

72 than eighteen percent of the population. This was the lowest percentage of any of the eleven slaves states of the Southern Confederacy, (see Table

11 in Appendix). This figure, however, should not minimize the importance of slavery and the plantation rule. While most whites in Arkansas and else¬ where in the South were neither planters nor slaveowners, nevertheless all were inextricably bound to slavery and to the planters by racial antagonism

toward the blacks and by personal family ties. In addition, the ordinary 73 farmer hoped to become a planter or see his son rise to such status. As m other areas of the slave South, free black population increased at a percentage rate much greater than the whites, at least unlil 1840. Soon alter statehood, the free black minority became an unwelcome presence in the state. In 1837 a law was passed requiring all free blacks who entered the state to present a certificate of freedom within twenty-five days alter arrival. <*. On January 23, 1843 Governor Archibald Yell signed a law forbidding free blacks to enter the state as of March 1st of that year, and all free blacks 74 had to prove that they had entered the state before that date. The effect of this law could be seen in the growth of the free black population in the state. Between 1830 and 1840, free blacKs multiplied by 220 percent; during the 1840s, however, their increase amounted to only 30 percent (see Table

9 in Appendix). A free black in Little Rock, John Pendleton, cnallenged the constitutionality of the 1843 law in the state supreme court. Reflecting the social and racial prejudices prevalent at that time, the supreme court ruled that free blacks -20-

were not citizens of Arkansas, and that the black and wnite races: ’’Differing as they are in complexion, habits, conformations, and intellectual endowments, 75 could not, nor ever will live together in terms of social and political equality. Just forbidding the entrance oi free blacks into Arkansas was not enough for some. The editor of the Arkansas Gazette in Little Rock, William Woodruif, 76 started the drumbeat for free black expulsion from the state in 1849. Free blacks frightened the slaveholding regime because their presence subtly challenged the ideological basis of slavery, that is blacks were subhumans 77 and thus necessarily had to be kept in bondage. Throughout the slave South there was a widespread belief that free blacks fomented slave insurrection, and Arkansans shared in this conception. Although no slave insurrection ever occurred in the state, nor were any free blacks ever convicted of plotting one, their presence posed a silent threat to the peace and tranquillity of the community. Moreover, white laborers and mechanics in the towns faced economic competition from the free blacks, and they were in the 78 vanguard of those who called for their expulsion. Yielding finally to intense pressure, the Arkansas General Assembly passed a law in 1859 expelling all free blacks trom the state by January 1, 1860. If a free black failed to leave, he could be hired out for a year and then either 79 expelled from the state or sold into slavery. The legal path had been opened to such action in 185'/ when the United States Supreme Court ruled in the famous Dred Scott decision that slaves and free blacks were not citizens -21- of the United States. Since the Supreme Court ruled that blacks were not citizens, it was deemed perfectly legal to hold them in bondage or expel them 80 from the borders of any state. The law was not completely enforced, however, for the Census Bureau reported 144 free blacks still residing in the state in June of i860, and their number had actually increased in a few counties in 81 the northwestern portion of the state. Still, the number of free blacks in Arkansas in 1860 had decreased by over 80 percent from the last census (see Table 9 in Appendix). Early in 1861, however, the legislature suspended enforcement of the law until January 1, 1863. "But when that day came, Arkansas was in the middle of the Civil War; President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was being placed in effect, and soon all Arkansas's Negroes 82 were to be free." Between 1810 and 1860, the population growth and the economic develop¬ ment of Arkansas was nothing short of phenomenal, despite many differing handicaps. In just half a century, Arkansas's inhabitants increased from somewhat over a thousand, to almost a half a million. From semi-primitive frontier conditions in 1810, Arkansas was in full economic bloom just a half century later. Despite a rough lawlessness, lack of stable financial institu¬ tions, and a burdensome state debt, Arkansas was one of the rising cotton slave states in the Union in 1860. A half century of difficult, yet substantial

growth was the economic story of ante-bellum Arkansas. However, this picture is incomplete; Arkansas has a political heritage that cannot be ignored in understanding the state during the secession crisis of 1860-61. CHAPTER 2

Origins of Arkansas Politics: The Foundation of a Dynasty, 181a-1849

Political history of Arkansas began when an American arrived at Arkansas Post in the spring of 1804, officially assuming control of the area by the United States. The Post of Arkansas was the oldest European 1 settlement in the area, having been founded by the French in 1686. By

1804 it was still primarily a European settlement, and was located just 30 miles upstream from the junction of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers.

In March 1804 the Louisiana Purchase was divided by Congress: "All the portion lying south of the 33 degrees north latitude was designated as the territory of Orleans, and the remainder of the purchase as the District of 2 Louisiana." In 1812 the District of Louisiana became formally the Missouri territory with an administration based in St. Louis, and the district of

Arkansas was created the following year. This district subsequently became

Arkansas County, and by the year 1818 that county had been subdivided 3 into five counties. The first circuit court held in Arkansas convened at 4 Arkansas Post in 1814.

In 1818 that part of the Missouri territory between 36° 30' and 40° parallel, and between the Mississippi river and the 95th meridian, peti¬ tioned Congress for statehood as Missouri. It became necessary then to form a new territory between Louisiana and the proposed new state of

-22- -23-

Mis souri . (Boundaries for the Arkansas territory were discussed in the first chapter.) Like the statehood of Missouri, the creation of the Arkansas territory sparked a sectional conflict over slavery in the . This conflict would merely be a prelude to the much greater conflict over Missouri's application for statehood.

In February, 1819, just a few days after a bill was introduced to create the Arkansas territory, Representative John Taylor of attempted to have slavery prohibited in the region. Taylor's amendment lost by one vote. Later the New York Congressman succeeded in passing an amend¬ ment freeing all slaves over twenty years of age in the Arkansas territory. On February 19, however, this Taylor amendment was stricken from the bill, but by a bare margin. The vote to defeat Taylor's amendment-was a tie; the deciding vote was cast by the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, who kept the new territory open for slavery. In the Senate, northern senators led by James Burrell of Rhode Island came close to prohibiting slavery in Arkansas, but failed on a 19-14 vote. Arkansas seems to have been destined for slavery because of its southern location, but it is a little known fact that, except for a handful of congressional votes, the ’ . 5 "peculiar institution" would' have ended much earlier than it did. In comparision, the debate in Congress over slavery in the Arkansas territory was mild when judged by the national furor over Missouri's petition for statehood. Missouri almost broke up the Union it sought to -24- enter. Emerging from the Compromise of 1820 came the provision that all territories and future acquisitions beneath 36° 30' meridian would be marked off for slavery. This definitely made Arkansas a sphere of the slave South. An important social, economic and cultural link was now forged between the South and the region that would soon become the state of Arkansas. Arkansas remained a territory for seventeen years. At first, the capital was located at the Arkansas Post, but in 1821 it was removed, by action of the territorial legislature, to Little Rock where it has remained ever since. The first newspaper to be established in the territory was also founded in 181y, edited and published by William Woodruff at the Arkansas Post. The Arkansas Gazette became the state's

6 - oldest continuous institution. The first edition appeared on November 20, 1819, but in two years Woodruff followed the government to Little Rock, where the Gazette has remained ever since.

As a territory, Arkansas was served by four governors, none of whom were powerful political figures. Arkansas's territorial politics tended to reflect the viciousness and animosity that marked much of American frontier life. As'previously mentioned, violence remained a hallmark of Arkansas life until the Civil War. Ideologies and issues were less important than personalities and factionalism in much of the 7 politics of ante-bellum Arkansas. -25-

During the first decade of the territory, 1819-29, led the faction that dominated government. A native of Kentucky, and only twenty-two when appointed secretary to the territory by President James

Monroe, it was Crittenden who first called the legislature and presided over the first election in 1819. Since the territory's appointed governor, James

Miller, would not arrive until late in December of 1819, Crittenden served as acting governor for almost six months. As the younger brother of the legendary Kentucky politician, John J. Crittenden, young Robert’s candidacy for secretary of the Arkansas territory was pushed by Representative Richard

M. Johnson of Kentucky who later became a U. S. Senator and Martin Van 8 Buren's Vice-President. For ten years Crittenden served as secretary for the territory, as well as acting governor on three different occasions. Since the first two territorial governors were either weak or apathetic, much of the day to day administration of the territory was performed by Crittenden who used his position to strengthen his political power. In the early days of the territory, Crittenden's power went unchallenged; he managed to elect one of his own proteges, James Bates, as the territory's delegate 9 to Congress from 1819 to 1823.

Owing his position to presidential favor, Crittenden could not be ousted by his enemies as long as he held the support of the national administration.

Unfortunately for Crittenden, his long years of power loosely allied him with the Monroe and Adams' administrations, and the latter lost the presidency in -26-

1828 to the ’’people's candidate," . Once inaugurated, President Jackson promptly relieved Crittenden of his duties and filled the office of governor and secretary with loyal Jackson men, John Pope and William Fulton. Governor Pope ultimately severed his ties with the Jackson administration, and was replaced with Fulton, who had long schemed 10 and maneuvered to become chief executive of the territory. Fulton would be the last territorial governor of Arkansas. Crittenden and his followers formed the nucleus of a faction that even¬ tually evolved into the anti-Jackson Whig Party, even though that group did 11 not appropriate the name until late 1836. Crittenden's fall from power in 1829 was not total, and this faction was abie to seize control of the legislature in 1831. Unfortunately for Crittenden's political future, his party pushed through the legislature of 1831 a bill to provide a statehouse by giving public lands granted for that purpose in exchange for Crittenden's residence. Thus the statehouse would become Crittenden's former residence, giving 12 him the ten sections of public land. Governor John Pope foiled the scheme with his veto, and Crittenden's faction took the political rap for the affair. The elections of 1833 were devastating to the Crittenden faction, and Crittenden himself lost his bid to be Arkansas's territorial delegate. Another stunning blow came to his party when Crittenden died in December of 1834 at the young age of thirty-seven. An early historian of Arkansas gives the clearest reason for Crittenden's failure in territorial politics: "His greatest defect was that he mingled too little with the masses of men and therefore, was without the -27-

was an inborn aristocrat and a Whig to the core. To the multitude he was, therefore, an iceberg, and to him the multitude was an unthinkable quantity."13

With Crittenden's abrupt demise, his political party fell into the hands of a talented and colorful, yet unsuccessful, clique of Arkansas politicians. These statesmen of Arkansas Whiggery included Thomas Newton, , Absolom Fowler of Little Rock, and leaders through the state like David Walker of Fayetteville, Jesse Turner of Van Buren, and Charles Fenton Mercer Noland of Batesville. Possessing great ability, what the Whigs lacked was votes. No. Whig ever became governor nor held any other statewide political office. A Whig did capture a seat in the U. S. House once, but that was in a special election in December of 1846. Whig. Thomas Newton received a plurality of 23 votes in a field of five 14 candidates, and held that seat for only twenty-five days. In no regular presidential, gubernatorial, or congressional election did the Whigs gather more than 45 percent of the votes. Although Whig power and influence in state politics need not be discounted, the Whigs could always count on at least a third of the vote for whomever they nominated, and Whig presi¬ dential candidates, between 1840 and 1852, garnered about 40 percent of the votes. Being the party perennially out of power, the Whigs were unable to build their strength through patronage, so they were forced to depend upon issues, always denouncing their opponents's monopolistic stranglehold -28- on state politics. In presidential elections, the Arkansas Whigs naturally supported their national candidates and platforms. In state contests, they incessantly called for internal improvements and a sound financial policy 16 which meant repaying the state debt. The Whigs also always had their positions supported by various newspapers throughout the state. These included the Arkansas Advocate, and later the Arkansas Whig, both in Little Rock, the Arkansas Intelligencer in Van Buren, the Helena Southern Shield, and the Washington Telegraph in Hempstead County in southwestern Arkansas. In 1843 the Whigs received an additional bonus when the Arkansas Gazette, long a Democratic paper, joined the Whigs and remained opposed 17 to the clique that controlled the state Democratic Party. Never in the control of the legislature after 1832, the Whigs constituted "an active and vocal minority in both houses of the legislature." At times they combined with disgruntled Democrats to influence legislation and elect certain 18 officials. Traditionally, historians of Arkansas have portrayed the Whigs as a party based largely in the towns and in the southeastern regions of the state. While it is true that the larger percentage of Whig support came

from the more urban commercial centers and the rich river planters, most of the Whigs1 actual votes came from the northwestern mountainous area of the state, because that section had most of the population until the 19 mid-1850s. Through the ante-bellum period the northwest was the -29- bastion of the Democratic Party. Despite many attempts, the Whigs were 20 never successful in making substantial inroads into that region. Never dominant, yet always undaunted, Arkansas's Whigs persisted in their opposition until they, like their national counterparts, dissolved only to emerge in different political clothing. Essentially, the story of Arkansas politics before the Civil War must focus on a political clique that dominated the state Democratic party, which meant that it controlled state politics for almost thirty years. A political dynasty headed by the Conway-Sevier-Johnson families controlled every branch of state government from 1833 until 1860. Such a situation was 21 unparalleled in any other state in the South. Through marriage and blood relations, the members of the Conway-Sevier-Johnson families neld public 22 office ior an aggregate oi 190 years. Family power was frequently con¬ tested, but was never vanquished until the year 1860. Henry W. Conway founded this political dynasty, yet he did not live to see its lull flowering. A native of Tennessee and a veteran ot the , Conway was a young man of twenty-six when he first arrived in Little Rock as postmaster in 1819. Energetic and ambitious, Conway received Crittenden's blessing and then successfully ran for the position of territorial 23 delegate in 1823. Within four years, however, Conway and Crittenden were at each other's throats. In an extremely acrimonious campaign in 1827, Conway trounced his Crittenden-sponsored opposition. Crittenden then challenged Conway to a duel and the delegate unwisely accepted. On the east side of the Mississippi -30-

River, the secretary of the territory of Arkansas shot and killed the territory’s only delegate to Congress. Crittenden was never charged with the murder of Conway. The election of 1827, and especially the Conway-Crittenden duel, solidified the territory into two warring factions. "The Conway faction continued after Conway's death under the capable leadership oi [Ambrose H.] Sevier, who 25 would subsequently rise to a political stature much greater than his predecessor." Ambrose Sevier was Henry Conway's cousin who won Conway's position as territorial delegate after his relative's death. Aligning itself nationally with

Andrew Jackson, the Sevier faction became the state Democratic party. With Crittenden's fall from power in 1829 Sevier strengthened his political control over Arkansas through the last two Jacksonian territorial governors. - Sevier himself served as territorial delegate until statehood in i836, when he became one of Arkansas's first two United States Senators. In the words of one historian, Brian Walton, "Sevier entered the Senate in this, its age of glory, and conquered it ... he alone, of Arkansas's pre-Civil War Senators, achieved any prominence 26 in the chamber." Sevier held three chairmanships during his twelve-year tenure in the Senate, the most important position being that of Chairman of the Senate 27 Foreign Relations Committee from 1845-48. He resigned his seat in the spring i848 in order to become Commissioner, helping to negotiate a final peace treaty with Mexico. While Sevier was making a name for himself among 28 his Senate coUeagues, however, he was losing his political grip on the state. He tailed to win back his Senate seat in 1848, and he died on the last day of that yea -31-

Sevier's passing in no way signalled the end of his "family's" power. The political dynasty he and his relatives had established was too strong and extensive to pass away with the death of one man. The first governor of the state of Arkansas (1836-40) was Henry Conway's younger brother, ; and the fifth governor (1852-60) was his (and James Conway's) younger brother, Elias Nelson Conway. Every ante-bellum governor belonged to the Democratic party, controlled by the Conway-Sevier family. Every congressman, except, of course, Whig Thomas Newton, was also hand-picked by this small clique. (See Table 12 in Appendix for a list of Arkansas's important political figures, 1819-61.) All of Arkansas's United States Senators were loyal cohorts of the Conway-Sevier family dynasty except for Solon Borland. Borland came to Arkansas in 1843 to edit the "family" newspaper in Little Rock, the Arkansas Democratic Banner. Appointed to Sevier's seat in 1848, he was supposed to keep it warm for Sevier's return. Borland, however, had other plans; he used his time well to build up support for his own Senate candidacy, and thus won for himself a full term in 29 the Senate. Borland's election proved to be just a minor setback for the Conway-Sevier dynasty. Borland did not complete his term, resigning in 1853 to become a Minister Plenipotentiary to Central America, which was one of the 30 most important foreign assignments available. Immediately Governor Elias Conway appointed the new family leader, Robert W. Johnson, to his position.

The dynasty was once again supreme. -32-

Family control of state politics was made easy by the method of party nominations. Township and county meetings sent delegates to a state convention which nominated candidates for governor and Congress. As historian D. Y. Thomas observed: "Many times notices of county meetings were sent out just a few days before the official conclave, and then only to a chosen group. With slow means of communication and. transportation in the state, political leaders could easily assure themselves of amenable gatherings. Caucuses, held before the convention, arranged the chairmanships, drew up resolutions, picked the candidates, and even instructed the chairman on who should be recognized and allowed to address the convention

With the Conway-Sevier dynasty orchestrating the proceedings, the state Democratic convention was little more than a staged political play. Under such a nominating system, it was little wonder that the family was so powerful. While conventions were frequently referred to as nothing 32 more than a "caucus of tricksters," this would be the method of party nominations in Arkansas throughout the nineteenth century. While the dynasty no doubt dominated the state, its political control is not analogous to an early urban political machine. While family power and patronage existed statewide, its supremacy varied from county to 33 county. In Little Rock and in some of the southeastern counties along the Arkansas River, family power was never strong and sometimes yielded . 34 control to Whigs and other opposition groups. Moreover, while almost every ante-bellum Arkansas politician owed some allegiance to the Conway- Sevier family, a few, like , "can be best viewed as an -33- independent ally of the dynasty, a man with a personal popularity and a 35 following of his own.” Like any shrewd elite, the family kept its ranks open to any fresh, talented, and popular political figure. Any real popularity the dynasty enjoyed came with its alliance nationally with Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party. Arkansas blossomed into statehood at the height of the Jacksonian period, 1836. Historian Lonnie White points out that Arkansas's first constitution ''continued the Democratic trends which had been evident in several other state constitutions framed in the previous 36 two decades." To vote in Arkansas one had only to be male, white, over 37 twenty-one years of age, and a resident of the state for the previous six months.

Representation in the legislature was based on population only, and there was direct election of governors and legislators, and, after 1848, all judicial officials 38 under the level of the state supreme court. All of these measures were direct legacies of the Jacksonian era. Interest ran high in state election contests. A greater percentage of the electorate turned out for state and local elections than for presidential contests. On the average, between 1844 and 1856, state election contests attracted from 75 to 80 percent of the eligible voters, and this was roughly 20 percentage 39 points higher than the number in presidential elections in the state. Curiously, Jacksonian democracy proved to be a convenient and effective popular base for the Conway-Sevier family. As Arkansas historian, George Thompson, succinctly observed: "It is ironic that Andrew Jackson's rise to -34- political power, though popularly identified with the common man, was the basis for establishing an aristocratic dominance in Arkansas politics from 40 its territorial days to the Civil War." Years after Jackson left office, the

Arkansas electorate still reacted easily and passively to an oligarchy that sounded Jacksonian and linked itself politically and through patronage, to

"Old Hickory’s" national Democratic Party. As with any elite, the Conway-Sevier family’s goal was that of self-preservation; in order to survive the 1850s, however , this clique was forced to endure the political crisis of 1850, as well as turn back the formidable challenge of the Know Nothings a few years later. By the end of the 1850s the Conway-Sevier dynasty remained intact yet greatly weakened by the controversies and conflicts of the previous decade. Still groggy from these encounters, it is not surprising that the "family" failed to weather the storms of 1860. CHAPTER 3

Challenged, Yet Never Conquered: Family Rule, 1849-1859

With Sevier's death late in 1848, leadership within his dynasty passed on to his brother-in-law, Robert W. Johnson. A native of Kentucky, Johnson was sired from a powerful political family. His uncle, Richard M. Johnson, led the

Jackson forces in Kentucky, serving as United States Senator and Vice-President under Van Buren. Robert W. Johnson's other two uncles were congressmen from

Kentucky, and his father was the first federal district judge for the state of

Arkansas. Arriving in Little Rock in 1835 at the age of twenty-one, Johnson set up his own practice. He soon married Ambrose Sevier's sister, a deed which practically guaranteed him a bright political career. After a term as prosecuting attorney "and state attorney general, Johnson won election to Congress"in 1846,

Arkansas's only representative. Along with enjoying a meteoric rise in Arkansas politics, Johnson had been educated at Yale Law School and was one of the 1 wealthiest planter-lawyers in the state. At first, Robert W. Johnson "did not exhibit any unusual statesmanship or political acumen during the early years of his public career. It was not until the interests of his section were threatened in the crisis arising out of the extension of slavery in the territories acquired 2 from Mexico, that Robert Johnson became a dynamic figure."

Until 1850 Arkansas was too preoccupied with growth, or the huge state

debt, or the California gold rush of 1849, to care about national issues concerning

-35- -36- slavery. However, in 1848 the state Democratic convention passed a resolution defending the rights of Southerners to take their slaves into the lands newly acquired from Mexico, denouncing "fanatical Northern Abolitionists" and upholding state sovereignty. In Congress, Johnson allied himself with the Calhoun states rights faction of the Democratic party. In 1850 he made an open address to the people of Arkansas and sent two open letters to his constituents trying to raise the awareness of Arkansans that their slave property rights were about 4 to be restricted. "He believed that the danger to Southern rights was great 5 enough to justify secession from the Union by the South." These open appeals to Arkansans were like a bombshell dropped into state politics; but this had been Johnson's intention—to awaken his constituents. "He had deliberately chosen to shock his constituents because he believed that his section was in 6 danger." If Johnson had hoped his appeal would raise the Southern-slave banner in Arkansas, he was doomed to disappointment. His efforts actually caused controversy for himself and opposition for his family faction. While the loyal family press, like the Arkansas Banner in Little Rock, consistently gave

Johnson its support, his Southern radicalism raised divisions among the 7 state’s Democrats and gave the Whigs new hope. Prominent Democrats like Thompson Flournoy of Desha County in eastern Arkansas, and George Clarke of Crawford County on the western border of the state, publicly attacked Johnson, and these moderate Democrats were aided by William -37-

Woodruff of the Gazette, the old veteran Democratic editor who had bought back his paper from the Whigs in early 1850. Woodruff wrote in response to Johnson's appeal: "Our people do not believe that the time has yet come when they are to be called upon to assist in dismembering the

Confederacy. It is the universal sentiment that the Union must be preserved 8 and the universal belief is it cannot be dissolved."

As the possibilities of compromise brightened in Congress during the summer of 1850, talk about disunion grew quieter throughout the

South. Senator Borland, who had earlier been quite opposed to any sort of compromise, mellowed by July of 1850. Late in that month he made a speech in Little Rock which railed against abolitionism, yet expressed his great love for the Union. Borland never returned to Washington to 9 vote for or against the final compromise measures of 1850. That compro¬ mise insured the admittance of California as a free state, it abolished the

slave trade in Washington, D.C., but guaranteed the existence of slavery there, it initiated a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law, and it organized

Utah and as territories without regard to slavery. Johnson voted only for the new Fugitive Slave Law, and the other Arkansas senator,

William K. Sebastian, voted for all the measures except admitting California 10 as a free state.

On the state level, Governor John Roane, a supporter of Johnson's radicalism, tried during fall of 1850 to get the legislature to repudiate the compromise. Yet his efforts were frustrated by a coalition of Whigs -38- and moderate Democrats led by the Speaker of the House, Thompson 11 Flournoy. Discouraged over the state’s apparent rejection of his pro- Southern radicalism, Johnson announced in a public letter his desire not 12 to seek re-election in 1851.

Years of defeat produced despondent sentiments in the ranks of Arkansas Whiggery up until the compromise crisis. Now Johnson's pro-Southern stand gave them new hope for a possible victory. As has been mentioned earlier, the Whigs could never penetrate the Democrats's bastion in the northwest, but it was in that section of the state that Johnson's dis-Unionism was most unpopular. Meetings throughout the northwestern part of Arkansas praised the compromise and called upon Arkansas representatives to do everything 13 possible to preserve the Union. The Whig strategy was simple. The national sectional controversy over slavery had greatly acerbated traditional tensions within the Democratic Party between its northwestern and southeastern wings. As one historian observed: "Arkansas Whigs now decided, like their brothers elsewhere in the South, to identity themselves with the moderate or Unionist stand on these sectional issues and to appeal across party lines to those Democrats who favored such a stand, hoping thereby to put together 14 a moderate and. predominantly Whig-controlled statewide majority." For a time at least, it seemed that the Whigs might be successful in their plan. Democratic editors like George Clarke of Van Buren's Arkansas Intelligencer, who had just bought that paper from the Whigs, and Woodruff of the Arkansas Gazette, joined the Whigs in denouncing Johnson, apparently -39- 15 driving him from office. Moreover, Whigs and Unionist Democrats had joined hands in the legislature to frustrate any radical secessionist or pro- Southern moves by Governor Roane. With Johnson leaving office, Unionist Democrat George Clarke became front runner in the race to succeed him. The ’'family,” however, was not satisfied with this state of affairs, and was determined to punish the upstart Clarke for his disloyalty. Since only Johnson could defeat Clarke, he once again entered the race, and the "family” engineered Johnson’s renomination on the first ballot at the state Democratic convention 16 in April of 1851. Disappointed and furious, Clarke refused to support Johnson, eventually endorsing the Whig nominee, John Preston of Helena. To historian Walton, the nomination of Preston by the Whigs was a mistake. "Northwestern Democrats were asked to support a relatively unknown eastern moderate 17 Whig." Woodruff was also distressed over Johnson’s renomination, yet he was able to put party loyalty over personal animosity and give his endorse¬ ment to his former enemy, Robert W. Johnson. (Woodruff later claimed that 18 he did not actually vote for either man.) In the August 1851 election, Johnson garnered 57 percent of the vote, yet his victory margin was 5 percent smaller 19' than his last race in 1848< During the race, Congressman Johnson tempered his dis-Union rhetoric, and this undoubtedly helped him to win another* term in the House. In the overall perspective, the election of 1851 was another triumph for the "family." Even Unionist Democrats like Woodruff and Thompson 20 Flournoy remained loyal to the dynasty. "Johnson and the regular Democratic -40-

organization had comfortably weathered the challenge of the moderate Whig 21 strategy without embracing moderation themselves." Johnson’s reelection ended any further political controvery in Arkansas over the . For the next few years in Arkansas, "schemes to open the state to markets and economic prosperity captured voter attention and pushed into the background all thoughts of Southern independence and 22 dis-Union." The gubernatorial election of 1852 centered around the issue of internal improvements. The "family's" candidate was Elias Conway who was given the nickname "Dirt Road Conway." William Woodruff christened Conway with that name because, as a candidate for governor, he had claimed that

Arkansas’s transportation needs could be met by a few "good dirt roads," and 23 thus opposed any railroad construction in the state. Independent Democrats like Woodruff and Clarke once again made alliance with the Whigs and pushed the candidacy of Bryan Smithson, who ran as an independent Democrat favoring internal improvements and railroad construction. Smithson did better than any previous Whig candidate, gaining a little more than 45 percent of the vote, but apparently the average Arkansan remained loyal to the regular Democratic 24 organization. A close analysis of the 1852 gubernatorial race shows that southeastern

Whigs did not come through for Smithson, even though most of the Whigs 25 throughout the state backed him. While it is true that an alliance of Whigs and northwestern Democrats could, at times, frustrate the policies of the family dynasty, especially when that policy spoke about dis-Union, these two minmnt'i Aft TIPVPT» f»nf>1Pcr»oH AffAAtî'trAW in anv QtatAWirlA nnlitiAal r»rvntA«t tn -4A-

26 overthrow the Conway-Johnson oligarchy. Certain family policies might be thwarted, but the organization remained in the citadels of power even through the compromise crisis of 1850. In 1853 the Conway-Johnson dynasty further tightened its control over the state. When Borland resigned his Senate seat to be a minister to Central America, Governor Conway conveniently replaced him with Robert W. Johnson. Arkansas gained an additional Congressman in i853, bringing the number of representatives in the U. S. House to two. The northern and southern dis¬ tricts were separated by the Arkansas River. The Whigs had little hope to win in the northern district, but Whig candidate Frederick Trapnall of Little Rock had a good chance of winning in the southern district. Trapnall, however, died during the campaign, and while the Whigs eventually replaced him, their campaign had lost too much momentum and thus they failed to carry the 27 district. In the Congressional elections of 1854, the Whigs could only field a candidate in the southern district, but that attempt was feeble at best 28 and their candidate was swamped. The family enjoyed a banner year in 1853; the only major independent Democrat in Arkansas, Solon Borland, was removed from office, and the,Whig party was beginning its slow demise. But the "family" still engendered opposition, which soon arose in the form of a new political movement that swept the country in the mid-1850s. During the 1840s and x850s, native Americans believed themselves to be inundated with foreigners. These newcomers spoke and acted strangely, pushed American workers’s wages down and were mostly Roman Catholics, -42- a religion long held suspect by Protestant, Anglo-Saxon Americans. As the Whig party faded nationwide, two new parties arose to stand in their place, the Republicans and the American party. The latter group expressed anti-foreign, anti-Catholic views and eventually became known as the Know Nothings. They were given this name because of the secrecy surrounding their proceedings, and the custom of many members answering inquiries with the phrase: "I know nothing.” Another new party that began in the mid-1850s was the Republican party which was unfairly associated by southerners with the abolition movement, even though it did not seek the abolition of slavery but only the restriction of its expansion into any new territories. Former Southern Whigs saw the American party as the only remaining vehicle to oppose their long-standing political enemies, the Democrats. As the historian of the Know Nothing party in the South, William Overdyke, observes: "The Southern Whig had but one choice, avoid the Repub¬ licans.' The American Party could now slip into the breach, and make timely 29 offers of a new political home. The new party seemed to be the only solution." Probably the first person who organized Know Nothingism to Arkansas 30 was Albert Pike, sometime in late 1854. ’ According to.Pike’s biographer, Walter Brown, it was not religious bigotry that motivated this talented former

Whig to join the Know Nothings; it was rather his feeling that the American party could divert the country's attention from slavery, and thus the Union 31 would be preserved. Undoubtedly, Pike was the most influential and -43- persuasive leader of Arkansas's Know Nothing party. He was a member of the 32 National Committee of the American party. Apparently there was some senti¬ ment for the new party in Arkansas, for the legislature voted down resolutions late in 1854 which would have condemned the American party. The General

Assembly also defeated proposals to reveal the names of any Arkansans who were Know Nothings. Outside of the state, the Know Nothing press hailed 33 these actions in Arkansas as major victories. At a public rally in Little Rock in August 1855 the American party of Arkansas was formally launched with ex-Whigs, Albert Pike and Absalom Fowler, obviously in control of the new organization. The new party attracted not only Whigs but also gathered a scattering of anti-family (Con way-John son) Democrats into its fold. These Democrats included former Senator Solon Borland,

James Yell of Pine Bluff and Hugh French Thomason of Van Buren. Undoubtedly the greatest bonus for the new Know Nothing party came when the new editor 34 of the Arkansas Gazette, Christopher Danley, joined it. This gave the Know Nothings a statewide newspaper. Former Whig newspapers like the Southern Shield in Helena and the Telegraph in Washington, Arkansas, also proclaimed their 35 allegiance to the new party. At a state convention in Little Rock, the American party nominated James Yell for governor and issued a platform calling for internal improvements, payment of the state debt, and a pledge to preserve 36 the Union. In conventions held to nominate candidates for the Congressional districts, the Know Nothings chose Hugh Thomason for the northern section and 37 Absalom Fowler for the southern. -44-

As one would expect, the Conway-Johnson family did not take lightly the challenge of this new party. Huge barbecues, picnics, and other types of political gatherings were organized, and family leaders like Senators

Johnson and Sebastian canvassed the state denouncing the Know Nothings as a northern, thus alien, political movement filled with political bigotry. Democrats nicknamed the Know Nothing party "Sam” and called the members 38 "Soreback." (The reasons for these particular nicknames remain obscure.) A newcomer within Arkansas's Democratic party, Thomas Hindman, endeared himself to the dynasty by organizing a three-day political festival near his home in Helena, complete with brass bands and speeches from visiting Tennessee and Mississippi Democrats, all with the theme "Up Salt River Sammy Must Go.” Hindman added to his rising status by writing a newspaper article in March of 1856 tracing the genealogy of the Know Nothings through Federalism, National Republicanism and Whiggism. Throughout the article, he carefully depicted their defeat by Democratic heroes Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Both of these activities "marked the beginning of Hindman's 39 rise to a position of leadership in Democratic party circles." As the standard bearers of the Democrats, the family organization nominated Governor Conway 40 and Alfred Greenwood of Bentonville for the northern district. In a surprise political coup, Edward Warren replaced , the incumbent Congressman, 41 as the Democratic nominee for the southern district. In an age of "no-holds-barred" mud-slinging political campaigns, the election of 1856 hit a new low. The Arkansas Gazette attacked Governor Conway -45- for withdrawing from Methodist services to attend Catholic masses, and referred 42 to him as "Miss Nancy," as an obvious slap at the governor's bachelorhood.

For their part, the dynasty's newspaper, the True Democrat, printed in Little Rock and edited by Senator Johnson's brother, Richard H., attacked Yell as a perpetual candidate and characterized Borland as "a disappointed and disgruntled office seeker, a man who exhausted all possibilities insofar as political parties 43 are concerned. The Know Nothings received a stunning blow when, in the middle of the campaign, Albert Pike repudiated the party in a public letter in 44 April of 1856. Absenting himself from the state during the campaign, Pike's defection delighted Democrats who used it effectively against their foes. Pike's letter gave a mortal wound to the Know Nothings in Arkansas, and they needed all the .help they could muster in their uphill battle with the Conway-Johnson dynasty. When the votes were counted, the "family" had once again triumphed. While the Know Nothings did gain a few seats in the legislature, their major candidates lost by two to one margins; only Fowler in the southern Congressional district, 45 came close to upsetting his opponent. This defeat on the state level in August foreshadowed a defeat for the Know Nothing presidential candidate, Millard 46 Fillmore, in the nationwide November elections. Judging from the returns, one could get the impression that the family-controlled Democratic Party overreacted to a minor challenge. Yet in an age devoid of political polls there was no way accurately to judge the strength of the opposition, and thus it was impossible for the "family" to know how much support the Know Nothings engendered. -46-

Moreover, it was difficult to measure how much damage was inflicted on the party by Albert Pike’s defection. To many Arkansans, Pike's repudiation 47 of the party indicated that the Know Nothings were unsafe on the slavery issue.

With Pike at the helm, and former Whigs and dissident Democrats within its folds, there is no doubt that the family accurately viewed the Know Nothings as a major threat to their rule. In the background of these local election contests could be heard the rumblings of sectional controversy. With the defeat of the Know Nothings in August of 1856, the family newspaper, the True Democrat, now took up the cause of saving the Kansas territory for the South. In 1854 Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, persuaded Congress to scrap the ’s 36° 30’. line separating prospective slave or free territory in favor of .his principal of popular sovereignty. In Douglas's plan a territory could be a haven for the slaveless or slaveholder if the majority of the inhabitants of that particular territory chose that condition. Douglas's democratic solution to slave expansion was first tried out in the Kansas-Nebraska territories. Within months, however, it was evident that Douglas’s experiment was floundering in blood and violence. It seems that everyone conceded that Nebraska would bloom without slavery; the real contest centered in the Kansas territory. Both North and South competed in sending settlers to Kansas and soon a minor civil war erupted across the plains of the new territory. "” became an emotional national concern and the "family" organization, reflecting the rabid pro-Southern -47- radicalism of Senator Robert W. Johnson, sought to whip up excitement in Arkansas through its newspaper, the True Democrat. Editor Richard Johnson ominously warned his fellow Arkansans that, "Kansas is on the very border of Arkansas. Our citizens have a deep stake in the issue. With Kansas a slave state, all will be well. With it as a free state, our property will be rendered insecure, and troubles and annoyances will be the lot of our 48 people." In the southern and southeastern portions of Arkansas, a response came—immigrant aid societies designed to aid the pro-Southern faction in Kansas, sprang up overnight in some counties. The effect of these organizations, however, rarely amounted to more than a few resolutions being passed in favor of southern rights in Kansas or some financial aid either being sent to southern settlers in 49 Kansas or funds being raised for prospective settlers from Arkansas. In the northwestern section, the call to save Kansas for slavery inspired nothing but apathy. Slavery in that section of the state was already receding

(see Chapter 1, pp. 16-17), and few in the hill country saw hope for slavery on the Great Plains. A resident of Benton County in the extreme northwestern corner of the state, Representative Alfred Greenwood, expressed the view of the

upland regions of Arkansas when he told his colleagues in Congress: "Slavery will not exist in that territory [Kansas] to any considerable extent, even if it 50 was protected by law." One resident in Clarksville in northwest Arkansas wrote to the editor of the True Democrat: -"The amount of slavery that can be introduced into countries whose climate is favorable to white labor is not worth -48- much Southern effort or sacrifice . . . Kansas, at best, would be a bright mulatto state, as Missouri, Kentucky, and , are getting to be—mere 51 broken reeds to rely on." Let the Missouri border ruffians, Southern hotheads, or the Conway-Johnson dynasty rail on or fight over a free Kansas territory; northwest Arkansas, as a whole, bowed to the inevitable. By 1858 even the editor of the True Democrat wearied of the controversy, for he wrote that 52 he was "sick and tired of Kansas and everything connected with the affair.” With no issues and little opposition to the Conway-Johnson family, the elections of 1858 were the most peaceful since statehood. Albert Rust regained the Democratic nomination from Warren in the southern district, and in the northern district Hindman replaced Greenwood as the Democratic nominee. 53 Both Democrats won easily over token opposition. Hindman's rise to power was the most significant event of the year. As a political reward for his work in the Know Nothing campaign, the "family” callously dumped Greenwood, a three-term Congressman who was most popular in the mountainous regions of the state, and gave the northern district to Hindman who was from Helena in the heart of the planter country. (As previously stated, the Arkansas River mostly divided the northern and southern districts, and thus Helena and other towns in eastern Arkansas fell into the northern district.) This action by the Conway-Johnson clique undoubtedly added another source of irritation between Democrats in north¬ western Arkansas and the planter lowland areas. Increasingly, these northwestern Democrats felt their party was being controlled by the planter interests as expressed through the Conway-Johnson organization. -49-

What the Conway-Johnson organization did not see was that Hindman had ambitions beyond all measure, and was angry over the "family's” arrangement of. William K. Sebastian's re-election to the Senate in the fall 54 of 1858. Hindman himself felt that he deserved that seat. A perennial agitator, Hindman first chafed under "family” authority, and once in Congress he openly broke with the dynasty. It would be Hindman who was in the vanguard of the first successful revolt against its power. In the stormy events of 1860-61, Hindman was never far from center stage. From 1849 to 1859, a close study of Arkansas politics reveals two major trends, the first being the continued discontent with the Conway-Johnson family monopoly of political power. Together with this was the growing dissatisfaction of northwestern Democrats toward their state's party leaders. This mountainous section was especially uneasy, and in some places, most hostile to the pro-Southern dis-Unionist opinions of Senator Johnson, who set the tone of the family position on national issues. These two trends bode ill for the family for they undermined the Conway-Johnson rule. As the events of 1860 were to show, however, these anti-family Democrats could and did have completely divergent ideas concerning secession. This would be the irony of Arkansas politics during the great national crisis of 1860-61. CHAPTER 4

Beyond His Merest and Most Sanguine Hopes: Thomas Hindman and the Defeat of the Dynasty, 1859-1860.

For Arkansas and the nation as a whole, 1860 could not and would not be just another election year. Forces within the state and nation were pulling apart a political fabric that had grown strained and ragged under increased tension. America had become, in Lincoln's famous Scriptural term,

"a house divided against itself." The North decried slavery and its expansion, while the South vigorously defended it.

In a truly prophetic role, the American churches led the way in breaking the bonds that united this country. The Methodist and Baptist churches in the 1840s and the Presbyterians in 1857—three major Protestant demoninations-- 1 had all split over the morality of slavery. During the 1850s various-southern journals and newspapers called for boycotts on northern goods, and many 2 southerners cancelled subscriptions to northern magazines. Finally southern students began withdrawing from northern colleges after John Brown's fanatical 3 and futile raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in the fall of 1859. One historian observed: "The Democratic party, the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal

Church, the American Medical Association-, and the Constitution were among 4 the few ties that had not snapped." While it would be June 1860 before the national Democratic party would be torn asunder, in Arkansas the state

Democratic establishment had already become vulnerable. The Conway-Johnson

-50- -Si-

dynasty faced a rebellion within its ranks that had a real chance to topple its thirty-year reign. Fertile ground existed for such a revolt. Despite a remarkable growth rate, especially in the latter half of the 1850s, Arkansas for the most part existed in a frontier, semi-primitive status. Like Texas, it was the last frontier of the Old South. During the last three decades of the ante-bellum era, a small political clique had controlled state government and mismanaged public affairs. One historian has written: "Family rule had not benefited the state: Legislature followed legislature without grappling with reality; irresponsible, if not criminal, banking programs had ruined state credit; there was no reliable all-weather transportation system, and the state government had done nothing to establish one; the penitentiary had proved very expensive, and none of the several efforts to establish state colleges and a common school had been successful. Whatever benefits the average Arkansan had enjoyed from the society and resources of the state, he had gotten from his own efforts, from the local community, or from the federal government, and only rarely from the state. On the other hand, for decades he would be cursed by the faults of the state's banking enter¬ prises and the almost total lack of an internal improvements program."® If these were the conditions, the men who led the attack on the family were not altruistic crusaders seeking the 'advancement of Arkansas's economic progress. Ambition consumed these rebels against the dynasty. In this

year, 1860, like a match in a dry forest, ambition ignited combustible - resentment and caused a major political conflagration. While opposition to the family had been lurking in the shadows for

years, according to historian Michael Dougan, this anti-family opposition -52- received unexpected support from the rapid influx of newcomers into Arkansas during the late 1850s. "The rapidly increasing population brought in men who expected the state government to aid in establishing schools, railroads, levies, and roads .... They did not understand that family ' political control rested on masterly inactivity. Thus a dangerous situation developed as an 6 increasing percentage of the population owed less and less to the family." A dangerous situation for the family presented a grand opportunity for an aggressive schemer like Thomas C. Hindman. Thomas Carmichael Hindman was born on January 29, 1828 in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was the younger of two sons of Thomas C. Hindman and Sallie Holt Hindman. His family was steeped in a long military tradition, his grandfather having served in the Revolution and his father in the War of 1812 under Andrew Jackson. His mother was the daughter of a Virginia Revolutionary soldier. President

Jackson appointed his father an Indian Agent, and the family moved to Jacksonville, in 1832. Nine years later they moved to Tippah County in north Mississippi, where the elder Hindman began to lead the life of a cotton planter. Young Tom Hindman had been educated in a classics institute in

Princeton, N.J., and returned home in 1846 in time to volunteer for the Mexican War. Two years later with the rank of , he returned to Holly Springs, Mississippi, and he began to study law. Admitted to the Bar in 1851, he soon became involved in politics, working for Jefferson -53-

Davis in his bitter but unsuccessful campaign for governor against Henry

Foote. In 1854 at the age of twenty-six, he moved to Helena, Arkansas, where he soon made a name for himself in Democratic politics. The family appreciated his effective work against the Know Nothings in 1856 and awarded him a Congressional seat at the age of thirty. He furthered his career finan¬ cially and socially when he married Molly Watkins Biscoe, the daughter of a wealthy east Arkansas planter. Her uncle, Robert Watkins, served as 7A Arkansas’s first secretary of state, 1836-40. A friend later characterized Hindman as: "An ambitious politician, rather overbearing in expression, self- sufficient . . . uncompromising in everything" who regarded "Arkansas as 7B an empire of which he should be emperor." Hindman was furious that the family-controlled, Democratic caucus, re¬ nominated Senator William Sebastian instead of giving him the post. In early 1859 he launched his own rebellion against the family. In a speech in Little Rock on February 15, he assailed "caucus power" and declared the Sebastian election null and void because ex-Whigs and ex-Know Nothings had taken part in the proceedings. Hindman, of course, stressed his own complete 8 loyalty to the ideals of "States-Rights* Democracy." By summer the break between Hindman and the dynasty was complete.

Hindman reportedly told family leaders that it was now "war and war to the 9 knife." The family knew the source of the irritation; its newspaper organ in Little Rock, the True Democrat, edited by Senator Robert W. Johnson's -54- brother, Richard Johnson, wrote that Hindman was splitting the state

Democratic party because "we did not take part to sacrifice Judge Sebastian 10 to Hindman's ambition.n As for Hindman's other charges about caucus power, the dynasty, quite predictably, declared it to be mere nonsense. The True Democrat declared: "This stuff about the 'family* and 'ex-Whigs humbuggery' fools nobody . Let it be known it is the stunt of a bankrupt 11 politician to get capital to flourish on for a while." Coincident with Hindman's upsurge, the legislature of 1858-59 grew restive under family control and cut state taxes. Governor Conway vetoed this legislation on the ground that it repudiated the state debt, and "when the legislature insisted on taking per-diem pay during a recess, against family wishes, a major revolt was under way. Allied with Speaker of the House Ben DuVal of Sebastian County, Hindman was enabled to build a 12 state-wide power base." Hindman's next step was to establish his own paper in Little Rock to combat the family on its own turf. Since the 1858 election, a rumor circulated in Little Rock that a second Democratic newspaper would be started in opposition 13 to the dynasty. Finally word came through a Memphis newspaper that a new publication, calling itself the Old Line Democrat would soon appear in Little Rock. The True Democrat sniffed: "It may be called the Old Line Democrat, but it will be, for all intents and purposes, a disorganizing sheet, supported by and giving aid and comfort to, the opposition by endeavoring -55-

14 to create a schism in the Democratic Party." Editor Richard Johnson accused

Christopher Danley of the Arkansas Gazette of being behind this new paper.

Actually Danley had burned his bridges with the Democratic party, hating 15 both the dynasty and Hindman for the way they both treated the Know Nothings. When the True Democrat persisted in accusing Danley of being in league with Hindman, the Gazette editor replied that the True Democrat had become afflicted 16 with "the Mange of Meanness and the Leprosy of Lying." On September 15, 1859, Hindman's paper made its appearance in Little Rock. He hired as editor Thomas Peek, a Virginian who had just served as 17 an editor of a Stephen Douglas newspaper in Illinois. The new publication boldly declared that on national affairs it would be, "Southern in tone and 18 character," and proudly proclaimed "the right of secession." On local 19 issues it promised to be "the organ of no one man, faction or clique." This promise rang somewhat hollow, since the paper mentioned Hindman’s name no less than 38 times, "with such effusions as would sicken and disgust 20 an Eastern Sultan." Hindman already had another paper in his own Congressional District, the Helena States-Rights Democrat. One of the former editors of that paper, A. J. Rogers, had'been arrested in Augusta, Georgia 21 for stealing slaves.

The two Little Rock newspapers launched a vicious war upon one - another that did not abate for almost a year. Both had allies throughout 22 the state, who were soon drawn into the fray. The Old Line Democrat -56- wondered why the people of Arkansas go to the expense of holding county meetings and district and state conventions, "when state offices are bartered and peddled by a little stock-jobbing of thick-headed politicians whose only distinction is derived from the fact that they live in Little Rock and belong 23 to the dynasty.” Along with these assaults upon the "imperious dictations of the family," Hindman’s press needled Governor Conway's eight-year inept and lackadaisical administration, and at the same time accused the True 24 Democrat of overcharging on public printing contracts. Faced with a formidable challenge from this insolent, upstart first-term Congressman, the Conway-Johnson barrage against Hindman was no less steady or vicious. At tirst during most of the fall of 1859, the family accused Hindman of being only a factious disorganizer with overwhelming ambition, saving most of their fire for the editor of the Old Line Democrat, Thomas Peek. The family newspaper relished quoting Douglasite Peek 25 vis-a-vis his new role as a rabid secessionist. The initial hands-off policy towards Hindman was understandable because he was the Democratic representative from the northern district, having been given that position with family blessing. Behind the scenes the dynasty looked for any candidate to oppose him. During the fall and into the next year the i family gave tacit approval to such figures as Arthur Carroll of Conway' 26 County and George Clarke of Crawford County as potential opponents. (Clarke had made his peace with the family since the early 1850s.) -57-

Feeling heady in his new insurgent role, Hindman made it known that he would appear in Little Rock, and denounce the family leaders to their faces. Thursday, November 24, 1859 was the day set aside for the grand encounter. Senator Robert W. Johnson made a special fifty-mile journey to meet the first district Congressman, but Hindman didn't show. He claimed later that he could not attend because illness in his family required him to 27 be in Mississippi. Whatever his excuse, his enemies saw only cowardice, and Senator Johnson issued a statement calling Hindman a "bully" and 28 "imposter in the ranks of honor."

Even more damaging to Hindman were the "Viator Letters." Elias Boudinot, the half-breed Cherokee editor oi the FayetteviUe Arkansian, received an envelope which contained a letter written by Hindman and which was later published in Hindman's newspapers under the signature "Viator." These "Viator" letters materialized soon after Hindman made a public appearance; the letters always heaped praise and glory on the first district Congressman. That Hindman wrote these letters was verified 29 by witnesses who knew his handwriting. Hindman's press denied the charge at tirst, yet later the Congressman admitted that he had taken 30 part in their composition. This confession delighted the family press and the True Democrat scolded and scorned Hindman. "He sang his own 31 praises; he wrote his own puffs'. Shame'. Where is thy blush?" Un¬ deniably, the affair proved embarrassing to the Hindman camp, even -58- staunch supporters like editor J. S. Morrill ot the Des Arc Citizen, put distance between himself and Hindman for the first few months of 32 1860. The avoidance of the debate with Senator Johnson and the Viator letters dampened but did not extinguish the fire of Hindman's rebellion. Too much verbal and literary animosity had passed between the two Democratic factions. Hindman's pride, at this late date, prevented him from succumbing to the

Conway-Johnson dynasty. Personal relations between Senator Johnson and Representative Hindman worsened during the winter of 1860. The two nearly fought a duel in Washington in early January; the intervention of Senator 33 Robert Toombs of Georgia averted a potentially deadly engagement, Hindman had another good reason to continue assaulting the family; his tireless efforts had gained important allies in his struggle against the family dynasty. For example, Albert Rust, Congressman from the southern district of Arkansas, coveted the U. S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by 34 . Robert W. Johnson. Although a strong admirer ot Senator Douglas of Illinois, a man the Hindman press considered as loathsome as Senator Johnson, the south Arkansas representative continued to receive praise from 35 Hindman's press and encouragement from his camp. In addition to Rust, Hindman's faction enlisted the candidacy of Edward Gantt who would 36 campaign for Rust's Congressional seat in the spring of 1860. While not equal to the dynasty in political strength, Hindman's faction was proving itself to be a formidable threat. -59-

Dealing with political opponents was nothing new to the family; it had handled them with consumate skill for the past thirty years. But in Hindman the family had found an opponent who had learned his political craft within the dynasty's organization. Moreover, Hindman had no equal in oratorical prowess. "The family might out-manipulate Hindman, but they had no one 37 who could out-debate him." Driven by an indomitable and ambitious will, Hindman passionately articulated the long-simmering resentment of the populace against the family. Like later Southern politicians (and demagogues through¬ out all ages), Hindman never hesitated to raise popular prejudice to further his own political aims. The combative Hindman gleefully returned any abuse he received from the family and its press. The role of revolutionary well suited his overwhelming pride, arrogance, and verbal bombast. Tenacious and talented, Hindman was still without real power, and the family was doing all it could to keep things that way. According to the dynasty's plan, Richard H. Johnson, editor oi its newspaper in Little Rock, would receive the nomination for governor, and Governor Elias Conway would receive in the December Democratic legislative caucus the 38 senate seat Robert W. Johnson was abandoning. Various names were bandied about by the state's newspaper in the fall and winter of 1859-60, yet no real candidate emerged to challenge . R. H. Johnson's impending gubernatorial nomination. While others searched for candidates, the family quietly worked to secure control over the state -60-

Demo cr at ic convention which was scheduled to meet on April 2, 1860.

Throughout the state, county conventions chose delegates to this convention, and in a few counties pitched political battles and even brawls broke out 39 between family and anti-family supporters. A few observers probably wondered if such scenes would be repeated in the state convention, and the Camden Eagle earnestly implored the delegates: "Let there be no wire¬ working, no packing, no limited expression, but a full attendance, a deliberate 40 consultation, and a just and fair agreement.” Convening in Little Rock on Monday, April 2, the state Democratic convention immediately became entangled in a fight between contesting county 41 delegations. "Although the Johnson group eventually secured a repre¬ sentative basis favorable to its continued domination of the party, there was no agreement by the delegates to abide by the final decision of the 42 convention.” With the convention safely under family control, R. H. Johnson received the nomination on the second ballot, although he failed 43 to get the two-thirds vote usually required for nomination. Near the end of the convention Hindman delegates led by Ben DuVal and Pat Cleburne of Helena issued a protest against the irregularities of the proceedings.

Basically Hindman's followers claimed that the candidate was chosen by an illegal majority vote and the miscasting of certain county votes. The latter charge was most serious for R. S. Yerkes, R. H. Johnson's partner at the True Democrat cast his vote for Van Buren County, even though no -61-

45 county convention was ever held there. Reaction to R. H. Johnson's nomination came swiftly and predictably. Family newspapers like the True Democrat, the El Dorado Times, the Camden Eagle, the Fayetteville Arkansian, and the Planter„ published in Napoleon, Arkansas, all gave Johnson their 46 immediate endorsement. Hindman's press, of course, was furious. Morrill, in the DesArc Citizen wrote that the whole assembly was "a packed and pre¬ arranged convention . . . brought to bear in favor of the nomination of R. H. 47 Johnson.” The Pine Bluff Jefferson Independent declared: "We feel satisfied that the actions in regard to the nomination of governor does not reflect the 48 will of the people of this state." At first, the Old Line Democrat reluctantly 49 hoisted Johnson's name on its masthead as the Democratic nominee, yet behind the scenes Hindman searched frantically for his own candidate for governor. Both the dynasty and the insurgents prepared for the Congressional District conventions in mid-May.

At the northern district convention at Dover, Hindman assumed complete control of the proceedings, conducting it as if it were his own orchestra. Excluding all pro-family delegations, he won renomination by acclamation. His own position secure, Hindman then moved the assembly to repudiate Johnson's nomination and to call for a new state democratic convention. Hindman was especially vindictive to Elias Boudinot of Fayetteville who had exposed the Congressman's "Viator" letters. The convention barred the editor because he was part Cherokee. It was said that he was not a citizen, 5° and hence was no better than Dred Scott. -62-

At Arkadelphia in the southern district convention, neither the Johnson nor the Hindman forces could establish hegemony over the proceedings.

Hindman’s camp supported Gantt while the family supported the candidacy of Dr. Charles Mitchel. In a confused, noisy, disorderly gathering, no candidate could muster the votes necessary for nomination. The people would be left to decide between Gantt and Mitchel in the August elections. Hindman’s forces, however, almost pushed the assembly to repudiate R. H. Johnson’s candidacy tor Governor. The family successfully beat this motion down, but 51 only by a few votes. With these Congressional conventions behind them, the Hindman faction was ready to unveil its own candidate for governor. To the supreme surprise and consternation of the family leadership, it was Henry M. Rector, the

first cousin of Governor Elias Conway.’ Rector had a long political career within the family, and his father had been one of its early leaders. Henry Rector had first served as U. S. Marshal in the mid-1840s and then served off and on in the legislature. In 1854 he unsuccessfully sought nomination for the southern Congressional seat. His years as a loyal servant, and his

kinship to the family finally earned him appointment to the Arkansas Supreme Court January 20, 1859. Obviously, Rector’s ambition had not been satiated

with his supreme court position, and so now, in mid-May of 1860, the 44- year-old judge renounced his political heritage and became Hindman’s candidate 52 for governor. -63-

With exaltation the Hindman press proudly presented Rector to the public. Editor Peek was especially eloquent: "Who is Henry M. Rector? A poor honest farmer of Saline County, who toils at the plow handles to provide bread, meat, and raiment for his wife and children. Do you not know him? There are many people who do—who have seen him laboring in the fields, earning his bread with the sweat of his brow. But possessing the imprint of manhood from nature, and from nature's God, at his country's greatest need, he arose like Cincinnatus of old and did his duty.

The True Democrat responded by asking rhetorically; "Do you know him? For ourselves we answer, 'no, sir.' We know a gentleman of that name in Pulaski County who owns quite a bit of property, is a lawyer 54 by profession, and is entirely innocent of plowing." The paper went on to say that although Rector is a clever politician, "even he must sicken 55 when he reads such stuff as the editor [Peek] plasters him with." While the True Democrat continued its formal endorsement of Hindman in the northern Congressional race, it blasted him. every edition. Behind the scenes the family actually worked for the election of Jesse Cypert of 56 Searcy who ran as an independent. In this fratricidal contest between Democrats, the action of the old Whig-Know-Nothing element of the population took on new importance. Generally the press of this, the "old opposition" stood on the sidelines as the Democrats brawled.. The leading spokesman of this constituency, C. C. Danley of the Arkansas Gazette, surveyed the political field in -64- ear ly June and decided: "Taken altogether, the belligerent democracy seems to be in a fix, and, as far as the Gazette is concerned, we say 57 '’let 'em fight.".” Danley boasted that neither Johnson nor the Hindman 58 faction would ever receive his endorsement. For a time it seems that the old Whigs had their own gubernatorial 59 candidate, Judge Thomas Hubbard, of Washington in southwestern Arkansas,

He opened his campaign in late April and the True Democrat welcomed his candidacy because it openly hoped it would keep old-line Whigs from 60 supporting what it termed "Hindman's disorganizers". Meanwhile, the constituency of the "old opposition" concerned itself with national matters; a meeting in Helena in late April was held to elect delegates to the national 61 Constitutional Union party in Baltimore. By mid-May, the Arkansas Gazette hoisted on its masthead the names of that party's nominees for President and Vice-President, John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts.

At a statewide convention of the Constitutional Union party, held at Hot Springs on June 21, this assembly pulled Hubbard out of the race for governor, and decided against nominating any candidate in the two Con¬ gressional district contests. , They chose a path Danley termed "good and wise," of avoiding the statewide contests in August and concentrating their 62 efforts for Bell and the presidential campaign in the fall. To each indi¬ vidual former Whig and Know Nothing was left the unwelcome and difficult task of choosing between one of the two warring factions in the Democratic party, their traditional political enemey. -65-

To call the tattle between the Johnson dynasty and the Hindman renegades an election would do an injustice to reality; the contest actually resembled a raging political war. A more rancorous political struggle the state had never witnessed before nor probably since. While the nation as a whole sat anxiously on the eve of its greatest crisis, in Arkansas a volcano which had long been smoldering suddenly erupted with tremendous i force. The political clique which had governed Arkansas since statehood now tenaciously fought for its life against enemies who had once been its allies. Interestingly, little ideological differences separated the Hindman and Johnson factions. Basically both agreed upon the rightness of slavery, its protection in the federal territories, and the right of states to secede if necessary to protect the "peculiar institution." If these issues were splitting the nation apart, Arkansas's Democrats, for the most part, came together on these positions. Since the compromise crisis of 1850, the Conway- Johnson controlled Democratic party usually sided with the states-rights wing of . The arguments in this campaign had all been heard before—the million dollar debt from the state banks, fraudulent votes in political assemblies, overcharging in state printing contracts, and the necessity for internal improvements for a rapidly growing frontier state. Standing behind all these issues was one major concern, the family and its continued dominance of public affairs. Unique to this campaign was -66- the large defection of former members of the dynasty into the ranks of its enemies. The family was not directly assaulted in 1860; it had grown too powerful for that tactic. This election was a public grab for control by the lower echelons of the dynasty. This explains much of the bitterness and anger permeating the election. Basically it v/as a personal and political tamily feud. Appropriately, Hindman sounded the first volley in the final stretch of the campaign. Hoping to redeem beyond doubt a reputation tarnished by accusations of cowardice in the previous fall, Hindman arrived in Little Rock in late May to denounce the family on its home ground. Before a friendly, enthusiastic crowd, he gave them what they wanted to hear, exaggeration. "Of all the unholy alliances and corrupt political influences that ever'crushed the energies of a free people, that of Johnsonianism was the most blighting, 63 withering, and corrupting." Hindman's blast at the family soon found an echo in a public address from Congressman Rust. Rust charged the dynasty with creating "absolute 64 rule" in Arkansas, "ever since admission of this state into the Union." No doubt the Congressman from the southern district sought to build support with Hindman's faction in his bid for the U. S. Senate; nevertheless, Rust's activity for Hindman shows the secondary role of national concerns in this bitter state contest. In the very same statement against the family, Rust asserted his position as a Union Democrat, warning Arkansas and the South as -67 a whole against secession because, in his own words, "it would destroy, 65 perhaps, the last great experiment m free government.” For these few months of the summer, Hindman and Rust buried their differences over secession and joined forces in what they considered to be the most important cause, the struggle against the Conway-Johnson dynasty. As the campaign progressed, the rebels were able to attract a few other prominent politicians from the ranks of the family. Former second district Congressman Edward Warren and former Governor John Seldon Roane both broke with the dynasty. The latter wrote a public letter of support for the insurgent slate of Hindman, Rector and Gantt. Roane accused the family of forcing him to retire in 1852 in order to make way for the present governor .66 whom the Hindman press dubbed as ”Miss Nancy Con-a-Way.” (This is another reference to Governor Conway's bachelorhood, and is also a slap 67 at the manner in which he supposedly "conned” his way into office.) 68 The family newspapers soon leveled their fire at Roane and tried to dismiss ail the allegations about family power. According to the Batesville Democratic Sentinel: "This hue and cry of the Old Line Democrat against the Johnsons is as worn and thin as the Pharisaical Know Nothing humbuggery about the Pope of Rome. It is the useless slogan of the Borland dissenters, and has been 69 harped on until it makes a decent man sick." Hindman moved from center stage during the last six weeks of his campaign. His own reelection to Congress was relatively secure, as even -68-

70 his enemies admitted. Moreover, Hindman had finished the work of instigating a major rebellion against the family. As in any election, the close races drew the most interest; Gantt and Mitchel in the southern Congressional district race, and especially Rector and R. H. Johnson in the gubernatorial battle. Because the governor held so much power and patronage which extended over a four-year term, this office was of greatest importance. Clouds of crisis were already gathering on the national horizon, and thus the person who became governor in November of 1860 would be of great significance.

In the final campaign stretch, both Rector and Richard Johnson issued public circulars, which were printed in almost every newspaper, stating their positions on the issues. Rector called the state convention a fraud,

attacked Governor Conway's handling of the bank debt, and claimed the 71 True Democrat overcharged on state printing contracts. Johnson responded that "Governor Conway's plan" for settling the state debt was the omy wise, prudent, and honest course open to the administration. He also pointed out that even without the fraudulent vote from Van Buren County, he still had the majority of votes at the state convention. While he saw some need for internal improvements and railroads, he thought it was best to wait until the million dollar debt from the banks was paid before undertaking any 72 further financial ventures. As was the political custom, Rector and Johnson toured the state together through the months of June and July. In Johnson's absence, his editorial -69- position was occupied by Elias Boudinot, whom Hindman referred to as that 73 "colored editor" of the family newspaper. Press reports covering their appearances were completely unreliable for they sought to promote their candidates rather than give an objective account of the debates. Near the end of the campaign, Danley of the Gazette wrote the most objective account: "Mr. Johnson's style is slow, dry, and prosy in a painful degree. To form a just appreciation of his oratorical powers, one should hear his style of saying, "I . . . was . . . born ... in Arkansas . . . and ... if you don't elect me Governor I've nowhar to go.' Judge Rector is a fair declaimer, his fault is that he is too wordy—his sentences are crowded with big six syllablers (sic), and that he dilutes his ideas until they are sometimes rather thin. He is an orator of the ka-larruping style, as shown in the following sentence: 'I stand on my pedestal, shorn of the abominations and malpractices whereon they relied to cast the nomination upon the present nominee of the Democratic party'."74 Outside of the dynasty and its dominance, the most talked about issue was Rector’s scheme to pay off the massive bank debt. He would delay payment of the debt for twenty-five to fifty years and concentrate on giving state aid to railroads which, in Rector's view, would bring the necessary 75 revenue for the debt. Many quarters immediately attacked Rector's plan, and even editor Peek of the Old Line Democrat admitted it might be impractical, yet he also pointed out that the plan had merit, "for it opened the doorway for 76 suggestions of other measures." Financial conservatives like Danley were horrified at Rector's program, and the Gazette said if Rector was ever elected 77 on such a program, it would equal "a public calamity." The family, through 78 itc Ar»ncQr» tVio Tr*uo DomA^ot nro^ro cphomo nAtVn'nn* Vwif 70-

Once the public tired of Rector's fiscal proposals, Hindman's press counter-attacked by throwing mud at the family's gubernatorial nominee.

The Old Line Democrat claimed that it was common knowledge that R. H. Johnson had been drunk for the past ten years; a charge the True Democrat 79 labeled, "base and dastardly," and "an insult to the Democratic party." Both Rector and Johnson knew the ex-Whig vote was necessary for victory, so both made overtures to this constituency. The family stressed its sound financial policy, while Rector "appealed to the Whigs with talk of railroads, 80 internal improvements and good government." Very late in the campaign, a curious episode occurred which may have had some bearing on the final results. A gunsmith named Trumpler wrote a statemént in the Old Line Democrat that he had heard Johnson boast he could 81 buy every mechanic's vote in Little Rock with a drink of whiskey. Of course, Johnson denied the allegations, and the True Democrat claimed the story so groundless that the Old Line Democrat held up publication for 82 eight hours until Johnson had left town. Trumpler right up to election 83 day vigorously maintained that he told the truth. On August 6, 1860 the long, bitter campaign came to a close. Arkansans went to the polls. When the full returns were tabulated two weeks later, they revealed a stunning defeat for the family. Hindman trounced his ' opponent in the first district by more than a two-to-one margin. Edward Gantt achieved a solid, if small majority over Mitch el in the southern district. -71-

The big news was in the gubernatorial race; Rector gained 31,948 votes 84 to R. H. Johnson’s 28,487. The Old Line Democrat crowed; "Caeser has 85 had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, and Johnson—has met his Rector.” For the first time since statehood, Arkansans had rejected a family-picked candidate for a major political oftice. The people thus placed in the

A governor's chair a maverick, somewhat eccentric, and inexperienced politician who would hold office during the greatest crisis of the state and nation. In analyzing the returns, many questions emerge. A predominant one concerns the Whig vote. A few months after the election, Danley claimed it went for Johnson. John Harrell, a contemporary writing at the turn of the century, disagreed, saying that Rector owed his triumph 86 to dissident Democrats and the old line Whigs. Recent scholarship seems to support the latter view. ”Of the twenty-two traditional Whig counties, fourteen went for Johnson, and eight for Rector. But since the Rector counties were more populous, the only difference in the total was an 888 87 vote plurality for Rector.” (See Figure 2.) Johnson quite probably enjoyed substantial Whig support at the onset of the summer, yet he may have lost it in the last few months. There was good evidence that Johnson's inability as an orator may have contributed

to his defeat. For example, while withholding endorsement for either of the two Democrats, the Whig newspaper, Batesville's Independent Balance, heard both candidates and commented: "Johnson is the poorest stump -72- spéaker we ever listened to . . .he could save votes by quitting the 88 stump. He loses votes every time he makes a speech, we have no doubt.” Another former Whig, Judge John Brown of Camden, waited until he heard both Rector and Johnson speak before making any decision. He voted for Rector because, as he wrote in his diary, ”he is the right man to use in 89 breaking up . . . what is called the Johnson party-oligarchy.” Other more financially conservative Whigs, like J. Woodward of Little

Rock, were disgusted by Rector's election, fearing especially Rector's bank policy. Writing to his friend and political associate, David Walker of FayetteviUe, he thought it was strange that now, when the family was 90 right on the bank debt question, it was defeated. Woodward scorned those Whigs who "laid aside their manhood" by voting for Rector; he doubted 91 they could count on any favors from the next governor.

Beyond these speculations on the Whig vote during the election of 1860, a more difficult and intriguing question surrounds the personality and appeal of Thomas Hindman. The Congressman has been portrayed as both a flamboyant, colorful, romantic figure, and an ultra-states-rights, fire-eating demagogue, 92 Arkansas's own version of William Yancey of Alabama. Hindman probably fitted both characterizations to some degree. This does not completely explain his appeal. He possessed great oratorical skill, organizational ability, and the raw political opportunism necessary for a successful struggle with a powerful thirty-year political dynasty. These gifts alone did not assure success in August 1860. -73-

Historian Michael Dougan has suggested another plausible explanation. Hindman’s success resulted from the rapid influx of newcomers into Arkansas in the late 1850s. Being ’’unfamiliar with the older politicians, and vexed by various unsolved state problems, the new voters had no ties to the family, and no correct knowledge of the real meaning or issues of the campaign. 93 Such men flocked to the Rector-Hindman-Gantt Danners.” Hindman was the first successful politician in Arkansas history to appeal directly to the people over and above the regular Democratic organization. He turned the last state election of the ante-bellum era into a contest which we would now describe as a political primary. On this innovative and unfamiliar ground, the dynasty was at a clear disadvantage. Usually-it could out-manipulate its Democratic opponents and then silence them with favors or grand appeals for party unity. The Whigs vigorously attacked the family, but were too conservative, wealthy, and aristocratic to make a widespread appeal to the lower classes. When Hindman was out-mani¬ pulated by the family he merely went to the people, not fearing to use class differences for his own purpose. The family was thus caught completely off guard. In Hindman’s style of electioneering: ’’State aphorisms gave way to impassioned appeals to class and racial prejudices. Oratorical ability and platform style became important characteristics of the more successful candidates; and, unless some deep issue stirred the people, they frequently 94 would be decisive." In Hindman's case, they were decisive. -74-

All through the campaign, especially in its latter stages, Hindman's camp bristled with the rhetoric of revolution, turning class antagonisms into political gain. The extent of enmity between rich and poor whites might be debatable, yet the fact that it existed is not. Even before Hindman's revolt hit full stride, James Morrill of the DesArc Citizen expressed some of the resentments felt by the mass of Democratic voters to the dynasty: "The new rank and file of our party, the honest, hard-fisted yeomanry who do our voting and win our victories have no mouthpiece in Little Rock. The so-called True Democrat makes blind obedience to a clique of office seekers the test of orthodoxy, and denounces as traitors and disorganizers all those who do not kiss the feet of these lordly aristocrats."95 Attacks upon the family, its paper, its location in Little Rock, provided the Hindman forces fuel necessary to turn lower class whites and newcomers against the family with that inevitable appeal to democratic equality. As an example, Hindman's organ in Little Rock once wrote" "The True Democrat may sneer about the farmers and the plowman, aspiring to high political distinction, that paper will soon find out that the hard-fisted yeomen think that anyone of their number has as much right to aspire to 96 high position as any of the Johnsons." In referring to the dynasty as "the throne of the Bourbons," who were trying to crush "this uprising of the people," Hindman not only - 97 turned the contest into a primary, but a class conflict as well. In this sense, Hindman earned the dubious distinction of a southern demagogue, a category he would later share with other politicians from his region, men -75- like Ben Tillman, Tom Watson, Theodore Bilbo, Huey Long, and, of course, . Thus Hindman, in his campaign style, and in his passionate appeals to lower class prejudices, belonged not only to an age swept away at Appomattox but to the future of southern history. Another look at the election revealed that Hindman managed to avoid the lowland-slave vs. mountain-slaveless division by appealing to a common 98 demoninator, yeoman antagonism to a lordly dynasty in Little Rock. Topographical differences did not have a decisive hand in this contest; unionist mountaineers and lowland secessionist farmers could easily fall under Hindman’s spell if the election appeared to be a battle between

democracy and aristocracy. (See Figure 2 in Appendix for 1860 gubernatorial returns according to state map of counties.) Hindman was not only colorful but shrewd. Like later so-called "southern demagogues," Hindman did not restrict himself to class animosities—he used racial prejudice as well. During the ante-oellum era this type of racism usually took form within such extreme positions as demands for "southern rights" in the territories, i.e. protection of slavery, and a call for the re-opening ot the foreign slave trade. Hindman stood for both positions, maintaining always the posture of a swaggering

secessionist. He would make his influence felt in Arkansas’s politics during the national election of 1860. Chapter 5

The People of Arkansas Are With the South: State Politics During the Presidential Election of 1860.

By the end of summer 1860 signs of progress could be detected through¬ out Arkansas. For example, late i858 the first railroad, the Memphis to

Little Rock line, began operating from Hopefield on the Mississippi river to 1 Madison on the St. Francis river, a distance of about thirty-eight miles.

In May 1860 telegraph lines inched into Arkansas, connecting Fayetteville

and Van Buren with St. Louis, the proverbial mother of the trans-Mississippi 2 west. On July 31, just one week prior to election, Little Rock became the

first city in Arkansas with gas lighting. The new Slaughter Gas Works brought

welcome illumination to many homes and businesses in the state capitol. The

streets remained dark for a time because the low stage of the river delayed 3 - shipment of the iron lampposts.

Besides these technical advances educational progress came to the state

with the founding of Arkansas College in Fayetteville in 1852, and the opening

of St. John's College, a Masonic military school, in Little Rock during the 4 fall of 1859. Unfortunately neither school survived the Civil War. During the fall of 1859, a state-supported school for the blind began operating in

Arkadelphia, but no state-supported university would be founded until after 5 the Civil War. Yet Arkansas on the eve of the Civil War still languished

in illiteracy. Many counties were completely devoid of schools; one editor

wrote in the late 1850s: "There is certainly a great amount of ignorance

-76- -77- in many portions of the state, and many worthless teachers pretending to 6 instruct the rising generation.” As the most important Presidential election in American history approached, Arkansas continued to emerge from its long sleep and tentatively participate in the mainstream of national life. Local politics gave way to concern for the national election in November, as politicians and pundits labored earnestly for differing Presidential aspirants. Arkansans were somewhat aware of issues outside of the state. From the compromise crisis of the early 1850s through the "Bleeding Kansas" issue in mid-decade, the family's press kept before the people the issue of slavery and its extension into the territories. As mentioned before (see Chapter 3, pp. 44-46), the family had tried to arouse Arkansans to defend slavery in Kansas, but received only a mixed response. By 1858 rhetoric about Kansas receded from the family newspapers, but the dynasty emerged from the controversy feeling betrayed by Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois. When the Illinois Senator sought re-election that same year the True Democrat expressed the hope he would lose, declaring him to be "a calamity to the 7 Democratic party." Family opinion on national questions usually followed Senator Robert W. Johnson’s strong stand for states-rights and protection of slavery in the territories. He foresaw only the eventual and inevitable disruption of the 8 Union over slavery. Like John Calhoun of , Johnson sadly viewed secession as the only course open for the slaveholding South. Thus -78- when President Buchanan and Stephen Douglas vied for control of the national Democratic party after 1858, the family press usually sided with the adminis- 9 tration. Others dissented from the family party line. After the breakup of the old Whig and Know Nothing parties, this constituency looked to Christopher Danley of the Arkansas Gazette as its statewide advocate. Danley blamed the whole sectional controversy on the Democrats, "ridden with demagogues who have appealed to the passions and prejudices of the people rather than 10 their patriotism." Like most Southerners, Danley had no moral qualms over slavery, for he felt the institution had been "sanctioned in the Bible and by all other nations, Christian or Heathen . . . since the earliest history of 11 the world." Danley proposed that the South boycott northern goods, develop southern industry and begin a vigorous interstate trade between southern states He also favored the establishment of direct trade routes between France and 12 England, thus by-passing Yankee merchants and middlemen. The Gazette editor also called for the re-opening of the foreign slave trade, because Arkansas, as a growing frontier state, needed laborers badly and the high 13 price of slaves retarded the state's economic development. A true conservative Whig, Danley's answer to growing sectionalism was economic not political independence. He thought that once the South was economically and educationally independent, it could stay within the Union 14 without being affected by northern opinion. For President, he hoped that some conservative could be nominated who would appeal to both sections of -79-

15 the country. He suggested or Sam . In contrast with Senator Johnson, Danley did not feel that disunion was unavoidable. He maintained a cautious optimism-that the American people nare too sagacious, intelligent, and ambitious, to suffer the severance of the Union, merely for the sake of appeasing the dismal howl of a handful of harebrained , 16 fanatics .w There were some Douglas support in the Arkansas political establishment, most notably Albert Rust and Thompson Flournoy, but it lacked a statewide newspaper. Rust sided with the Hindman faction and Flournoy with the family during the state election campaign. The Douglas forces could also count on support from minor newspapers liKe the Van Buren Press and the Pocahontas Advertiser. The latter paper praised Douglas as nthe man for the North, the 17 man for the South, and, he is, emphatically, the man for the Union.” Hindman was following a different drummer. Ever since he founded his own newspaper in Helena in the summer of 1857, Hindman styled himself 18 the "apostle of disunion." When his paper, the Old Line Democrat premiered in Little Rock in 1859, its editor promulgated the questionable doctrine known as "the right of secession." The paper demanded strict enforcement of the fugitive slave laws, protection of slavery in all the federal territories, and the re-opening 19 of the foreign slave trade. While the family had always aligned itself with the secession wing of the Democratic party, Hindman clearly set out to out- southern them on every question. -80-

In Hindman's view, Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty on the question of slavery in the territories, was just as odious as the "Black Republican" doctrine of prohibiting slavery in the territories. The Douglas solution resulted in a free Kansas and annulled the guarantee of a property right in slaves transported into the territories. The Supreme Court had declared, in the famous 1857 Dred Scott decision, that slaves were property. Thus slavery had a right to federal protection in all the territories. Without such protection the South's equal property rights were infringed upon and the South could justifiably withdraw from the Union. According to Hindman "the people of Arkansas are with the South on the questions growing out of 20 our national territorial policy."

Since Hindman and the family shared these views on slavery in the territories, both opposed Douglas's Presidential nomination in 1860. However, the family expressed its willingness to support the Illinois Senator if he became 21 the standard bearer for the national Democratic party. (The family accentuated party loyalty as the highest political virtue for both state and national elections.) Hindman's faction, on the other hand, knew no loyalty except to its leader and his rabid, pro-Southern, pro-slavery principles. As early as December of 1859, the Old Line Democrat took the position "that the mere election of a 'Black Republican' would be justifiable cause and signal for the immediate disruption 22 of ihe Union." The family refused to go that far, saying merely it would 23 decide what to do when and if such an unhappy event should occur. -81-

Hindman further distanced himself from the family by his loud demands for the re-opening of the foreign slave traffic, which had been closed since 1808 by a provision in the United States Constitution. This issue, more any any other, separated Hindman and the family on national affairs. Hindman’s press brought up the usual rationale for the slave trade, ’’the African Negro will be unquestionably benefitted morally, religiously, and socially; and the South will assume, then, her position, vouchsafed by 24 heaven, in all positions of life.” Even some of Hindman's supporters winced at the extremity of this position. The Jefferson Independent in Pine Bluff called the re-opening 25 of the slave trade "a doubtful policy and a dubious experiment." The family, with years of federal office-holding behind them and a shrewd per¬ ception that comes with power, knew the consequences of such a demand. As the True Democrat expressed it: "The re-opening of the slave trade is simply a question of the dissolution of the Union . . . that trade can only 26 be resumed when the Union is broken to pieces." In comparison with other southern states, Arkansas was not a major slaveholding state, but it was a bustling community that allowed slavery and desired slaves sorely. As pointed out before (see Chapter 1, pp. 7-8), the migration of the late 1850s brought migrants from the lower South who lusted for land, slaves, and a share in the plantation experience. This desire to be a planter also permeated much of the middle-class of the Old South. As Yankee Joseph Ingraham noted in his travel accounts: "As soon -82- as a young lawyer acquires sufficiently to purchase a few hundred acres of alluvial land and a few slaves, he quits at once ... in order to become a 27 cotton planter.” While it is true that most Arkansans did not own slaves, many desired slaveowner status. While slavery had always been present to some degree in' the Ozarks, farmers of the hill country had little currency to purchase new slaves, and the institution was declining in mountainous Arkansas. (See Chapter i, pp. 15-17.) By contrast, the lowland of southern and eastern Arkansas was filling with slaves and the demand for more was high. In these regions Hindman made his greatest appeal as the "Simon-pure” champion of slaveocracy. With a swaggering, boastful style, the young Congressman hammered upon issues especially designed to appeal to the pride and prejudices of the average white yeoman. Hindman did not merely defend slavery, he called it "blessed." He did not merely call for federal protection of slavery in the territories, he threatened secession unless it was given. While others recoiled at opening the foreign slave trade, Hindman held out to the ac¬ quisitive and aspiring yeoman of the lowlands the impossible dream of further slave importations. Let those in power, the Johnson dynasty, quake and fear at the end result of these positions. Hindman knew only they produced a response beneficial to his political career. To most Arkansans and Southerners alike, slavery was more than an economic necessity and the white man's moral burden; it was also seen as -83- the most direct route to affluence, respectability, and the privileged planter 28 class. Whether he dwelt in the lowland or the upland region of the Old South, the average yeoman identified his dignity as a while man with the dominant slave-holder society; he considered himself to be a member of a 29 "white-folks" democracy. In Arkansas neither the uplander nor the lowlander ever voiced any real apprehensions over slavery per se; they saved most of their antagonism for the planter-class and oligarchies like the Johnson dynasty.

With his rabid pro-slavery views, Hindman appealed to the newly arrived low¬ land migrant who owed little to the family and longed to be a slaveholder. With the mountain slaveless farmers, Hindman effectively capitalized upon their suspicious hatred of the family which the northwesterners increasingly viewed as a planter oligarchy. Like later Arkansas politicians, Jeff Davis and Orval Faubus, Hindman effectively built his political base on the fears, aspirations, and pride of the common white people of this state. The family had never seen an opponent like Thomas C. Hindman. As Arkansas's Democrats assembled in Little Rock for their quadrennial convention, the delegates had the responsibility, aside from nominating a gubernatorial candidate, of electing and instructing the state's representatives at the national party assembly. The state convention consisted of Douglasites, Hindman supporters, and family associates, all working diligently for their respective positions. As might be expected, a Hindman supporter, Napoleon Burrow, introduced a series of resolutions, one of which called for Arkansas's delegates to withdraw from the national convention if protection of southern -84-

30 rights, that is slavery, in the territories was not guaranteed. These resolutions were assigned to a platform committee dominated by Douglasites 31 and family members.

Soon after the gubernatorial nomination, the platform committee produced its major report; it was clearly written by the family. This report repudiated Douglas and popular sovereignty while at the same time did not call for a walk- 32 out if Congressional protection of slavery m the territories was not insured. The Hindman supporters held two seats on the platform committee, and they issued a minority report calling tor Congressional protection of slavery in all the territories; the Arkansas delegation should "insist upon the recognition, by said convention, to the principles hereinbefore declared, prior to any 33 balloting for a candidate for the presidency. What the delegates should do if the convention failed to abide by the South’s demand for Congressional protection of territorial slavery was left completely unanswered. The minority report was accepted by the convention. It was a major victory for Hindman who had pulled the family into alignment with the radical, fire-eating wing of southern democracy. Apparently, the family conceded on the platform in order to choose the delegates. Out of the eight delegates, there was only one Hindmanite, Burrow, and only one Douglas supporter, Thompson Flournoy. However, it would be wrong to describe Arkansas’s delegates to the national democratic con¬ vention of 1860 as moderates. Indeed, it contained a seven-to-one antagonism -85- to Douglas, and it was armed with instructions to insist and demand Con- 34 gressional protection of slavery in the territories. Late in April 1860, Democrats gathered from all across the nation in Charleston, S.C., a city long noted for its charm, beauty, and fanatic disunionism. Here in these uncongenial surroundings, the "Little Giant” from Illinois, Stephen Douglas, hoped to crown his political career with a Presidential nomination. William Yancey ot Alabama and other fire-eating radicals were determined to break up the convention rather than to submit 35 to the nomination of Douglas. These southern extremists pushed for adoption of the so-called Alabama platform which demanded Congressional protection of slavery in every federal territory. Earlier Senator Douglas had warned his southern colleagues in the Senate: "I do not believe "a Democratic candidate can even carry any one Democratic state of the North on a platform that it is the duty of the federal government to force a people 36 of a territory to have slavery if they do not want it.”

Northérn Democrats could not and would not accept Yancey’s Alabama platform, so that delegation led seven other delegations from the lower South, ; except Georgia, on a walkout from the proceedings, all to the cheers and applause of most of Charleston's citizenry. On that day, April 30, 1860, three Arkansans joined in that walkout, one of whom being the Hindmanite, Napoleon Burrow. The next day Georgia's delegation withdrew and three more Arkansans left the hall, leaving only John Stirman and Flournoy as 37 Arkansas's delegates. Stunned by the walkout, and knowing full well -86-

that division could only bring defeat in November, Democrats adjourned in order to meet again in Baltimore on June 18. Before the Charleston convention adjourned, Flournoy gave a roaring Unionist address to the convention, pleading with his fellow Democrats: "Let us have no more talk of sections. We know no North, no South, no East, no West, where 38 Democrats are concerned . . ." Nobel sentiments, yet they hardly re¬ flected political realities. Reactions to the affair in the Arkansas's press tended to support the 39 seceding delegates while blasting the two who stayed. Daniey of the Gazette was at the Charleston assembly, and he perceived the situation clearly. "At present the Democratic papers and leaders are on delicate 40 ground." The walkout in Charleston proved the inevitability of frag¬ mentation. "The Democratic party has run its . course and is too rotten to 41 be held together even by the cohesive power of public plunder." The family organ in Little Rock, the True Democrat went easy on Stirman and Flournoy, saving their blame for "Mr. Douglas and his odious doctrine of squatter sovereignty . . . Until he is out of the way, there will neither be 42 peace nor harmony in our ranks." Hindman's press treated the two re¬ maining delegates as traitors and a Hindman-controlled Congressional district 43 convention at Dover declared the two had forfeited their seats. The Old Line Democrat was intractable, stating that Arkansas "will never support Stephen 44 Douglas for the Presidency whether nominated by a convention or not." Mean¬ while the criticism against Stirman and Flournoy reached such proportions that 4* -87-

Even more confusion arose when both Congressional district conventions in May 1860, and a self-appointed Douglas gathering all named a new slate of 46 delegates for the Baltimore convention. Through the True Democrat the dynasty tried to bring order out of chaos by calling for only the original 47 delegates to travel to Baltimore. In the very same issue of the family newspaper in Little Rock, Jilson Johnson, cousin of Robert and Richard Johnson, and one of the delegates who had walked at Charleston, now said 48 he would go to Baltimore. Simultaneously, Senator Robert Johnson issued a conciliatory statement which read: "We are unwilling to take the final step toward the dismemberment of that party (the Democrats) until the last hope 49 of obtaining justice for the South is destroyed or abandoned.” Two weeks later, he and the other U. S. Senator, William Sebastian, joined with fellow southern leaders in a call for national party unity and for only the original 50 delegates at Charleston to go to the Baltimore convention. Ignoring these appeals, four Arkansas delegations appeared in Baltimore demanding entrance into the convention. Douglas supporters were determined to pack the hall in order to insure the two-thirds majority necessary for Presidential nomination. Thus the credentials committee excluded all those Arkansans who had walked out at Charleston, and allowed only Douglasites as delegates. Furious, Arkansas representatives and other anti-Douglas delegates held a rump assembly m Richmond which nominated its own national ticket. By acclamation, the Baltimore Democratic convention chose Douglas for President, and Herschel Johnson of Georgia as his running-mate. -88-

Meanwhile che gathering in Richmond nominated John.Breckinridge of Kentucky, the incumbent Vice-President, for the Presidency, and Joseph Lane of Oregon 51 for the Vice-Presidency. The Democratic party had become, quite literally, a house divided against itself; the issue of slavery and its extension had torn asunder the last remaining national political organization. There would thus be two national tickets in Arkansas. Out of the original eight delegates, only Stirman and Flournoy were accepted at the Baltimore 52 convention, and Stirman left before Douglas was nominated. Still undaunted in his support for the "Little Giant," Flournoy made it clear in a series of public addresses published in Arkansas, that he was a Douglas man to the 53 end. The real political story of 1860 deals with Hindman and the family. As much as the dynasty may have stood for the protection of slavery in the territories, it also desired party unity. The True Democrat admitted almost a month after the June democratic conventions that it would have supported 54 Douglas eagerly on a sounder, i.e. more southern, platform. Unfortunately,

Hindman breathed fire on the family left, and this kept the dynasty anchored to the radical southern viewpoint. Actually it had no choice. The family could ill afford to let Hindman label them as soft on slavery, or its legitimate expansion into territories. Embroiled in a bitter state election in the spring and summer of 1860, the Conway-Johnson clique knew they faced certain defeat if Hindman made them look soft on the all-important question of the white man's hegemony over southern life and culture. -8»-

In the Presidential contest, the dynasty and Hindman stood side-by-side 55 in support of Breckinridge, the southern based candidate. That Hindman and the family would resolve their differences and join together behind Breckinridge, was seen by a Whig in Fayetteville in early May 1860. He wrote to a com¬ patriot in the same city: "Hindman and the Joftnsons are at odds, but in 56 this struggle they will come together because they are both disunionist." While Democrats bickered and splintered, a national convention consisting mostly of old line Whigs and former Know Nothings met in early May i860, to nominate a national ticket. The body styled itself the Constitutional Union party, :and nominated for President and Vice-President two former Whig senators, John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. The party's platform innocuously proclaimed their support for "the constitution of.the country, the

union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws." As mentioned earlier (see Chapter 4, p. 60), Arkansas sent delegates to this convention, one of 57 whom was Christopher Danley of the Gazette. By late May 1860 the Gazette and the remnant of Arkansas's Whig press, endorsed the Bell-Everett ticket. In a blistering editorial, Danley launched a political crusade for the Constitu¬ tional Union party: "The Democratic party is denationalized, demoralized, and disintegrated. It is the sectional party of the North against the South and the South against the North. . . . The Constitutional Union party is the only one 58 that can save the country from destruction and the greedy hands of spoilsmen." At the same time the Constitutional Union party was launched, the six-year old Republican party held its second national convention at Chicago in a -90- specially-built structure titled "The Wigwam." Here, front runner William

Seward of New York lost his bid for Presidential nomination to political new¬ comer of Illinois. Lincoln had served one term in Congress as a Whig, and had recently gained some notoriety as the unsuccessful Re¬ publican .. opponent of Senator Douglas in 1858. To run with Lincoln, the Republicans chose former Democrat of Maine, which did not help Lincoln's chances in the South. As in other southern states, there was no Republican campaign in Arkansas. That organization was viewed 59 more as a public menace than as a legitimate political party. The True Democrat did put the Republican platform on its front page, but in the very same issue the editor delivered an ominous warning: "We do not believe that Lincoln or any other abolitionist can ever be President of the United States. The fourth of March that sees him inaugurated will 60 see two empires where there is one Confederacy." The threatening tone of this remark provided further evidence of Hindman's influence on the family's position in national affairs.

Much of the summer of 1860 was occupied with the state election contest, but once that season of political.acrimony ceased on August 6, the Presidential election began in earnest. Even before the returns came in from the state election, supporters of Bell, Douglas, and Breckinridge were out in the hustings canvassing for votes. Of the three forces in Arkansas, the Douglas camp was undoubtedly the weakest. They sorely needed a statewide paper based in Little Rock, -91- and a rumor emerged late in July that the Old Line Democrat would be sold to Albert Rust, and then turned into a Douglas sheet. Thomas Peek did quit the editorship in mid-August, but the paper remained totally committed to Hindman, and under the editorship of John Harrell. (Harrell later wrote 61 in ls98 a Contederate military history of the war in Arkansas.) On August 15 Douglas supporters held a convention in Little Rock which chose electors, heard an eloquent address from Albert Rust, and then established a paper in Little Rock called the National Democrat, to be edited by Dr. Charles 62 Meador. That paper did not last long, and the editor himself was given heavy abuse. The Camden Star, for example, called Dr. Meador a ’’low, contemptible, base-born, heaven-despised, hell-deserving coward,’’ who 63 was also a ”filthy, lousy scavenger.” At first it seemed the Douglas campaign had real promise. Along with

Rust and Flournoy, former Governor Thomas Drew enlisted his talents on 64 behalf of the ’’Little Giant” from Illinois. Undeniably, the most effective weapon in the Douglas arsenal was Albert Rust. When Rust debated Hindman early in the campaign, even the Old Line Democrat, which usually gave Hindman’s opponents nothing but ridicule, described him "as a man of decided talent, a real debater, and, in the advance of a good cause, could 65 make a telling speech.” So skilled was Congressman Rust on the stump 66 that Senator Johnson repeatedly refused to appear with him in debate. Later in the campaign, the Breckinridge forces made a determined effort

to avoid giving him a crowd to address. At a family-sponsored Breckinridge 67 rally in Camden, Rust was denied permission to address the assembly. -92-

Outside of Rust, the Douglas forces enjoyed no real political talent.

They lacked both luster and money. The expected round of barbecues, parades, and liquid refreshments seems to have been in short supply. The voters were accustomed to such festivities, and probably thought the 68 less of the Douglas cause for its failure to provide them. The "Little Giant" from Illinois never really had a chance to carry Arkansas. Such was not the case with the Bell candidacy. It had everything the Douglasites lacked, including money and influential newspaper support. Scattered mostly through southern and eastern portions of the state, all the old-line Whig papers provided fervent support for the Constitutional Union party. In addition the Bell campaign produced another newspaper, the Des

Arc Constitutional Union which lasted long after the Presidential contest had 69 been decided. Since the Bell campaign had support from wealthy, former Whigs, it was able to sponsor huge rallies and picnics for the people. One rally in Washington in southwestern Arkansas drew numbers estimated in the 70 thousands. One observer has left us a description of a Bell rally in late October:

"The Bell mass meeting. Beautiful day. The longest, grandest and most imposing meeting ever seen in Camden. Our own and Washington's Brass Bands, Barbecue, dinner, marches, procession, horseback and carriages at night. The light procession, five hundred transparencies - marched through the whole length of our beautiful young city."71 Beyond all this campaign hoopla, the Bell press effectively argued their case before the voters, stressing the hopeless division in the Democratic party. -93-

72 Only Bell could ward oft the threatened election of Abraham Lincoln. Even Solon Borland, that old nemesis of the family who was now a newspaper editor 73 in Memphis, returned to Arkansas to canvas the state for Bell. By mid-September it became apparent to many political observers that the Presidential contest in Arkansas was between Bell and Breckinridge. The intensity of feeling between the two camps could be noted early in the campaign. Following a debate in Clarksville, a frustrated Breckinridge elector pulled a pistol upon his unarmed Bell opponent. Fortunately the man was swiftly 74 disarmed. With a perception rare among Arkansas’s editors, Danley linked Breckinridge’s candidacy with other southern radicals in their effort to break up the Union. The Gazette editor observed: ’’They dare not nominate their leader, Yancey, to effect their treasonable ends. They continued to support Mr. Breckinridge in full view of the foregone conclusion of his defeat, with no other end or object than the hope that, by dividing and distracting the South, they may be instrumental in electing Lincoln, the black Republican candidate when they Intend making another desperate effort to dissolve the Union. As election day neared, Danley’s pleas sounded more desperate, as perhaps he sensed the outcome. ”We appeal to every man who is a Union man, who is ready to work for the Union, and who would not follow after ' 76 the false gods of the Yancey disunionists.” With Hindman and the dynasty carrying its banner, the Breckinridge campaign obviously held the inside track in the Presidential race. The two groups made strange and unhappy bedfellows. After concluding an eighteen month political war, Hindman and the family did not easily make the transition to an alliance. More than a month after the state election campaign had ended, the family-oriented Searcy Eagle was still throwing barbs at Hindman and his followers, accusing the whole faction of being 77 "slaves to the whims and dictates of Marse Tom Hindman." The Hindman group made it publicly known it would not tolerate any moves by the family to re-elect Senator Robert W. Johnson. The Old Line Democrat described such an effort as "a bold and desperate struggle to retrieve the fortunes 78 of the Johnson family." It solemnly warned that "the people of Arkansas had declared that they do not intend to be trammelled any longer by the fetters of an unjust, oppressive clique government long imposed on them 79 by the usurpations of a self-constituted and self-perpetuated dynasty .1’

In spite of such differences, the Hindman-dynasty alliance provided a formidable campaign organization for Breckinridge. It controlled almost every newspaper in the state. Some towns had only a Breckinridge news¬ paper. (For example, Fayetteville, Searcy, El Dorado, Napoleon, and Magnolia.)

The family and Hindman differed in the style and manner of their support for

Breckinridge. Hindman’s press was unabashedly radical, even printing speeches 80 by William Yancey of Alabama, the Crown Prince of the fire-eaters. While

attacking both Bell and Douglas, the Hindman press took particular delight in blasting Douglas as a traitor, because he made the South’s constitutionally-

sactioned property right in slaves dependent upon majority will in the 81 territories. Hindman himself traversed the state, gleefully relishing another

election campaign, and perhaps sensing once again that he would be vic¬

torious . -95-

Taking a completely different tack, the family press soft-pedalled any talk of disunion or secession after Lincoln’s election, and concentrated on quoting the Dred Scott decision of 1857 to prove that the Breckinridge candidacy rested upon a sound constitutional basis. Breckinridge was presented as the only candidate in the race who stood for the union, for 82 the constitution, and for the enforcement of the law interpreted. In arguing for Breckinridge’s constitutional position on extension of slavery in the territories, the family found unaccustomed aid from a long-time foe . Albert Pike wrote an eloquent political treatise in support of the view that the federal government was but a compact and that each individual state was

equal in rights and privileges. These rights and privileges must be sanctioned 83 by the federal government or the constituion was violated. Always astute politically, the family focused its fire on the Bell campaign, realizing that it posed the biggest threat to Breckinridge. The Bell-Everett

ticket was characterized as ’’headed by an old politician with a dubious record covered in voluminous speeches which no one ever read; and the other is a Fourth of July orator whose splendor has been exhausted in the 84 decoration of commonplace ideas and threadbare aphorisms.” Along with

these political broadsides, family newspapers were filled with stories of barn-burnings and slave uprisings of northeastern Texas around Dallas, 85 Tyler and Marshall. The Searcy Eagle claimed that roads from east Texas 86 were jammed with whites fleeing from the slave terror. Lincoln and the ’’black Republicans” were given indirect blame for these outbreaks. It was -96- said that the only thing that was keeping the slaves down was the knowledge that the full power of the federal government would come down upon them if 87 they escaped or rebelled. Late in the campaign the True Democrat claimed that the Douglas-Bell 88 forces were going to merge. This propnecy never came true. The antagonisms between Democratic Douglasites and old line Whig supporters for Bell was too deep seated. On the eve of election the dynasty-oriented Fayetteville Arkansian made a final appeal for Breckinridge: "A vote for Breckinridge-Lane is to show Lincoln and all the Northern Abolitionists that you will resist unto death all approaches against Southern Rights and 89 Privileges to teach them a lesson they ought long ago learned.” On election day, November 6, i860, Judge John Brown inscribed in his diary that "this is the most important day to the United States and perhaps to 90 mankind since July 4, 1776." Obviously many Arkansans agreed, for a greater percentage of eligible voters cast their ballots in this Presidential 91 election than in any before or since. Lincoln won the election, sweeping almost every electoral vote in the North, but Breckinridge swept all the states of the lower South and four out of the so-called upper Souih. The results in this state were Breckinridge - 28,783 votes, Bell - 20,094, and Douglas with 5,227. Officially Arkansas, like 92 several sister southern states gave no votes to Lincoln. (For the election results and percentages of Arkansas and the slaveholding states in the Presidential election of 1860, see Tables 14 and 15 in the Appendix.) -97-

An analysis of election returns showed the lingering power of traditional Democratic and Whig voting alignments. The Douglas camp carried no county, but they did best in Crawford and Jefferson counties, both being served by two Douglas papers, the Van Buren Press and the Pine Bluff Jefferson Independent. The Bell candidacy garnered its strength from the older Whig areas, towns along the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers and the larger plantations in the rich delta 93 of eastern Arkansas. Breckinridge found his support among yeoman middle-class throughout the state. He carried counties in northwestern Arkansas which would later become the heart of Unionist country during the war. As D. Y. Thomas, the eminent Arkansas historian pointed out almost seventy years ago: "Breckinridge, the 94 radical candidate, drew much of his support from the non-slave holders."

Even greater strength for Breckinridge came from the small planters of south¬ western Arkansas. Michael Dougan points out that all of the six former Whig counties of the southwestern portion of the state went heavily for Breckinridge: "Thus among the smaller planters, the greatest Breckinridge strength was to be 95 found." The long arduous political year of 1S60 was now over, but nothing seemed solved. The future looked as foreboding as the past appeared tumultuous. If the people had spoken, no one could predict accurately the full effect of their choice. What had seemed impossible in January had now become a reality in less than eleven months. The dynasty had been de-throned in Arkansas, -98- and the nation had elected a "black Republican.” The all-powerful Democratic party lay in sectional shambles. The election of 1860 was unique for Arkansas and the United States. In November i860 Thomas Hindman was just thirty-two years old. He had not advanced to higher office during the year, but undoubtedly the year's events could bring him only joy. Almost singlehandedly he had instigated and led the first successful rebellion against a political dynasty that had ruled Arkansas for almost thirty years. Moreover, Hindman had forced that dynasty to stay closely tied to the radical pro-southern ideology of the lower South. After defeating the family in August, he then abruptly formed an alliance with it to carry Arkansas for Breckinridge, the sectional candidate of the southern radicals

Both of these achievements had been brought about through Hindman's shrewd ability to arouse the passions and the prejudices of the common yeoman of Arkansas. By styling the state contest as one between a democracy and aristocracy, Hindman appealed to lowlander and highlander in his political war upon the family. In national affairs Hindman stressed the complete legitimacy of slavery, whether extended oy Congressional protection into the territories or increased by foreign slave importation. In addressing the common white man of ante-bellum Arkansas, Hindman promised to reestablish and 96 preserve the cherished dream o£ a "white-folks" democracy. Beyond Hindman's skill in stirring the rustics, he also completed a political process that had begun long ago, the linking of Arkansas culturally and economically to the lower South. During the last two decades before 1860, -99- this state was pulled more and more into the orbit of the lower South by

cotton, increased slaveholding, and migration from the lower Gulf states.

Bonded more than ever with the South, Arkansas made known her new political

alignment when she voted for Breckinridge. Only one question remained—

would Arkansas join the lower South if that region carried out its threat of

secession from the Union upon Lincoln's election? Only future events could

provide an answer. Chapter 6 Secession Splits the State: Arkansas Politics from Lincoln's Election to his Inauguration, 1860-1861.

On November 11, 1860, Judge John Brown of Camden wrote in his diary: "The news of Lincoln's election is confirmed ... I am much concerned about the fate of our government, and prospects of individual ruin that I do not sleep 1 at night more than half of my usual time.” A perceptive political conservative, Judge Brown knew the nation faced its greatest ordeal. Those "designing traitors" who had supported Breckinridge had finally caused the election of Abraham Lincoln. Now he was sure that "fanatics" in South Carolina and Alabama were planning "to disrupt our happy government by following the 2 diabolical course of secession." Later in November he wrote: "Only the activity of the day draws my mind off from the gloomy forebodings of the 3 future." Such deep pessimism was not evident in most of the Arkansas's press.

The old line Whig-Bell newspapers now took the lead in calling for caution and quiet when news of Lincoln's election reached Arkansas. Danley in the Gazette editorialized: "Lincoln is elected in a manner prescribed by law and by the majority required by the Constitution. Let him be inaugurated, let no steps be taken against his administration until he has committed an overt 4 act, which cannot be remedied by law." In Danley's words, "a Republican administration can be no worse for the South than was done already by

-100- -101-

5 Democratic administrations.” Danley still had confidence the Constitutional Union party could save the country, since "it will be the nucleus around which patriotic, conservative, and constitutional elements must gather to form one great 6 opposition to the Republicans and defeat them in 1864." The Des Arc Consti¬ tutional Union went so far as to say that "Lincoln is not as bad as disunionists 7. would have us believe." In most of the Democratic press news of Lincoln's election provided little real antagonism. The Douglasite Van Buren Press advised "every good citizen to be cool and calm and exercise proper reflection, not to be carried away and run wild with excitement; Lincoln, after all, faces Democratic 8 majorities in both Houses." The True Democrat, the pre-eminent mouthpiece of the dynasty, and lately a Breckinridge paper, said merely: "The South could not secede because Lincoln has been elected by only a minority of the 9 people." Another family-controlled Breckinridge paper, the Fayetteville Arkansian, counseled a "wait and see" attitude toward Abraham Lincoln: "Well, the majority rules. We should wait until after his inaugural and see what course he will pursue ... if he refuses to recognize our slaves as property, if he does not aid in bringing to justice . . . those who may make attempts to steal our slaves, burn our houses, disregard our laws, and murder our citizens; then damn him, impeach him, damn him forever, but . . . God forbid he should refuse to do these things; we hope he will make us a good President, and win the praise and goodwill of his foes."*® Hindman's newspapers dissented from this course of caution. According to Editor Peek (who now was once again back at the helm as editor of the Old Line Democrat in Little Rock), "Lincoln has been deliberately flung -102-

into our teeth; there was nothing left for Arkansas to do but to follow the 11 lead of the Lower South, in secession or not.” Hindman’s Little Rock paper continued: "Our destiny is irrevocably linked with that of the other cotton-growing states; we should not falter for one moment to seek 12 that destiny or pause to deliberate the consequences that may follow." When news of Lincoln's election reached the state, the legislature had convened for its biennial session and was awaiting the inauguration of the new governor. Henry M. Rector was the first governor since statehood not selected by the Conway-Johnson dynasty.. A minor figure in the family hierarchy before the previous May, Rector was soon to become the state’s chief executive as the result of support by Hindman and his organization . No one knew what course this product of political rebellion would follow. Observers from various political factions eagerly awaited his inaugural address. At a time of great uncertainty, and on the eve of the greatest national crisis, the reins of power in Arkansas were handed to a political novice. On a blustering Thursday, November 15, 1860, Henry Massie Rector was inaugurated as the state's sixth governor. His opening address called for programs he had advocated during the summer campaign—re¬ payment of the banking debt by new taxes, a new prison, a blind-deaf - school, and more money for common schools. Rector also wanted state aid for the completion of the Memphis to Little Rock railroad, having been informed that with state backing the tracks could be laid in the following -103-

13 spring and the line completed by the end of 1861. Arkansas historians have universally stressed the secessionism in

Rector's inaugural address, since he argued that Lincoln's election pre- 14 sented just cause for such a course. Actually the address dealt mostly with local affairs and could be construed as moderate m tone on the secession question. According to Rector "the issue made up by the North, which we, of the South, will not be permitted to decline, is, 15 the Union without slavery or slavery without the Union." While the South had good reason to secede, he still felt that a convention of 16 the states could settle the differences. If the states of the Deep South seceded, then Rector felt "Arkansas, having like grievances, . . . ought not to withdraw her sympathies and active support if coercive 17 measures be adopted by the general government." Rector advised Arkansas to await future events. Hindman soon emerged as the major force behind secession in Arkansas. He centered his efforts in the legislature. Hindman and Congressman-elect Edward Gantt, addressed the legislature on November

23rd and 24th, and Danley of the Gazette described their speeches as "the 18 most ultra and inflammatory in nature." While Danley discounted their effect, another observer wrote to a friend that Hindman's speech "would 19 do more harm than any other man in this state."

In the legislature a bitter war was waged between secessionists and non-secessionists. State Senator F. A. Terry from Little Rock, a loyal -104- member of the family, introduced a series of resolutions calling tor Arkansas to defer the question of secession to the older southern states. A counter-resolution was then introduced by A. H. Carrigan calling on Arkansas to follow the lead of frontier southern states, or else refuse to 20 defer to any other states regarding secession. As a whole the legis¬ lature was cool to secession. An indication of such sentiment was the election of John Stirman, a loyal dynasty member and lately a Douglasite, 21 as Secretary of State, a position then second only to the governor. At first the dynasty had no real policy concerning secession. Editor

Richard Johnson of the True Democrat thought no southern state should 22 secede before consultation with other states. Family policy shifted when Senator Robert W. Johnson in Washington, D.C. issued an open letter to his constituents dated December 1, 1860. Although not published in Arkansas until mid-December, Senator Johnson declared that "I regard the secession of several states a fixed fact.” If the South secedes, ’’Arkansas must go with them because I would not be willing to remain in the Union with a fragment 23 of the southern states subject to the overwhelming power of the united North.” Johnson’s letter came as no surprisé. He had always been aligned with the lower South. Nevertheless secession received a major boost with the publication of Johnson’s letter because it signalled an alliance between the dynasty and

Hindman to pull Arkansas out of the Union. On December 21, 1860, just one day after South Carolina seceded, Representative Hindman and Senator Johnson issued a joint call for a state convention so that ’’the people of Arkansas -106-

1859 law concerning the expulsion of free blacks from the state. (See Chapter 1, p. 21.) Moreover, it refused to be railroaded into the revolutionary act of secession without a clear and substantial mandate from the people. Turning aside appeals trom Rector, Johnson, and Hindman, the legislature chose a new Senator to replace Senator Johnson whose term was to end on March 4, 1861. The secessionists had all argued that a new Senator would be unnecessary 28 because Arkansas would be out of the Union by that day. As mentioned earlier, Albert Rust, during the previous summer campaign, had been considered a major Senate candidate to replace Robert Johnson. (See Chapter 4, p. 58.) Unfortunately for Congressman Rust, his continued support tor Douglas in the fall Presidential race had undermined his earlier support from Hindman. The dynasty considered him a traitor for supporting the Hindman forces during the summer campaign. By October, it was clear 29 that Rust was out of the race for the U. S. Senate. The Hindman camp made it publicly known it would not tolerate Senator Johnson’s re-election. (See Chapter 5, p. 94.) Hindman backed Napoleon Burrow, the most 30 extreme secessionist of the five Senate candidates. Burrow served Hindman at the state Democratic convention the previous April, and he led the walkout of Arkansas’s delegates at the Democratic National Convention at Charleston. (See Chapter 5, p. 85.) More conservative forces backed General Samuel Hempstead, a long¬ time ally of the dynasty who told the legislature that the South had suffered no real harm in Lincoln's election, and he favored a "wait-and- -107-

31 see” attitude towards Lincoln before advocating secession. The dynasty- supported Charles Mitchel, their unsuccessful candidate for Congress in the southern district. The True Democrat referred to Mitchel affectionately as ’’that old war-horse,” and Mitchel told the legislature that he was an 32 "out-and-out States’ Rights Democrat." Mitchel finally won the Senate seat on the ninth ballot, after Burrow, Hindman’s candidate, withdrew and 33 threw his support to him. The dynasty and Hindman once again found themselves allies in their political efforts, as on previous occasions such as the Breckinridge campaign and advocacy of secession. While the legislature was electing a new Senator, it was inundated with petitions from various counties demanding either a secession convention or -protesting further effort to remove Arkansas from the Union. A determined and vocal faction, the secessionists were united on one goal and were at * work early to pressure the legislature toward disunion. Petitions for a secession convention flowed into Little Rock from Chicot, Clark, Arkansas, Desha, Pike, Jefferson, and Calhoun counties, all in southern and eastern 34 Arkansas. A resolution from Dallas county in southwestern Arkansas

was particularly strident: "If the Congress of the United States now in session, does not by the fourth day of March next, give us a suffi¬ cient guarantee for slave protection in the Union, we hereby pledge ourselves to take our chances with such of the slave¬ holding states as may secede from the Union, and risk the consequences ."35 Hindman’s press in Helena and Little Rock, together with the Des Arc Citizen, joined much of the family newspapers in keeping up the drumbeat -108-

36 for a secession convention. Late in December, dis-Unionists throughout the state cheered the news of South Carolina's secession. The True Democrat editorialized: "Arkansas must call a convention. South Carolina is out, and other southern states are taking the same steps ... We will soon be left alone, if we do not act immediately, without a convention or any capacity to act 37 in concert with other Southern States." Another indication of growing secessionist strength came when both Thompson Flournoy, a former Douglas supporter, and James Yell, a former Know-Nothing candidate for governor, and recently a Bell elector, both announced in late December their support 38 for immediate secession. Judge Brown anxiously recorded in his diary on January 10, 1861: "The Demon of Secession is daily growing more powerful, 39 and we are in the midst of a revolution."

Unionists forces in Arkansas were slow to respond to this massive campaign At the forefront was Danley of the Gazette who provided the Unionists a valua¬ ble mouthpiece in the state capitol. "I do not think that a State has a right to secede or that the framers of the Constitution contemplated placing in it an element by which a single State could, at any time and for the most trivial 40 reasons, destroy the entire fabric of government." Basically a financial conservative, Danley believe^ that only "the commercial and manufacturing interests will save the country from hasty and inconsiderate acts of politicians 41 and political communities." There was some evidence of resurgent Unionism. Rallies in support of the Union in Camden and Fayetteville in late December, 42 1860, drew crowds numbered into the hundreds. -1.09-

The legislature finally yielded to the pressure of the secessionists. The argument to put the question of a secession convention to the people proved too strong to ignore. On January 15, 1861 Governor Rector signed the Arkansas Convention Dill. An election would be held on February 18, 1861, at which time the people would decide for or against a convention and simul- 43 taneously select delegates to serve in the body. Unionists were furious, for as Michael Dougan has noted, "the situation naturally favored the secessionists in that a potential unionist candidate carried the double burden of opposing 44 a convention, and advocating his own election to it." Unionist reaction to the legislation was summed up by David Walker of Fayetteville: He wrote to 45 a friend, "This is an outrage'." Behind all this turmoil over the secession convention, a real change was taking place within Arkansas's political structure. Although strained by the tumultuous year of 1860, the state's basic party alignments—Democrat vs. Whig-Know-Nothing-Constitutional Union, had remained intact, but now secession was before the people, and old enemies lined up on similar sides of this profound issue. The Hindman-family alliance for secession became so close that Hindman's paper in Little Rock, the Old Line Democrat 46 suspended publication on January 3, 1861. Hindman on longer needed an independent voice in the state capitol, lor he now spoke with the family. In Fayetteville, Democrat John Stirman and Whig David Walker now joined 47 in the Unionist cause. -110-

Local issues still mattered to some degree, for the legislature provided funds for a state-supported school for the blind and the deaf, a new penitentiary and common schools. The legislature loaned money to the Memphis-Little Rock Railroad Company, state aid for railroad construction • 48 had been a long-time goal for Whigs and independent Democrats. (See Chapters 2 and 3.) These major accomplishments, however, were almost ignored in the growing controversy over secession. At the time Governor Rector signed Arkansas’s Convention Bill on January 15» 1861, three other states had already joined South Carolina in secession: Mississippi, January 9, 1861; , January 10, 1861; and Alabama, January 11, 1861. Before the month was out, two more states joined their ranks, Georgia, January 19, 1861, and Louisiana, January 26, 1861. They would be later joined by Texas on February 23, 1861. With secession sweeping the lower South, Arkansas Unionists were collecting their strength, determined to keep the state in the Union and hoping that the sectional controversy would finally be resolved. Unionism found its bastion in northwestern and western Arkansas where slaveholding was minimal and the Federal presence necessary along the Indian territory. Since mid-Decembér, petitions of counties from this area, Washington,

Benton, Sevier, Sebastian, Carroll, Van Buren, and Newton declared that Lincoln’s election did not mean dis-union and argued against any secession 49 convention. In Crawford County, on the western border, the petition told the legislators: ”We infer that your part of the state favors secession. In -111- this section, and all around us, we are decidely against it. There are not 50 ten secessionists in this country." Van Buren County was even blunter: "We follow no secessionists, Yancey, Seward, Greeley, Tom Hindman, nor any set of dis-unionists who have nothing in view but their own selfish and hellish designs ... We hold that the Union is the cord that binds everything 51 together." Curiously, it was these same counties in the northwest which had, less than two months before, given substantial majorities to John C. Breckinridge, the candidate of the southern dis-unionists. The answer to this strange political flip-flop is to be found in the prejudices of the common hill country yeoman of Arkansas and the South generally. Many non-slaveholding whites in the mountains of Arkansas were willing to vote with Hindman in his war upon the aristocratic Johnson dynasty, to support Breckinridge as loyal southern Democrats, and to preserve the racial status quo. (See Chapters 4 and 5.) But as historian Paul Escott has pointed out in a most perceptive essay: "In the balloting on secession, however, interclass unity broke down and a different pattern emerged. Non-slaveholding areas swung from southern rights to com¬ promise, and sent delegates to the state conventions who pledged themselves 52 to oppose secession or to work with other southern states for a settlement." In northwestern Arkansas, Unionists cleverly appealed to the mountain- yeomen's fear and hatred of the planters. They stressed that the emerging southern Confederacy would be dominated only by the aristocratic planter. -112-

John Smith of Osage Mills in Benton County wrote this broadside to the people of his own county: "I ask then, what do we gain by secession?—We abandon our rights in the Union, we create ten oftices where now we have one, we assume the privilege to be taxed twentyfold; we give up our privileges, immunities, and the franchise which we now enjoy and which are secure to us. And for what7. That we join a southern Confederacy'.'. Do you know that in that Confederacy your rights will be respected? And that you will not be allowed a vote unless you are an owner of a negro?'.'."5 3

By mid-winter of 1860-61, a profound shift had occurred in Arkansas's political alignments. From now until secession, and even into the war, the usually Democratic mountaineers would defy their party leaders and oppose all efforts to pull Arkansas into the orbit of the southern Confederacy- a Confederacy the hill country people felt was dominated by the slaveholding 54 planter aristocracy. In this important struggle to keep Arkansas within the Union or to align her with the border states, mountain folk were forced to ally them¬ selves with their long-term political enemies, the Whig oriented commercial and business classes. These Unionists included merchants like D. C. Williams of Van Buren, rising young urban lawyers like Augustus Garland of Little Rock, and business oriented editors like Christopher Danley of the Gazette. Dis-union was feared because it might bring on a future war 55 which would destroy profits, infringe on property rights, and raise taxes. Danley was sure that dis-union would bring on war and incite the Indians to attack and lay waste the western portion of the state. Furthermore, Danley maintained that a civil war between the North and the South would -113- produce pirates and privateers who would prowl the Mississippi River 56 "robbing and destroying property on the banks of the Mississippi." A few maverick Whig, east Arkansas planters like J. H. Quisenberry of

Prairie County, supported the Union. Quisenberry perceptively asked his fellow Arkansans in a letter to the Gazette: "Suppose we had elected Mr. Breckinridge President and the northern states, in consequence, had seceded. 57 Would we have thought they were right?" To oppose secession a strange alliance had now been formed between mountain Democrats and business Whigs. In the lowland counties where slave labor maintained the plantation regime, wealthy Whig planters and small farmer Democrats combined to work for Arkansas's immediate secession. Mississippi River counties like Mississippi, Crittenden, and Phillips Counties, which had supported 58 ' Bell in the November election, now became centers of secession. These counties joined with much of southern and eastern Arkansas to demand a 59 secession convention. In mid-December a state representative from Fayetteville wrote an open letter to his constituents begging them to write him their opinions, since "letters and petitions are coming in from the more southern and southeastern counties every day, urging upon their members the 60 propriety of calling a state convention." By mid-February of 1861 secession was so strong in Pine Bluff that Bishop Henry Lay, the Episcopal Bishop of Arkansas, wrote to his wife that dis-unionists in this city "want to hang every 61 man who says a word against immediate secession." -il4-

Dis-Unionism thrived in southern and eastern Arkansas because these areas were peopled with planters and farmer-yeomen. The latter were in historian Eugene Genovese's words, "aspiring slaveholders or slaveholding 62 beneficiaries of a slaveholders’s world, the only world they knew." This area of Arkansas heartily agreed with Governor Rector who had said in his inaugural address that Lincoln’s election meant only two choices for Arkansas in the South, the Union without slavery or slavery without the Union. This area of the state knew which choice it preferred. As a county convention in Arkadelphia stated the issue: "Arkansas must act with other southern states 63 to preserve the right of slavery."

It must also be remembered that lowland Arkansas drew most of its popu¬ lation from the Gulf states. Thus it had a major socio-cultural link with the lower South. Thomas Hindman, for example, was a lower South immigrant into Arkansas, for he was reared in Alabama and spent his early political career in Mississippi. In order to defend slavery, old-line Whig planters willingly joined Democratic farmer-yeomen to work on behalf of secession. Older party divisions now shifted because of the secession question. The division was more on a diagonal geographic line, southern and eastern Arkansas favoring secession, and the northern and western sections of the state opposing it. Late in January a dangerous situation developed around the Federal arsenal in Little Rock. In November 1860 Captain James Totten and sixty-five troops from the Second U. S. Artillery Regiment garrisoned the previously unoccupied arsenal in Little Rock. A new telegraph line linked Little Rock to Memphis in -115- early January, and the rumor circulated from Little Rock to Memphis through the new line that the Little Rock garrison was to be reinforced. This news sparked a huge meeting in Helena. It called upon the governor to seize the 64 arsenal. Meanwhile, Governor Rector informed Captain Totten on January 28, 1861, that he would not permit reinforcements or the removal or destruction 65 of the munitions in the arsenal. Totten replied politely but firmly that he knew of no plans for troop reinforcements, and besides he was under orders from the Federal government. "I act by its authority and permission, and, until absolved from that allegiance, my honor is concerned in the faithful performance 66 of what I conceive to be my duty." A few days later another rumor circulated that troops were to arrive in Little Rock on the U.S.S. Tucker. Excited citizens in Pine Bluff fired on the vessel and Rector summoned volunteers in Little Rock for a showdown. No Federal troops were on the ship and Rector dismissed his volunteers. But for the next few days volunteers from the southern and eastern portion of the state streamed into the state capitol, believing Rector had called them there to seize the arsenal. Within a few days there were four-hundred would-be war heroes loitering in the streets of Little Rock, which worried a great many of its citizens. The city council passed a resolution forbidding any 68 unauthorized attack upon the Little Rock garrison. At a mass meeting in the state capitol, presided over by Richard Johnson, resolutions were passed calling upon the governor to ask for the peaceful surrender of the 69 arsenal. Secessionist leaders like Senator Robert Johnson feared that a -116- premature attack upon the arsenal might strengthen Union sentiment within the state. The Arkansas Senator wired Rector: "The motives which impelled capture of torts in other states do not exist in ours. It is all premature. We 70 implore you prevent attack on arsenal if Totten resists." Confronting a situation growing more explosive by the hour, Governor Rector demanded possession of the arsenal and all the munitions of war

A 71 under Totten's charge. Against more than 400 troops whose numbers were daily increasing, Totten could do nothing but abide by the governor's request. On February 9, 1861, Federal troops marched out of Little Rock and Governor Rector guaranteed them safe escort from the state. The troops 72 headed, for St. Louis. Senator Johnson was overjoyed at the news, for he 73 wired his brother Richard: "Arsenal yours. Thank God'. Hold it'.” Whether or not Rector contrived the whole atfair, the Unionists were sure that the governor "had engineered the crisis in order to obtain a majority 74 for secession in the upcoming elections." The Van Buren Press wrote: 75 "There was no earthly necessity as we conceive, to take the arsenal." James Quisenberry, an old-line Whig in Des Arc, wrote in that town's newspaper: "We deem the whole affair to be one gotten up for political eifect in order to bring the state into a rash and excited secession attitude, because there exists some fear that the moving of Arkansas out of the Union might not be done precipitately enough. . . . Of course, the older and more substantial people of Little Rock were evidently not the original movers behind 76 the scheme." Writing from Washington, D.C. where he was serving on -11/-

Senator John J. Crittenden's Committee of thirteen which was seeking a last-minute compromise to preserve the Union, lame-duck Congressman Albert 77 Rust stated that he was sure Hindman was behind the whole arsenal episode. Captain Totten, in his report to his superiors, thought Governor Rector insti¬ gated the crisis, and he praised "the honorable, high-toned, loyal, and law- abiding attitude of the citizens [of Little Rock] who, "from the richest to 78 the poorest" opposed the governor. No doubt the ramifications from the whole affair had their political effects for it was staged just two weeks prior to the election of a secession convention. Hindman and Senator Johnson issued a joint statement in late January which said that Arkansas must secede before Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, "or 79 the North will regard the whole South as dis-united and weak." Family leader, F. A. Terry of Little Rock, wrote in the True Democrat that Arkansas must secede because business and commercial interests linked her too closely 80 with Louisiana and the rest of the lower South. News of the election of as Confederate President cheered secessionists throughout the state and Richard Johnson editorialized: "We trust soon to see this glorious 81 Confederacy augmented by the addition of-Arkansas." Dynasty newspapers throughout the state were loud in their call for secession. This included the always-loyal Fayetteville Arkansian, which labored earnestly for dis-union 82 in a Unionist region. -118-

With most of the state's political leaders and newspapers in the secessionist camp (except in the northwestern portion of Arkansas), Unionists had to redouble their efforts. On election day John Smith of Benton County wrote merchant D. C. Williams in Van Buren that "Unionists worked and worked 83 hard." The Unionist cause suffered a setback when it lost the services of Danley as editor of the Gazette in late January and early February. The legislature appropriated $100,000 for arms and munitions and set up a three-man commission to supervise the purchase. To serve with Governor Rector, the legislature appointed Danley and Thomas J. Churchill. Danley knew the political reasons behind each appointment: "The governor for the Hindman wing of the Democratic party, Captain Churchill for the 84 Johnson wing of the same party, and ourselves for the [Whig] opposition."

Even though secession had greatly altered the state's political alignments, the legislature still operated in a framework of older political patterns. On February 18, 1861 the day Jefferson Davis took his oath of office as President of the Confederate States of America, Arkansans braved near-freezing weather to struggle to the polls. Overwhelmingly Arkansans chose to call a 85A secession convention. The vote was 27,412 to 15,826. • In a development most shocking to the secessionists, the people elected Unionists to sit in that

convention. According to the Arkansas Gazette Unionist candidates had gathered 85B five and a half thousand more votes than the secessionists. (23,626 to 17,927) This lead is especially remarkable because in a few counties, such as Johnson, 86 Clark, and Perry, Unionists did not field a candidate. Secessionist candidates -119- totally swept the lowland areas of the state including all the counties that went 87 for Bell in November. Unionist candidates carried the whole northwestern areas of the state and anti-secession sentiment in Little Rock insured the election 88 of two Unionists from Pulaski County, Joseph Stilwell and August Garland. The True Democrat was furious at the outcome in Pulaski County. It attacked both Stilwell and Garland as being too conservative. They were also said to be 89 friends of Abraham Lincoln. As the returns trickled in from all around the state, the secessionists sulked and the Unionists rejoiced in their hard-tought and previous victory.

Even the usual sour and pessimistic judge from Camden, John Brown, recorded in his diary on February 21, 186i: "The secession advocates of a disruption of this government are sat down for the present. . . . The arrogance of the 90 disruptionists is checked for a time at least." In Judge Brown's own county, the Unionist candidate, Dr. Abner Hobson, won a narrow but important victory. Hobson was aided by the Whig Bell paper, the Camden Ouachita Herald, and the near-freezing weather which may have kept many farmers from the polls. 91 The city of Camden itself was strongly pro-Union. Reaction to the election in the northwestern portion of the state was nothing short of euphoric. From Fayetteville David Walker wrote a fellow Unionist: "The national ilag waves above us. The enthusiasm is great. 92 The vote is . . . ten to one for the Union ticket. Our success is certain." The Van Buren Press was just as pleased. "Western Arkansas had pronounced for the Union, and is determined to stay with the old ship of state as long -120-

93 s the stars and stripes shall wave with honor over our heads.” In célé¬ bration of George Washington's birthday on February 22, 1861, a hugh rally f Unionists was held in Fort Smith, and it attracted enthusiastic crowds 94 f over 500 people. Writing from Des Arc in eastern Arkansas, J. H. Juisenberry wrote D. C. Williams in Van Buren: "I could not help but elish the sweet victory of the Unionists. Can you realize what has occurred? am glad for the display of the sentiment of the people—but I am doubly 95 ;lad at the discomfort of our enemies.” Undeniably, the February 18th election was a setback for the secessionists a Arkansas. A sobering counterbalance was the fact that the people of

Arkansas had called a convention to consider secession. That body could, t some future date, be persuaded by outside events and pressures to'vote hie state out of the Union. If the peace conterence meeting in Washington, >.C. or Senator Crittenden's Committee of Thirty-Three devised a peace lan, the Unionism in Arkansas would probably prevail. If a compromise ould not be reached, economic, social, and cultural ties to the South might e too strong for Arkansas to stay within the Federal Union. With Senator Robert W. Johnson in Washington, D.C. wiring his brother, Richard Johnson, 96 hat peace was impossible, Richard Johnson confidently predicted in his ewspaper that: "Arkansas will be with her sisters of the south as an 97 onored member of the Confederate States of America.” According to ne family's leading editor, anyone who could not see this fact "is as stupid CHAPTER 7

"Coerced” Into Secession: Arkansas and the Union, March - May 6, 1861.

In late May of 1860 the dynasty’s newspaper had warned: "The day that sees a hlack Republican inaugurated as President there will be two empires where there is now one Confederacy." (See Chapter 5, p. 90.)

These words had proved prophetic. On March 4, 1861 two nations and two

governments commanded the loyalty of the American people. The 1861 crisis

centered around the recognition of his unhappy situation. Seven states now

called themselves the Confederate States of America and beckoned other sister

states of the South to join their new nation.

In Washington preparations were being made for the inauguration of Abraham

Lincoln. Amid rumors of violence and plots to assassinate the new Chief Exe¬

cutive, Commanding General Winfield Scott prudently mustered a show of force.

He activated the District of Columbia militia, backed it with cavalry, and

stationed sharpshooters in the windows of the Capitol and on the roofs of

nearby buildings. Both Scott and President Buchanan were determined the 1 nation would have a peaceful transition of- power. The morning of March 4,

1861 dawned black and cloudy. There was a cold wind from the north, but

the sun emerged at noon. Its rays warmed the many spectators who had

come to appraise the tall, gaunt sixteenth President and hear his opening

address. While Senator Stephen Douglas politely held the new President’s

stovepipe hat, Lincoln pulled his speech from his coat pocket, adjusted his 2 spectacles, and began reading in a loud clear voice.

— *1 -123-

He spoke words of caution to the South. ”1 have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it now exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no 3 inclination to do so.” Then followed a stem admonition. "I shall take the course that the Constitution, itself, expressly enjoins upon me that the laws of the United States be faithfully executed in all the states . . . The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property 4 and places belonging to the government, and to collect duties and imports. He finished with a call for peace, unity, and brotherhood within a Union that was not, and could never be, broken. "Into your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of Civil War. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being, yourselves, the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it.'"5’ Bruce Catton aptly summed up both Lincoln's address and the response it engendered. "It contained soft words of consolation, closely reasoned appeals 6 for forbearance and brotherhood—and these would have no effect whatever." The seceding states had burned their bridges with the old Union when they cast themselves ,into the new Confederacy. Not reason, but the sword, could bring them under Lincoln's national government. Lincoln true to his own principles and in accord with northern sentiment proceeded "on the assumption 7 that the states that said they were out of the Union were eternally in it."

Between these two positions there could not and would not be a peaceable -124- compromise. Only the upper South and the border states still cherished such an illusion. While reaction to Lincoln’s election had received a variety of responses from the Arkansas press (see Chapter 6, pp. 100-102), reaction to his inaugural reflected the stance of the various newspapers on the secession question. The family's prosecessionist's mouthpiece in Little Rock, the True Democrat, said that Lincoln's inaugural address proved Lincoln's intent to coerce the seceded states back into the Union. "Arkansas must join the Confederacy to avoid 8 submitting to black Republican rule." The Fayetteville Arkansian was even more rabid, calling Lincoln "His Satanic Majesty" and his inaugural address "a 9 declaration of war upon the South and its interests." In the very same issue the editor printed Lincoln's address alongside that of Jefferson Davis to show the people that they had more in common with the Confederate President than 10 with Lincoln. Lincoln's address also set off a new round of petitions in 11 southern and eastern Arkansas demanding immediate secession. Unionists had the difficult task of praising Lincoln's speech while disclaiming the man who gave it. An editorial in the Van Buren Press provides a good example. "Without professing to have any admiration for Lincoln as a man or for his inaugural as a staté paper, we are at a loss to conceive what he could, as President of the United States, have said that would have been more con- 12 ciliatory." Danley, in the Gazette would not give the address even so weak 13 a compliment, terming it "an objectionable document." Refusing to elaborate on his objections, Danley quickly added that the speech "is not as bad as the -125- last acts of the Democratic administration which preceded it. After living under the Buchanan administration during the whole of its unjust and disgraceful 14 existence, we do not think our state can be worsted living under Lincoln . . ." To many Arkansans Lincoln's inaugural was far away and irrelevant to the main struggle at home between those who wanted immedate secession and those who held out for some peaceful compromise to be worked out at a convention among the various states. This conflict captured the attention of the people and the press in Arkansas. On the very day Lincoln took his oath of office as President, the assembly

that would become known as the Secession Convention, assembled at the state capitol. A member later wrote of the excitement present at the beginning of

the convention, and the pressures exerted by the secessionists: "Little Rock was filled with politicians of excitable nature who were anxious for secession at any cost; adventurers and would-be soldiers, for all conceded that to take this step meant war, and the pressure was intense. The Union men were taunted as 'submissionists' and 'abolitionists,' and all kinds of raillery came from the lobbies. The galleries and the lobbies were always crowded, and it was feared violence would occur and at times it seemed inevi¬ table."^ Historian Ralph Wooster did a comparative study of all the secession conventions. He found the Arkansas convention to be one of the most inexperienced, for it contained no former governors, United States 16 Senators or Congressmen. This was true, but the convention was filled with former legislators and career party politicians who were not ignorant of public affairs or legislative proceedings. The president of the convention -126-

David Walker of Fayetteville, had served as a member of the Arkansas Supreme Court, and enjoyed the distinction of having been a delegate to the 1836 17 Constitutional Convention. Four members of the convention would later serve as governors, (1862-1865), (1864-1868), Augustus Garland (1874-1877), and William Fishback (1882-1884) , and two others later served on the state supreme court and in the Confederate and 18 United States Congresses. Of the seventy-seven members of the Arkansas Convention, fifty-one were natives of the upper South, from states like Tennessee, Kentucky, and

North Carolina. Four were native Arkansans and only twelve came from the 19 lower southern states like Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. All of the lower-South natives except one represented southern and eastern counties. The fact that almost two-thirds of the members were natives of the upper South was highly significant. They undoubtedly had more in common with that region than the lower South. The delegates did have an economic interest in slavery for about sixty-one percent were slaveholders, and the average 20 holding per member numbered about eleven. Slaveholders had an average holding of almost nineteen slaves. Yet only seventeen held more than twenty 21 slaves, the number needed to qualify formally as a planter. As one would have guessed, the Secessionists owned more slaves and were wealthier than 22 their Unionist opponents. As has been mentioned earlier (see Chapter 6), old party alignments in Arkansas yielded now to a geographical division within the state over the -127- burning issue of secession. In this convention the lineup was not Democrats vs. Whigs, but Secessionists vs. Unionist-Cooperationists. The latter favored some action in cooperation with the border states or other states to settle the sectional controversy. Delegate Alfred Carrigan, writing some forty-five years later, recalled vividly how the lines were drawn. "It must be remembered that party lines were at all times strictly drawn between the original secessionists 23 and the original Union men, the latter, as a general rule, more conservative." The Unionist-Cooperationists had more experienced members within their ranks, such as David Walker of Fayetteville, Jesse Turner of Van Buren, and Jesse Cypert of Searcy. (Cypert was the family Congressional candidate

against Hindman in the state election contest the previous August of 1860. See Chapter 4, p. 63). The Unionists also had able speakers like William'Fishback of Fort Smith, Hugh Thomason of Van Buren, Alfred Dinsmore of Benton County, and William Wirt Watkins of Carroll County. The Unionists also had young talent like Rufus Garland of Washington in southwestern Arkansas, and his brother 24 Augustus of Little Rock. One former member recalled that Augustus Garland was especially effective because "he did not attempt oratory, but used a colloquial 25 and argumentative style that was most attractive and convincing." Secessionists had talent in their ranks, especially the two delegates from Phillips County. Charles Adams, related to the famous Adams family of Massa¬ chusetts, came to Arkansas to live the life of a wealthy cotton planter on the Mississippi River. He had been a Whig, and served as a Bell elector during -128- 26 the 1860 Presidential contest. The other delegate from this county was Thomas Hanly whom Carrigan described as "the ablest man in the convention and the 27 most prominent lawyer in the state.” Other secession leaders included the Totten brothers, Benjamin from Prairie County and James from Arkansas County. There were able speakers like Josiah Gould of Bradley County, George Laughinhouse of St. Francis County, and James Yell of Jefferson County. All the above men- 28 tioned secession leaders came from southern and eastern Arkansas. Felix

Batson of Johnson County was the only western Arkansas representative for 29 secession. The Johnson dynasty had its own personal representative, Jilson Johnson of Desha County, who was the cousin of Senator Robert W. Johnson 30 and editor Richard H. Johnson. The Unionists showed their strength at the outset. On the first day they elected David Walker over secessionist Benjamin Totten. On the next day William Grace of Pine Bluff moved that a committee of thirteen be appointed to draft an ordinance of secession. Rufus Garland immediately moved 32 that the convention be adjourned for the day, and his motion passed. The Unionist majority never amounted to more than five votes during the March session of the convention, but it held firm to its control. Thus all the major committees >33 were chaired by the Unionists. After a few days it became evident to the Secessionists that Arkansas would not withdraw from the Union quickly nor easily. In frustration, Jilson Johnson declared on Saturday,.March 8, that the convention was doing nothing but 34 wasting time and the taxpayers’ money. He demanded action on secession. -129-

His cousin Richard echoed these sentiments in the True Democrat. "Let us have action. The people are convinced that compromise is at an end . . . Let us not be the last to join our sister States of the South. Let us take the proud and independent position and not to wait until we are driven out of the Union. For God’s sake, give us an ordinance of secession'."®® To these pleadings the Unionists turned a deaf ear. Augustus Garland interrupted Johnson to say that the "gentlemen of the other side” could intro¬ duce secession whenever they wanted to, but he would vote against it "with 36 a light heart and a clear conscience." To further impede the Secessionists, the Unionists used a political trick made famous by many southern politicians— the filibuster. At one point the True Democrat gave vent to its exasperation. "We are tired of hearing men give us their personal biographies . . . apostro¬ phes to,the Stars and Stripes, to the American eagle, and to the g-e-lorious 37 Union." Clearly the Secessionists were becoming infuriated. They had succeeded in calling a secession convention, which now refused to secede. It became evident that outside pressure had to be put on the Unionist majority . The convention first listened to delegates from South Carolina, who did not make much of an impression. One of them imprudently claimed that Arkansas owed its admission to the Union to South Carolina and thus should 38 follow her out of the Union. . On March 8th Governor Rector delivered a special message to the convention claiming that the state should secede to preserve slavery and its extension because "it is the vital point between 39 North and South." The governor continued in a more ominous vein. -130-

"The South wants practical evidence of good faith from the North, not mere paper agreements and compro¬ mises. They believe slavery is sin, and we do not, and there lies the trouble. All confidence is lost and it is too late to repair it . . . Let us then separate in peace, if possible, if not, let it be in war, for separation must come sooner or later and our danger increases in mag¬ nitude.”^ Rector’s address made no impression upon the Unionists, who were as antagonistic to him as they were to secession. The Unionists passed reso¬ lutions denouncing Rector’s seizure of the Little Rock Arsenal (see Chapter 6, pp. 114-116), and called upon him to make a statement on the cost of holding 41 it. Throughout the state the Unionists were hostile to Rector, and Secessionist James Yell thought that "thousands of them would have killed him freely if 42 they only could." The Secessionists moved that Arkansas recognize the Confederacy, but the Unionists quickly shoved this motion into a committee 43 where it died. The first week of the convention had been a complete failure for the Secessionists. Meanwhile, a vicious newspaper war was occurring between Unionists and Secessionists. The Batesville Southern Aurora claimed that the "secession of seven powerful states is an accomplished fact. To think that for a moment these states will be lured back into the deadly embrace of Abolitionism by the 44 glittering bauble of a frail and unsafe compromise is absurd." Editor Richard Johnson attacked the Unionists's idea of cooperating with the border states. "In a few weeks the Union Party will not contain a corporal’s guard. 45 Cooperation at this late date is an unmitigated humbug that means nothing." The Fayetteville Arkansian claimed it was fed up with "all of this useless -131-

46 twaddle about preserving a union already broken." Since most of the Arkansian readers were mountain yeomen Unionists» this loyal dynasty newspaper raised the spector of Negro equality in its efforts to turn north¬ western Arkansas for secession. The Arkansian said a small clique was trying to work towards Negro equality, and it graphically painted a picture of such a horror. "Think for a moment , and we appeal to the non-slave- holder, how would you like to have a buck Negro come up to the polls and tell you to stand back and let him vote? How would you like to sit on a jury with a Negro, and how would you like to have a Negro give testimony against you?—In a word, how would you like to have him associate with you as an equal? Disgusting beyond description . . . We submit these reflections to you calmly and earnestly en¬ treat of you to give them your attention, for they concern you, your wives, and your children."47 Led by the Hindman and dynasty newspapers most ot the state press

was demanding secession. The Unionists could count on Danley of the Gazette, who provided them with a statewide newspaper voice. Danley was sure the Secessionists misrepresented the people. He used Hindman as a prime example. Hindman's district included all the state north of the Arkansas River, and "he stands, by his zeal and ability, as one of the leading secessionists in Congress, and the people of his district are strongly in favor of the Union. The very counties that swelled his majority into 48 thousands gave more thousands for the Union." (What Danley didn't point out was that Hindman's district contained many lowland counties in the north¬ east, and river towns like Helena, which was Hindman's hometown.) Danley maintained that Secessionists "who are in the minority seek to coerce a 49 majority into a disruption of the ties that bind the government together." -132-

Oanley was also certain that the Secessionist minority would split the state apart if they could not pull it but of the Union: "There are gentlemen here, prominent for their social and political position, and influential for the same reason, who propose first to force Arkansas out of the Union; and, failing in that to divide the state by a revolutionary movement and join a portion of it to the southern Confederacy, whether the rest go or not,"®® ' Other Unionist papers echoed Danley's accusation that the Secessionists were planning to secede from Arkansas if they could not move it toward secession. An example was an editorial in the Van Buren Press. "The Secessionists are already discussing the policy of splitting the state should they fail to get her out of the Union, the baseline [the parallel line which separates Tennessee and Mississippi] and the Arkansas River suggested as 51 the boundaries." In the northwest, Secessionist and Unionist paper tried desperately to influence this most important region. The Fayetteville Democrat (which had started in July of 1860 as a Hindman sheet. See Chapter 4, Footnote 22), counteracted the Arkansian's appeal to racial prejudice by inciting the hill people's antagonism toward the planters. "The same mob that can make cotton King and Davis president is the same mob that will tell you that only he can be trusted at the ballot box who is a slaveholder, and that a Republican 52 government based upon universal suffrage of white men is a universal failure." The Arkansian responded to this charge by accusing the Democrat of pushing Hilton Helper's "pernicious doctrine" of pitting the "non-slaveholding white man 53 against the planter." -133-

Arkansas's newspapers generated more heat than light on the secession question. But they did point up the class, regional, and racial antagonisms present within the state. They also confirmed historian William Freehling's thesis, presented in the introduction, that many Secessionists did fear that non-slaveholding whites might one day turn against the "peculiar institution." , With Lincoln’s inauguration the unhappy and futile 36th Congress came to an end. Its adjournment signalled the death of any hope that a Congressional compromise would emerge that could once again unite the country. The new Congress was not scheduled to convene until the following December. National attention began to focus on two forts still in Federal hands in the seceded states, Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida, and Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Almost all of Arkansas's Congressional delegation returned home in early March except Senator Johnson’s replacement, Charles Mitchel, who stayed in Washington to 54 attend a special Senate session still fumbling for a compromise. Senator Mitchel telegraphed a widely believed but mistaken rumor that Lincoln planned 55 to withdraw from Fort Sumter. When this news reached the Secession Convention on Monday, March 11, 1861, it greatly added to the Unionists’s optimism, and strengthened their resolve to oppose secession. Hugh Thomason, chairman of the convention Committee on Federal Relations, presented a series of resolutions and proposals that fully stated the Unionist- Cooperationists's position on the existing state of the Union. Opening with a denunciation of the rise "of a party in the North which has as its principles hostility to the institution of African slavery as it exists in the southern states," he then presented a series of proposed constitutional amendments intended to -134-

56 end the sectional crisis. There was little originality in these proposals. The 36° 30' line would divide future slave and free territories, Congress could legislate only to protect slavery, free states must enforce fugitive slave laws and allow transitive slaves through their boundaries. These new constitutional 57 amendments were also to be irrevocable. Basically, these proposals resembled 58 the Crittenden Compromise that had failed in Congress in late February. These proposals were warmly received by the Unionist majority. The Secessionists were totally disgusted with their inability to affect the course of the convention. The Unionists repeatedly frustrated their opponents’s efforts toward secession and recognition of the Coniederacy. Speaking for the Unionists, Fishback told the convention that recognition of the Confederacy 59 was unconstitutional and a hindrance to future sectional unity. The-secessionist press was furious at the refusal of the convention to recognize the Confederacy. 60 The True Democrat called the action a disgrace. Augustus Garland was able to pass a significant resolution. "The people of Arkansas prefer a perpetuity

of this Federal Union to its dismemberment or its disruption—provided it can be perpetuated upon a basis recognizing and guaranteeing equal rights and 61 privileges to every State in the Union, south, as well as north." So discouraged was the mood of the Secessionists that delegate Dr. Philip Echols of Calhoun County in southern Arkansas, proposed that since the majority of the convention was against secession, the assembly should adjourn sine die. 62 That motion was tabled indefinitely. On Wednesday, March 13, the Secessionists made their final effort of the

March session to move Arkansas out of the Union. Thomas Hanly proposed -135- that Thomason's proposals be transformed to an ordinance of secession that 63 would have to be ratified by the people on the first Saturday in May. For the rest of the week the debate centered around Hanly's motion. Former Senator Robert Johnson addressed the convention on Wednesday night calling for the convention to pass an ordinance of secession immediately. The Con¬ federacy sent William Oldham from Texas with a letter from the Confederate 64 President. Although Oldham had once been an anti-family politician from northwestern Arkansas, he was unable to influence his old associates in 65 that region who remained an impregnable Unionist majority. Outside the convention hall the secessionist press focused on the Unionists' refusal to submit a secession ordinance to the vote of the people. The True 66 Democrat called it cowardice. Replying to these charges, Danley wrote of the "shifting tactics of desperate politicians" who now want a secession ordi¬ nance submitted to the people "as if they had not already given an expression which was emphatic enough at the polls a few days since, in returning a 67 majority for the Union." (Danley, of course, was referring to the February

18th election which gave the Unionists their majority in the Secession Convention.

4 See Chapter 6, pp. 118-120.) On Monday, March 18, 1861, the first day of the final week of the March session of the convention, Thomas Hanly's motion of the previous Wednesday 68 was put to a vote, and defeated by a vote of 30 to 35. Immediately . James Yell amended Hanly's motion to put an ordinance of secession to a vote on a later date to be set by the convention. The amendment failed by 69 only three votes. Clearly, as events stood in the state convention in late March, 1861, it would never approve an ordinance of secession. In the next -136-

few days the convention passed measures for a general convention of the

border states and sent Thomason's proposals as constitutional amendments to the next Congress. It also expressed willingness to participate in a border state convention to be held in late May, 1861, at Frankfort, Kentucky, and 70 elected five delegates . The Unionists and the Secessionists did work out a compromise on a future election. An election would be held on the first Monday of the following August, of which ballots would be marked for secession or for cooperation. Two weeks after that election the convention 71 would convene again to follow the wishes of the people. Finally, David Walker was given power to reconvene the convention at any time before 72 the next August if he thought it necessary. The first session of the Arkansas Secession Convention ended on March 21, 1861. Press reaction to the March session of the convention depended upon the newspaper's position on secession. Editor Richard Johnson of the True Democrat , was especially bitter toward the Unionist leaders, Walker, Thomason, and Jesse Turner. All three were willing to submit to Abraham Lincoln with "his black Republicanism, his negro equality, his hatred of the South. . . .They hate 73 dis-Union more than they love the South." The now mildly secessionist Des Arc Constitutional Union' expressed disappointment that the ^convention did not pass a secession ordinance, but was glad the question of secession would 74 be brought before the people in August. The Secessionists' campaign for the August election was just beginning. Former Senator Robert W. Johnson, former Governor John Seldon Roane, newly-elected United States Representative Edward Gantt, announced speaking tours throughout the state for the month of 75 April. They were soon followed by Thomas Hindman who scheduled the -137- 76 Most extensive tour of the state for late April and early May. For the fourth time in a year the citizens of Arkansas braced for yet another statewide election battle. In the northern and western areas of the state, there was joy when it became evident that the convention would not pass an ordinance of secession. In Van Buren thirty-nine guns were fired "in honor of the thirty-nine patriots 77 who stood firm" against the Hanly secession motion. The editor in Van Buren was himself caught up in the enthusiasm, for he also reported: "The American flag, the Stars and Stripes, was thrown high into the breeze from the Press 78 office in honor of the event." Crusty old Unionist Judge John Brown of

Camden recorded in his diary on March 4, 1861: "We are a little more at ease as to public affairs and have stronger reason to hope for some arrangement with the new administration and the South, though the latter will keep up its bullying policy, threatening more upon the Federal city and demands being 79 made upon the United States for surrender of the forts." Perhaps more sagacious than most Unionists, Danley saw victory for the Secessionists in the scheduling of the August election. "The Secessionists came to the capitol to force the state out of the Union without referring the matter to the people. If they had had the power Arkansas would now have been out of the Union despite 80 the wishes of her people." Now the dis-Unionists had been successful in putting secession before the people. Danley feared it might pass, but he also'hoped that 81 after four months of careful deliberation, they would not pull down the Union. To prepare for the anticipated four-month political battle with the Secessionists

party, leading Unionists issued an address to the people of Arkansas containing

a statement of the principles they would champion. It was published in the Arkansa; -138-

Gazette on April 6, 1861. Unlike previous campaigns, this four-month political contest would be devoid of candidates. It would concentrate instead upon the one central issue of secession. In this most unique political situation, the Unionists leaders wanted the people to know clearly where they stood. This "Unionist Manifesto" opened by profession loyalty to the South and its institutions, including slavery. Its authors wanted their brethren to know them as southern Unionists, and not as southern proponents of northern abolition. Then they accurately pointed out that "there were few men in the South who took the ground that the election of Mr. Lincoln would justify the destruction of the Union, though his election was hardly doubted 82 by any several weeks before.the election." If secession was not justified in mid-November when news of Lincoln's election first arrived in Arkansas,

how could it be justified now? Nothing had been done sincè Lincoln’s election to exacerbate the situation. The Unionists stated their belief in the mistaken rumor that Lincoln would, indeed, "withdraw from Ft. Sumter and thereby 83 the danger of a collision [would be] avoided." The seceded states, not Mr. Lincoln, had acted rashly in the last few months. This manifesto also

said it was wrong to judge the North by the Abolitionists alone. It was far better to work with the border states and the South's friends in the North to 84 come up with a peaceful solution rather than to risk civil war. Amid these conciliatory words, the Unionists made clear their opposition to any action by the Federal government to coerce the seceded states back 85 into the Union. This was not a novel position, for one section of Thomason's resolution had declared: "Any attempt by the Federal government to coerce -Wy¬ the seceding states by an armed force, will be resisted by Arkansas to the 86 last extremity." According to Jesse Cypert, all the Unionists in the con¬ vention believed that any attempt "on the part of the Federal government to coerce the other southern states would be and should be resisted by the state of Arkansas, however, anxious the people were to remain in the 87 Union." This sentiment was shared by many Unionists in the northwestern counties. A letter signed only by "HM in Apple Orchard Township in Benton County, wrote to the Gazette in early March: "Our people are a unit against coercion of a seceding state, and nearly so . . . against being dragooned 88 into secession." A simultaneous hatred of secession and coercion might seen contradictory to modem readers, but to many ante-bellum Arkansans it accorded with long held Jefferson-Jacksonian fear of centralized authority. Arkansans, like most southerners, firmly believed that the constitution was essentially a compact among independent sovereign states. Two of Arkansas's leading politicians and constitutional scholars, Robert W. Johnson and Albert Pike, interpreted the constitution to mean that a state could secede if the central government threatened its social, economic or cultural institutions. (See Chapter 3, p. 36, and Chapter 5, p. 95.) Just two days before the state convention assembled, Albert Pike published a forty-page essay, State or Province? Bond or Free?. Since Arkansas was a state, Pike argued that it could withdraw from the Union. If it could not, it was a mere province 89 of the Federal monolith. -140-

Local autonomy and states’ rights were as cherished by ante-bellum southerners as the institution of slavery. Without states’ rights and a future prerogative to secede, Arkansans and southerners knew that slavery would depend upon majority rule and the shifting tide of northern opinion. Using constitutional processes Lincoln had been elected to the Presidency on a platform against further slave expansion into the Federal territories. Southerners argued that these territories belonged to both North and South. Since the Supreme Court had declared in 1857 that slaves were property and not citizens, the prohibition of slavery in the territories infringed upon the property rights of southerners. Historian Margaret Ross quite rightly terms most of Arkansas’s Unionists as conditional Unionists, for they "wanted to remain in the Union until the last possible means of compromise had been attempted, and were willing to secede only when they were convinced that 90 slave states would not be guaranteed equal rights with the free states." Ross goes on to observe that there were a few "unconditional Unionists— those who wanted to stay in the Union regardless of the fate of slavery, but most of them kept their opinions to themselves since their neighbors were in 91 no mood to tolerate such sentiments." Within a week from the time the Unionists published their "manifesto," events around Fort Sumter and Charleston harbor pulled the rug from under Arkansas's conditional Unionists. When Lincoln informed the Confederate President that he intended to relieve the beleaguered fort, this triggered a southern bombardment and eventually civil war. Since many southerners in the upper South believed Lincoln would withdraw the garrison, his move to -141- supply the fort was considered a breach of faith, even though the President 92 never promised to surrender the fort. On April 15, 1861, Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to suppress "combinations in the seceded states too powerful to be suppressed” by normal governmental and judicial proceedings. As historians Ramsdell and Donald have written: ’’Until the Sumter cannonade, a waiting attitude on both sides had been maintained. Conrlicting declarations had been made, but the evil day when declarations must be translated into violent action was delayed; and each day a postponement brought encouragement to the many who thought that compromise, i.e. peace with union, was possible. Cer¬ tainly, the upper South, the greater border states and thousands of southern sympathizers in the North thought so. The Sumter incident produced an instant change.’’^ The impact of Fort Sumter on the upper South, including Arkansas, is not exaggerated. For example, when former Senator Robert W. Johnson was speaking for secession in Bentonville in northwest Arkansas, he was hissed and hooted 94 down. During the course of his talk, news of Fort Sumter arrived, and ’’all was changed in a moment." According to an eyewitness of the event, people reacted as follows: "Call on the southern people to shoot down their neighbors, help those from whom we have had for years only received injury and wrong,— 95 no’, never’." Fort Sumter also produced an instantaneous change in the editorial policy of Arkansas’s two leading Unionist newspapers. Danley wrote an editorial in the Arkansas Gazette entitled: "Coercion Commended: Let the People of Arkansas React to It as One Man." Danley recalled his constant opposition to coercion. Lincoln’s call to arms represented a declaration 96 of war upon the South, a clear usurpation of congressional authority. ' -142-

The Van Buren Press stated that the people ’’will fight coercion, defend southern rights, and none will be truer in the day of trial than the Union 97 men of Arkansas." In the twinkling of an eye, Arkansas’s Unionist press evaporated. The Secessionists were, of course, elated by the coming of war. As the True Democrat put it: "We cannot doubt her decision about whom she will ally herself with . . . the ties of blood and friendship cry aloud for 98 it." In the weeks following Ft. Sumter, the True Democrat was filled 99 with petitions from all parts of the state demanding immediate secession. One former Unionist wrote to D. C. Williams, a merchant in Van Buren: 100 "We fought manfully for the Union, let us fight manfully for the South." Within weeks after Ft. Sumter, Unionists like Albert Rust, Samuel Hempstead, 101 and Edward Warren now called for secession. Augustus Garland and Joseph Stilwell, the two Unionist delegates from Pulaski County, asked David Walker to recall the convention and promised to vote the state out of 102 the Union. Southern and.eastern Arkansas was thrown into a frenzy, and even before secession became a fact, militia companies formed and drilled, all ready to fight for the southern Confederacy. Still opposing secession, Judge John Brown of Camden, grumbled about "the fanatical companies are 103 mustering, and the sound of drums and martial music greet me night and day." Brown was sure the state would secede and he blamed it on "those designing destructionists who planned the whole Ft. Sumter affair to influence the border states. . . . Civil war is thus inaugurated in this 104 happy land." -143-

A ground swell of opinion demanded that the state convention be immediately reconvened under the adjournment resolution of the March convention. The decision rested with David Walker. Thomas Hanly wrote to Walker that there would be no stopping southern and eastern Arkansas from joining the Confederacy. "The convention must reassemble to speak 105 for the state in the course it would pursue in the ensuing Civil War." Hanly assured Walker of the unanimity of feeling in the eastern counties:

"In the eastern Arkansas counties, Phillips, Monroe, St. Francis, Poinsett, Craighead, Greene, Crittenden, and Mississippi, the secession sentiment 106 is nearly unanimous since the recent events." Still a Unionist at heart, Walker wrote to Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson of Missouri for information about sentiment in the other border states- Jackson's reply was unfortunate, for the Unionist cause in Arkansas. "Missouri will be ready for secession in thirty days, and will secede, if Arkansas will get 107 out of the way and give her free passage." Meanwhile reports were filling papers like the Van Buren Press that Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Tennessee, were all planning to secede. News arrived by telegraph that 108 Virginia had seceded on April 17, 1861. . Against the background of these developments, Walker who has always considered Arkansas a border state, issued a proclamation calling the Secession Convention back into session on 109 May 6, 1861. Just prior to the convention's recall, Governor Rector answered Lincoln's request for troops on April 22, 1861: "In answer to your request for troops from Arkansas to subjugate the southern states, I have to say that none will be furnished. The demand is only adding insult to injury. The neonle of this commonwealth are free men not slaves, and will -144-

Rector then dispatched to Ft. Smith the state militia commanded by Solon Borland, the former Arkansas politician and Memphis newspaper editor. According to historian D. Y. Thomas, "they arrived on April 23, and when they went the next day to demand surrender, they were very much mortified (a private said 'gratified') to find that the enemy had fled in the 111 night, taking large quantities of arms and munitions with them." Arkansas was now completely clear of Federal troops. The state awaited only the re¬ convening of the Secession Convention. On Monday, May 6, 1861, at ten in the morning, David Walker formally opened the second session of the Arkansas Secession Convention. Immediately, Charles Adams moved that the Committee of Ordinances and Resolutions prepare an Ordinance of Secession by two o'clock that afternoon, but William Grace of 112 Jefferson County asked for a delay until 3 P.M. The convention then heard a long letter from Samuel Hempstead, a recently converted secessionist. Ac¬ cording to Hempstead, "it was only under a peaceful, prudent, and conciliatory course toward the South—the policy of leaving them unmolested and undisturbed— 113 avoiding the use of force, that Arkansas was willing to remain in the Union." He said the people of this state "could not be asked to fight against our 114 southern brethren." * . At three o'clock the convention reassembled. Alfred Dinsmore of Benton County, tried to have the Ordinance of Secession submitted to the people for final approval on the first Monday in June. This was the last desperate move by the Unionists to forestall secession, and it failed by a vote of fifty-five to 115 fifteen. Clearly, the Unionist majority had been decimated by the Ft. Sumter episode. Secession was now inevitable. Wasting no time, Walker began the -145- roll call on the Ordinance of Secession. Cypert later wrote of this solemn moment: "Except for an explanatory note by a few Unionists, there was 116 complete silence during the roll call." Only five votes were cast against 117 the measure, and sixty-five approved. At the end of the tally, David Walker stood and addressed the assembly: "It is inevitable that Arkansas will secede. Enough votes have already been cast to take us out of the Union.

Now, since we must go, let us all go together; let the wires carry the news 118 to all the world that Arkansas stands as a unit against coercion.” Responding to Walker's appeal, four of the five remaining Unionists changed their votes. "Parson Kelley of Pike County, added that he supported the right of revolution, 119 but never the doctrine of secession." Only one delegate remained recalcitrant, mountain farmer Isaac Murphy from Madison County. Amid hisses and boos, Murphy declared: "I have cast my vote after mature reflection, and have duly considered the consequences, 120 and I cannot conscientiously change it. I therefore vote no'." A woman in the gallery, Mrs. Frederick Trapnall, widow of a wealthy Little Rock planter- 121 merchant, then threw Murphy a bouquet of flowers. Former delegate Carrigan remembered Murphy as having "little cultivation and much information, frequently 122 engaging in debate and bearing himself well." According to Carrigan, no other 12 r- member could have taken the position he did without being mobbed by the populace. The official Journal for the convention recorded that Arkansas completed 124 its vote on secession at ten minutes past four on the afternoon of May 6, 1861. This was just one month and nine days short of Arkansas's twentieth-fifth anniver¬ sary as a state. An excited Thomas Hindman wired this partially incorrect -146- message to the Confederate President that same afternoon: "Convention passed 125 Ordinance of Secession at 4 P.M. by a unanimous vote." An era of Arkansas history had come to a close. CONCLUSION

The Secession Convention did not adjourn after severing Arkansas's ties with the old Union. Working on the assumption that secession invalidated all previous laws and statutes, the convention proceeded to rewrite the state constitution, legalize state banks, issue war bonds, elect delegates to the provisional Confederate Congress (four of the five chosen had been Unionists prior to Ft. Sumter), draw up future Congressional districts, move state elections from August to October, place military officers under the super¬ vision of a military board, and appoint generals of the state militia. As a final slap to Governor Rector, his four-year term was cut in half. Infuriated by these measures, Rector threatened to call the legislature into session to counter the convention's actions. The convention warned Rector against this course and the governor backed down. All of this happened before June 1 3rd—a little less than a month after Arkansas left the Union. Never in the history of the state has a political body seized and wielded so much power in such a short time. "Secession did not spell an end to politics, and the passing of an ordinance of secession was not the only important act of the 2 convention."

Looking backward from another century, we can easily see ^secession as the beginning of the end of an era in Arkansas and southern history. The future years brought terrible desolation, military defeat and occupation, abolition of slavery, a bankrupt economy, and a century of grinding poverty.

Hindsight is, indeed, the luxury of historians. Men of that time could not

-147- -148- enjoy our perspective. Those who favored secession could not foresee the years of sorrow and agony which flowed from this course of action. They believed that secession was a path toward greatness and freedom. After all, how could it be otherwise? Arkansas was joining a nation free from the scheming, Yankee merchants and the meddlesome abolitionists. In the face of growing world opinion against human slavery, Arkansas and the

South made a stand—independence rather than acceptance of a gradual future emancipation. If slavery could be denied its rightful, territorial expansion, only abolition awaited in the future. As Governor Rector had put it in his inaugural address of November 15, 1860: "It is the Union without slavery, or slavery without the Union.” (See Chapter 6, p. 103.) Secession temporarily ended Arkansas’s relationship with the Union. It did not"end all political conflicts or greatly alter the state’s political structure. The political scene easily reverted to its time-tested traditions of factionalism, character assassination, vicious party in-fighting, and that all-too-familiar cry of ’’family” 3 domination. The change in Arkansas's politics would come from outside the 4 state, mainly from Federal military invasion and occupation. Geography, slavery, migration from the South, cultural and political ». traditions, all combined to place Arkansas in the sphere of the Old South. The editor of the True Democrat expressed an inexorable and fundamental truth late in April, 1861. ”We had rather be rebels than fratricides. We had rather rebel against Lincoln than assist in murdering our brethren of the South. We are of the South and are with it. Its destiny shall be our 5 destiny. Its God shall be our God." Since Arkansas was forced to choose -149- between the North and the South» the state's political leaders and people saw a brighter future and more safety as a member of an independent, slave¬ holding nation than as a slave state in a Union dominated and led by the Northern free states. Seen in this light, it is little wonder Arkansas joined its "brethren of the South" in secession. The road to secession was not an easy one. The state hesitated, refusing to rush into dis-Union upon news of Lincoln's election in November of 1860. While seven states fled the Union before Lincoln took his oath of office in March, 1861, Arkansas remained part of a nation she loved almost as much as she did the South. Like states of the upper South, Arkansas contained a substantial region devoid of plantations and major slaveholders. There the people took pride in their white skin, jealously guarded their suffrage rights, and resented the aristocratic pretensions of the wealthy planters. These people saw much to lose and little to gain in a new nation likely to be domi¬ nated by wealthy slaveholders. In the hill country of the upper South, Unionism found its firmest bastion and would keep the upper South in the Union until the spring of 1861. Even after secession, Unionism lived in the mountains 6 of Arkansas and in all. the hill regions ot the upper South. Along with a study of Arkansas’s move toward secession, this paper attempts to shed new light on the social, economic and political development of Arkansas prior to the sectional crisis of 1860-61. Only by a broad understanding of the state's history before 1859, can one hope to comprehend the forces at work in Arkansas politics in the last two years of the ante-bellum era. The social and economic history of the state reveals Arkansas's population growth to have been - 150- sub st antial, exceeding five other frontier states in similar stages of development.

Such growth was nevertheless hampered by the unsettling presence of the Indian territory on the western border, which greatly contributed to a violent lawless¬ ness. In combination with an unreliable transportation system and a ruinous banking policy, this factor kept Arkansas in a frontier status until the very eve of the Civil War. The state's political history during the ante-bellum era witnessed the rise of a political dynasty that controlled Arkansas's government for almost thirty years. Using the vehicle of the Democratic Party, the Conway-Sevier- Johnson dynasty proved itself invincible prior to 1860 when it was bested by a shrewd and ambitious Thomas Hindman. Hindman effectively turned the election into class warfare, attacking the dynasty as a corrupt oligarchy, and referring to its leaders as pompous, aristocratic Bourbons. The thirty-two year old Congressman united lowland and upland yeomen against the planter class in a conflict that only served to further Hindman's power prestige. Through the Hindman insurgency, the state received its first governor not handpicked by the dynasty. Unfortunately in electing Henry Rector, the people of Arkansas saddled themselves with an inexperienced and ineffective governor during the nation's gravest crisis. In the national Presidential race of 1860, Hindman and the dynasty joined hands to carry Arkansas for Breckinridge, the most radical pro-Southern candidate. In voting for Breckinridge, the state expressed its belief in slavery and in its moral legitimacy and lawful expansion into the territories, Arkansans were clearly dedicated to the ideal of a democracy for whites only. Although the conservative Whig constituency knew Breckinridge -151- to be the candidate of the southern dis-Unionists, it failed to successfully sell its candidate Bell to the voters. He was too closely aligned to the defunct Whig Party, a party consistently repudiated by Arkansans. Sup¬ porters of Democrat Stephen Douglas of Illinois lacked funds, party organi¬ zation, and a network of newspapers necessary for a successful campaign. Arkansans feared Republican Abraham Lincoln (many mistaking him and his party as abolitionists), and his name did not appear on the ballot in this state or nine other southern states. When the question of secession arose after Lincoln's election, it soon restructured the state's political alignments. What eventually emerged was a geo-political division—a Unionist northwest vs. a Secessionist southeast. This new political order became especially evident during the February, 186I, election for the state convention and its delegates. Generally, the northwest chose Unionist-Cooperationists, those who were willing to work for a peaceful compromise, while the southeast elected mostly those who called for immediate

secession. There are some indications in the secessionist press of a fear that white non-slaveholders might turn against slavery in the future. Thus, the Secessionists raised the nightmarish specter of Negro equality in order to keep the non-slaveholding whites loyal to the "peculiar institution." Until Fort Sumter, bitter controversy raged between these geo-political divisions, but Lincoln's supply of the fort and call for troops to subdue the seceded states wrought a complete change. To many his actions constituted a Federal usurpation of authority and a breach of faith, because the Unionists -152- within the state worked under the mistaken assumption that Lincoln planned to abandon all Federal forts in the southern Confederacy. Ties to the South now proved too strong to ignore, and thus the state moved irreversibly toward secession. Footnotes

Introduction

1. William Freehling, ’’The Editorial Revolution, Virginia and the Coming of the Civil War; a Review of George M. Reese's Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention." Civil War History, Vol. XVI, (1970), pp. 68-71. Quote on p. 71.

2. Ibid., p. 71.

3. William Wright, The Secession Movement in the Middle-Atlantic States. (Rutherford, ; Fairleigh-Dickinson University Press, 1973), 274 pp. Michael Johnson, Toward a Patriarchal Republic: The Secession of Georgia. (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), 223 pp.

4. Emory Thomas, "A Review of Toward a Patriarchal Republic: The Secession of Georgia." Civil War History, Vol. XXIV, (1978), pp. 93-95. Quote on pp. 94-95. Footnotes

Chapter 1 1. DeBow's Review, vol. XXIX (1860), p. 794. 2. Census of 1810 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1811), p. 84. Orville Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1958.) Taylor does not know if New Madrid Township was in Missouri or Arkansas, but it had a population of over 1800 people. A few people around that township might have lived in what later became the Arkansas Territory. Pp. 18, 19. 3. Lonnie White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier: Arkansas Territory, 1819-1836 (Memphis, Tenn.: Memphis State University Press, 1964), pp. 6-7 and footnote 24. 4. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas, p. 21. 5. Elsie Mae Lewis, "From Nationalism to Disunion: A Study of the Secession Movement in Arkansas, 1849-1861" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1947), pp. 4-5. Lewis has the best discussion on Arkansas's topographical features and mineral wealth, see pp. 1-13. 6. Ibid., pp. 6-7. 7. William Lynch, "The Westward Flow of Southern Colonists Before 1861," Journal of Southern History, vol. IX 1943), pp. 303-27, especially pp. 313-20. 8. Frank L. Owsley, Plain Folk in the Old South (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State Press, 1949), p. 52. 9. Ibid., p. 53. See also Wm. Lynch's remark, "Westward Flow of Southern Colonists," p. 317, that "Arkansas is the child of Tennessee." This remark is confirmed by census data. See Robert B. Welz, "Migration Into Arkansas, 1820-1880" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1958), p. 115. 10. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," pp. 10-11. 11. Ibid ., p. 10. 12. Ibid., p. 13. 13. Mattie Brown, "River Transportation in Arkansas, 1819-1890" Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. I (1942), p. 342. Footnotes

Chapter 1

14. Census of 1860 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1864), vol. I, pp. 598, 599.

15. Between 1850-1860 Minnesota territory increased by more than 2730 percent. Indiana, from 1800 to 1860, had a population increase of 27,601 percent. These percentages computed from information in the Census of 1860, vol. I, pp. 598-604.

16. States like Florida, Iowa, and Texas did not have a recorded percentage growth until the 1840s. Texas did not enter into the Union until the 1840s, and Florida and Iowa did not have a recorded increase until 1840. To make any sort of comparison between Arkansas and these states, it was necessary to have the same amount of time covered. See Census of 1860, vol. I, pp. 598-604.

17. Census of 1860, vol. I, p. 601.

18. Ibid., pp. 603-604. See also Lewis, "Nationalism to Dis¬ union," pp. 13-14, and footnote 30.

19. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," pp. 25, 95-96.

20. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas, p. 50.

21. Walz, "Migration Into Arkansas," p. 115.

22. Lynch, "The Westward Flow of Southern Colonists," p. 317.

23. Census of 1860, vol. I, Introduction, p. 34. See also Robert Walz, "Migration Into Arkansas, 1820-1880: Incentives and Means of Travel," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XVII (1958) pp. 309-24. Walz quotes a Helena newspaper in the fall of 1858 reporting: "Wagon after wagon, in an almost continuous stream are now being put across daily from the Mississippi side of the river by the Messrs. Weather's Steam Ferry Boat at this place. The heavy migration into Arkansas this season is marked for being composed of people who are well-to-do in the way of worldly goods, woolyheads, (slaves) and large families of - intelligent looking boys and bright-eyed girls." Ibid♦, p. 322.

24. Gaven Wright, The Political Economy of the Cotton South: Households, Markets and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978), pp. 36-38.

25. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 28. Footnotes

Chapter 1

26. Michael Dougan, Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime (University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1976), pp. 2-3.

27. Ibid.

28. Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, Ark., January 2, 1839), p. 2. Traffic on the Ouachita River in southwestern Arkansas was halted for five years by a drought. See Mattie Brown, "River Transportation in " p. 312.

29. Arkansas Gazette, June 19, i833, p. 3. o CO • Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 3.

31. Mattie Brown, "River Transportation in Arkansas ," pp. 317-18

32. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 3.

33. Ibid., p. 1.

34. Robert Walz, "Migration Into Arkansas," p. 313. Walz quotes from the Ft. Smith Herald, August 22, 1851.

35. ’ Arkansas Gazette, May 23, 1837, p. 2.

36. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 6.

37. Ibid. ; see also p. 129, footnote 23.

38. Arkansas Gazette, April 26, 1850, p. 2.

39. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p.4.

40. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 53.

41. Sir George Wm. Featherstonhaugh, An Excursion Through the Slave States of North America (New York: Harper & Bros., 1844), p. 87.

42. Ibid., p. 88.

43. Ibid., p. 99.

44. Arkansas Gazette, May 20, 1840, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 1

45. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 53.

46. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 4.

47. Featherstonhaugh, An Excursion, p. 95.

48. W. P. Flippin, "The Tutt and Everett War in Marion County, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XVII (1958), pp. 155-163.

49. Featherstonhaugh, An Excursion, pp. 96-101. See also Arkansas Gazette, January 10, 1838, p. 2.

50. White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier, pp. 77-87.

51. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 54.

52. Quoted in ibid., p. 53.

53. Arkansas Gazette, September 29, 1841, p. 2.

54. Arkansas Intelligencer (Van Buren, Ark., November 3, 1849), p. 2.

55. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 6.

56. Ted Worley wrote a number of articles on the banks in Arkansas before the Civil War, but no book was ever written on the subject. Worley's articles include: "Arkansas and the Money Crisis, 1836-1837," Journal of Southern History, vol. XV (1949), pp. 178-91; "Control of the Real Estate Bank of the State of Arkansas, 1836-1855," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. XXXVII, (1950), pp. 403-426; "The Arkansas State Bank: Ante-Bellum Period," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXIII, (1964), pp. 65-74.

57. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 15.

58. Worley, "Control of the Real Estate Bank," p. 408. He, quoted State Senator Mark Izard of St. Francis County.

59. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 18.

60. Southern Shield (Helena, Ark., August 3, 1860), p. 2.

61. David Y. Thomas, Arkansas and Its People, 1534-1930. (New York: American Historical Association, .1930), p. 103. Footnotes

Chapter 1 62. Walz, ’’Migration Into Arkansas," p. 310. 63. Ibid., p. 311. 64. Ibid. See also Robert Harrison and Walter Kollmorgen, "Land Reclamation in Arkansas Under the Swampland Grant of 1850," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. VI, (1947), p. 369-418. 65. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 9. 66. From census data compiled by Dr. Walter L. Brown of the University of Arkansas, History Department. The 1850 and 1860 numbers in the census came in units of 400 lbs. each. The number in the text is the number of those units multiplied by 400. 67. Arkansas Gazette, June 13, 1857, p. 2. 68. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas, pp. 7-17.

69. Figures compiled by author from census data. 70. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas, pp. 49-53, 57-5&. In the census of 1860 on Agriculture, the figures on Arkansas on p. 247 are erroneous. For accurate number of slaveowners in Arkansas see Census of 1860, Agriculture, pp. 224-225. 71. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas, pp. 52-53. 72. The figure Taylor gives in Negro Slavery is 42.5 percent, p. 56. Taylor’s methodology is faulty. To find the number of white persons involved in slavery, Taylor took the number of slaveholders and multiplied it be five, which signified the average family in 1860. Finding that percentage, Taylor then computed the percentage of slaves to the whole population. Taking these two percentages, he then added them together to find the percentage of Arkansans involved in slavery, which he said was 42.5 percent. This does not follow through when used on other slave states. For example, South Carolina had a slave percentage of 57,1 and the number of white slaveholders and their families amounted to 45.8 percent. When these numbers are added you receive 102,9 percent. A correct methodology would have been to take the number of slaves and the number of whites involved in slavery and add these numbers together, finding this new number, you compute that number's percentage of the total population. In South Carolina's case, that number turns out to be 76.1 percent of the population. In other words, slaves and whites either owning slaves Footnotes

Chapter 1 or members of slaveholding families amounted to 76 percent of the population In Arkansas, when slaves and slaveholders and their families are added to¬ gether, it amounts to 38.7 percent of the population. Moreover, only 17.7 percent of the whites in this state own slaves or were members of slave¬ holding families. Thus, over 82 percent of Arkansas's white population did not own slaves or were members of slaveowning families. 73. Eugene Genovese, "Yeomen Farmers in a Slaveholders' Democracy," Agriculture History, vol. 49, (1975), pp. 331-42. Genovese has some wise words concerning the ante-bellum South: "One thing is certain, we shall never understand fully the triumph and eventual demise of the slave system of the South, nor the secret of the slaveholders' success in establishing their hegemony in society, nor the nature and extent of the persistent threat from below within that hegemony, until we study the daily lives, the religion, the family and courtship patterns, and the dreams of the ordinary farmers of the slave South; which means we shall have to study them with the same kind of sympathetic understanding and fundamental respect that so many fine scholars are now bringing to the study of slaves," p. 342. 74. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas, pp. 245-247. 75. Ibid., p. 249. 76. Ibid., p. 255. See also Arkansas Gazette, October 5, 1849, p. 2. 77. For an explanation and analysis of white attitudes toward blacks, see Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1815. (New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1968). 78. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas, pp. 250-251. 79. Ibid., p. 257. 80. Ibid., p. 256. 81. Ibid., pp. 257-58.

82. Ibid., p. 258. Footnotes

Chapter 2

1. David Y. Thomas, Arkansas and Its People, 1534-1930. (New York: American Historical Association, 1930), pp. 19-20.

2. Dallas Herndon, Centennial History of Arkansas (3 vols., Chicago: Clarke Publishing Co., 1922), vol. I, p. 135.

3. Ibid., pp. 135-47.

4. Ibid., Lonnie White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier: Arkansas Territory, 1819-1836. (Memphis, Tenn.: Memphis State University Press, 1964), pp. 6-7.

5. White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier, pp. 7-17. William Johnson, "Prelude to the Missouri Compromise," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 24 (1965), pp. 47-66.

6. The Arkansas Gazette is the oldest continuing newspaper west of the Mississippi River. It has always been intricately connected with the history of Arkansas and is still the leading journal of the state. An excellent history of the early years of the Gazette is to be found in Margaret Ross’ The Arkansas Gazette: The Early Years, 1819-1866 (Little Rock, Arkansas Gazette Foundation, 1969). The reason Arkansas is spelled with an 's’ at its end instead of a ’w’ may be because William Woodruff spelled Arkansas in that fashion from the very beginning. See Ross, The Arkansas Gazette, p. 17. For an excellent survey of the spelling and pronunciation of the word "Arkansas" see Herndon, Centennial History of Arkansas, pp. 149-51.

7. White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier, p. 204.

8. Ibid., p. 19.

9. Ross, The Arkansas Gazette, pp. 34, 39.

10. White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier, pp. 128-40, 171-72.

11. Jack Scroggs, "Arkansas Statehood: A Study in State and National Political Schism," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XX (1961), p. 233. See also Dewey Stokes, "Public Affairs in Arkansas, 1836-1850," (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1966), p. 40. Footnotes Chapter 2 12. White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier, p. 204. 13. Josiah Shinn, Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas (Little Rock: Democrat Lithograph and Printing Co., 1908), p. 181. 14. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, pp. 231-32. 15. Brian G. Walton, "The Second Party System in Arkansas, 1836-1848," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXVIII (1969), pp. 123-25. 16. Stokes, "Public Affairs in Arkansas 1836-1850," pp. 13-44, 266-96, 323-43. Harold T. Smith, "Arkansas Politics, 1850-1861," (un¬ published M.A. thesis, Memphis State University, 1964), pp. 1-49. 17. Ross, The Arkansas Gazette, pp. 191-94. For continued Gazette opposition to the "family" and their control of the Democratic party, see pp. 195-356. 18. Ralph Wooster, Politicians, Planters and Plainfolk: Court¬ house and Statehouse in the Upper South, J.85Q-1860. (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1975), p. 46. Also see Brian Walton, "The Second Party System in Arkansas," pp. 124-25. 19. Walton, "The Second Party System in Arkansas," pp". 125-26. 20. Michael Dougan, Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime (University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1976), p. 8. A good recent article on the socio-economic differences of Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs in Arkansas is Gene Boyett, "Quantitative Differences Between the Arkansas Whig and Democratic Parties, 1836-1850." Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXXIV (1975), pp. 214-26. According to Boyett: "The nationalist economic program of the Whigs (their support for internal improvements, i.e. roads and canals, made at Federal expense) appealed to residents of counties more nearly in the mainstream of the national and world economy . . . Voters in river counties proved more compatible with Whiggery since such voters were inclined toward an awareness of a way of life'beyond their horizons of space and time. The sectional base for Whig strength in Arkansas suggests that this thesis may explain the poor Whig performances in the northern and western regions of Arkansas as contrasted with the more favorable Whig performance in the southern and eastern areas of the state." p. 221. -21,- Wooster, Politicians, Planters, and Plainfolk, p; 73. Ralph Wooster did not find any political situation comparable to Arkansas in the lower South. See The People in Power: Courthouse and Statehouse in the Lower South, 1850-1860. (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1969), p. 63. Footnotes Chapter 2 22. John Hallum, Biographical and Pictorial History or Arkansas» (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons, and Company, 1889), pp. 42-44. Hallum gives a full and complete program and outline of "family" control of ante¬ bellum Arkansas. 23. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, pp. 49-52. 24. White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier, pp. 68-81.

25. Ibid., p. 87. Ambrose Sevier was the grandnephew of John Sevier of Tennessee, revolutionary hero and elected Governor of Tennessee six times. See Hallum, Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas, p. 42. 26. Brian Walton, "Ambrose Hundley Sevier in the , 1836-1848," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXXII (1973), p. 27. 27. Ibid., pp. 49-60. 28. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, pp. 247-259. Sevier underwent investigation by the Arkansas legislature for his mishandling of certain bonds in the Real Estate Bank fiasco. The legislature censured him ' and Sevier "sent back from Washington, D.C. a series of vituperative letters of incredible arrogance and tastelessness to members who had voted to censure him." See Walton, "Sevier in the United States Senate," p. 38 . Such activity in 1843 undoubtedly contributed to his defeat for reelection to the Senate in 1848, when the members of the legislature refused to elect him to another term. 29. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, p. 252-53.

30. Ibid., p. 300. Ms. Ross writes: "Borland had not endeared himself to the Washington press, and had many enemies in Washington and at home. On one occasion there had been an attempt to bum him in effigy in the streets of Washington . . .It was conceded that his background in foreign affairs, particularly his belief in and adherence to the Monroe Doctrine, was in his favor, and that his facility with the Spanish language would be helpful. But the memory of the easy belligerence that had led him into several well-publicized brawls caused many to question the widsom of giving the post to one of his temperament." 31. D. Y. Thomas, Arkansas and Its People, p. 91. An example of this caucus power is exemplified by one instance when a Committee of Resolutions was out of convention ior just a few minutes, and then returned with a well-written report that filled several columns in a newspaper. Pp. 91-92. Footnotes

Chapter 2

32. Ibid., p. 92.

33. Walton, "The Second Party System in Arkansas," p. 123.

34. Boyett, "Quantitative Differences Between the Whigs and Democratic Parties, 1836-1850," pp. 219-21.

35. Walton, "The Second Party System in Arkansas," p. 128. Archibald Yell died in the Mexican War in February, 1841, and this was probably welcome news for the "family," for he was always a potential danger. See Ross, Arkansas Gazette, p. 235.

36. White, Politics on the Southwestern Frontier, p. 191.

37. Sidney Crawford, "Arkansas Suffrage Qualifications," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. II (1943), pp. 331-32, 339.

38. Francis Thorpe, ed. and comp. The Federal and State Constitutions: Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies, Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America, (vols. Washington, D.C.: Gov't. Printing Office, 1909), vol. I, pp. 268-87.

39. Wooster, Politicians, Planters and Plainfolk, p. 74. Walton, "The Second Party System in Arkansas," pp. 133-36.

40. George Thompson, Arkansas and Reconstruction: The Iniluence of Geography, Economics, and Personality (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1976), p. 20. Footnotes

Chapter 3

1. Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Johnson, Robert W." ed. Dumas Malone. (20 vols., New York: Charles Scribners & Sons, (1928-36), vol. X, pp. 117-18.

2. Elsie Mae Lewis, "Robert W. Johnson: Militant Spokesman of the Old South-West," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XIII (1954), p. 18.

3. Fay Hempstead, Historical Review of Arkansas, vol. I (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1911), pp. 173-74.

4. Lewis, "Robert W. Johnson," pp. 18-19. Arkansas Gazette, February 22, JL850, p. 2 and March 1, 1850, p. 2.

5. Harold T. Smith, "Arkansas Politics, 1850-1861" (unpublished M.A. thesis, Memphis State University, 1964), p. 5.

6. Lewis, "Robert W. Johnson," p. 19. See also Elsie Mae Lewis, "From Nationalism to Disunion: A Study of the Secession Movement in Arkansas, 1849-1861," (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1947), pp. 118-22, for the most complete analysis of Robert Johnson’s open letters to his constituents and his radical pro-Southern position.

7. Brian Walton, "Arkansas Politics During the Compromise Crisis, 1848-1852."- Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXXVI (1977), pp. 319-21. Also see Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 122.

8. Arkansas Gazette, March 1, 1850, p. 2.

9. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," pp. 140-41, 146.

10. Walton, "Arkansas Politics During the Compromise Crisis." Walton says on p. 319, footnote 35, that Lewis is wrong to call United States Senator William King Sebastian of Arkansas a supporter of the Compromise of 1850, because he did not vote for the whole package. No Arkansas representative voted for the whole Compromise of 1850. The "family" newspaper, Arkansas Banner, attacked Borland for his ambiguous speech in Little Rock, and bitterly assailed him for not returning to Washington to vote on these important issues. Editor Woodruff of the Gazette, however, supported Borland all the way. See Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," pp. 142-43, and the Arkansas-Gazette, August 9, 1850, p.'2.

11. Walton, "Arkansas Politics During the Compromise Crisis,” pp. 322-23. Walton says that most of the radical fire-eaters were the Democrats from the southeastern portion of the state, and the radical southeastern Democrats held a small majority among Democrats in the . Arkansas legislature. Footnotes

Chapter 3

12. Arkansas Gazette. October 4,1850, p. 2. Arkansas’s Congressional elections of 1851 and 1853 were held at irregular years because the state hoped she would get a new representative in the new census. The election of 1850 was thus postponed for a year, but the census was not completed as yet, so they went ahead with the election of 1851. In 1854, Arkansas's Congressional elections were brought back into line by being held on even numbered years. Smith, "Arkansas Politics, 1850-1861,” pp. 21, 47.

^ 13. Dewey Stokes, "Public Affairs in Arkansas, 1836-1850," (an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1966), pp. 435-536.

14. Walton, "Arkansas Politics During the Compromise Crisis," p. 319. Walton points out that this Whig-Unionist coalition worked well in such states as Georgia, Alabama, and other southern states, p. 327, footnote 53. Whig Albert Pike toured southern Arkansas declaring: He was for the Union, the whole Union and nothing less than the Union." See Walter Brown, "Albert Pike, 1809-1881," (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1955), pp. 258-59.

15. Stokes, "Public Affairs in Arkansas, 1836-1850," pp. 430-32. Whig papers that joined in attacking Johnson were the Helena Southern Shield, the Camden Herald, and Washington Telegraph, p. 432.

16. Ibid., p. 447.

17. Walton, "Arkansas Politics During the Compromise Crisis," p. 324. Perhaps had the Whigs nominated David Walker of Fayetteville, they might have won the election.

18. Ibid., p. 324-325.

19. Ibid., p. 325, footnote 12.

20. Ibid., p. 326, 323.

21. Ibid., p. 326.

22. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 197.

23. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, p. 290-291.

24. Walton, "Arkansas Politics During the Compromise Crisis," p. 328. Footnotes

Chapter 3

26. Ibid., p. 331-34. Walton remarks caustically that: "The Whigs and the northwestern Democrats were both losers; and two losers seldom make a winning combination." P. 332.

27. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 241. Lewis makes a mistake later in the book m mentioning Frederick Trapnall as a speaker at the Know Nothing rally in August of 1855, (p. 260) for he had died the previous year.

28. Smith, "Arkansas Politics, 1850-1861," p. 48.

29. W. Darrell Overdyke, The Know Nothing Party in the South (Baton Rouge, La.: L.S.U. Press, 1950), p. 51.

30. Walter Brown, "Albert Pike," pp. 449-50.

31. Ibid., pp. 451-52. For a complete treatment of Pike’s role in the Know Nothing affair, see pp. 449-93.

32. Overdyke, The Know Nothing Party in the South, p. 71. Smith, "Arkansas Politics, 1850-1861,” p. 50.

33. Overdyke, "The Know Nothing Party in the South," p. 71.

34. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, pp. 315-16. John Milton Butler, editor of the Arkansas Whig, a paper which folded in May of 1855, planned to start a Know Nothing journal in Little Rock. However, his brother-in-law, Edward Marcus, was a German immigrant, a Democrat, and strongly anta¬ gonistic to the Know Nothings. Both were vocal in their views, and on August 5, 1855, the two shot it out in the streets of Little Rock, killing each other instantly. Their wives were sisters. P. 316.

35. Smith, "Arkansas Politics, 1850-1861," pp. 51-55.

36. Jack Scroggs, "Arkansas in the Secession Movement" (un¬ published M.A. thesis, University of Arkansas, 1948), p. 40.

37. Harold T. Smith, "The Know Nothings in Arkansas," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXXIV (19v5), p. 297.

38. Ibid., p. 295.

39. Ibid., p. 296. Thomas C. Hindman and his political activities of 1856 are described on pp. 295-96.

40. Smith, "Arkansas Politics, 1850-1861," pp. 55-56. Footnotes Chapter 3 41. Ibid., p. 56-57. Table 12 in Appendix shows that Albert Rust and Edward Warren traded seats with one another in the southern district for almost four terms. 42. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, p. 317. Smith, "The Know Nothings in Arkansas," p. 297. 43. Smith, "The Know Nothings in Arkansas," p. 297. 44. Walter Brown, "Albert Pike, pp. 286-492. According to Brown, Pike withdrew from the party because he didn't approve of certain changes in the platform, and was opposed to Millard Fillmore's nomination for President at the national convention in February of 1856. 45. Smith, "The Know Nothings in Arkansas," pp. 301-302. 46. Ibid., p. 302. See also Ross, Arkansas Gazette, p. 323. 47. Smith, "The Know Nothings in Arkansas," p. 302. 48. Granville Davis, "Arkansas and the Blood of Kansas, Journal of Southern History, vol. XVI (1950), p. 440. See also The True Democrat, Little Rock, Ark., September 2, 1856, p. 2. 49. Davis, "Arkansas and the Blood of Kansas," p. 442-44.

50. Ibid., p. 454. 51. Ibid. 52. Smith, "Arkansas Politics, 1850-1861," p. 65. 53. Ibid., pp. 55-56. 54. Michael Dougan, Contederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime (university, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1976), p. 13. Also see John Mula, "The Public Career of William King Sebastian" (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Arkansas, 1969), p. 55. Footnotes

Chapter 4

1. John A. Hardon, S.J., The Protestant Churches of America, revised edition. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday-Image, 1969), pp. 44-45, 275, 189.

2. Clement Eaton, History of the Southern Confederacy. (New York, MacMillan, 1963), pp. 11-12; see also James G. Randall ana David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, (New York; McGraw Hill, 1969), pp. 78-82.

3. Clement Eaton, The Growth of Southern Civilization, 1/90-1860, (New York: Harper-Torchback edition, 1961), pp. 312-13.

4. Eaton, Southern Confederacy, p. 12.

5. Dewey A. Stokes, ’’Public Affairs in Arkansas, 1836-1850,” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1966), p. 448.

6. Michael Dougan, Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime (University, Alabama: The Univer¬ sity of Alabama Press, 1976), p. 12.

. 7A. Biscoe Hindman, ’’Thomas C. Hindman," Confederate - Veteran, vol. XXXVIH (1930), pp. 97-99.

7B. Charles Edward Nash, Biographical Sketches of Gen. Pat Cleburne and Gen. T. C. Hindman Together with Humorous Anecdotes ana Reminiscences of the Late Civil War. (Little Rock, Ark.: Tunah and Pittard, Printers, 1898), pp. 54, 56.

8. Thomas Hindman, "Federal and Arkansas Politics: Speech delivered in Little Rock, February 15, 1859," (Little Rock, Ark.: James Butter, Printer, 1859), pp. 1-21. Publication is to be found in Little Rock, Arkansas Gazette Foundation Library.

9. True Democrat1, June 22, 1859, p. 2.

10. Ibid., also see Fayetteville Arkansian, July 30, 1859, p. 2. In the same issue the Fayetteville editor wrote of Hindman: "No sooner had this gentleman been promoted beyond his merest and most sanguine hopes than his inordinate selfishness prompted him to aim at supreme power in Arkansas," p. 2.

11. True Democrat, July 27, 1859, p. 2.

12. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 13. Footnotes

Chapter 4

13. Arkansas Gazette, July 3, 1858, p. 2.

14. True Democrat, July 6, 1851), p. 2.

15. Ross, Arkansas Gazette; pp. 337, 342.

16. Arkansas Gazette, July 23, 1859, p. 2. In the same issue the Gazette editor expressed his opinion that whoever edited the new paper he was sure that he would be a better writer than R. H. Johnson of the True Democrat, but he said that should not be hard to do. P.2.

17. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 13, 131 — footnote 4.

18. Old Line Democrat, September x5, 1859, p. 2.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., September 22, 1859, p. 2; October 6, 1859; p. 2; Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 13.

21. Fayetteville Arkansian, March 23, 1860, p. 2.

22. Democratic papers that allied themselves with the family included: True Democrat, Fayetteville Arkansian, Helena Notebook, Ft. Smith Times, Pocahontas Advertiser, Camden States-Rights, Camden Eagle, Washington (Ark.) South Arkansas Democrat, El Dorado Times, Bentonville Northwest Appeal which became in Feb. 1860 The Benton ville Democrat, Huntsville Madison Journal, and Napoleon Planter. Papers that supported Hindman were: The Old Line Democrat, Helena States- Rights Democrat, DesArc Citizen, Pine Bluff Jefferson Independent, and by the summer of 1860, the Fayetteville Democrat. Democratic papers that were neutral included: Van Buren Press, Searcy Eagle. This list was drawn from Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 16, True Democrat, November 30, i859, p. 2. Information on the change of the Bentonville paper, the True Democrat, February 22, 1860, p. 2. For announcements of the new Hindman paper in Fayetteville, see Old Line Democrat, July 3, 1860, p. 2.

23. Old Line Democrat, November 10, 1859, p. 2.

24. Ibid., September 22, 1859, p. 2; October 6, 1859, p. 2; October 27, 1859, p. 2; November 17, 1859, p. 2; November 24, 1859, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 4

25. True Democrat, November 9, 1859, p. 2.

26. Ibid., September 14, 1859, p. 2; October 26, 1859, p. 2; December 28, 1859, p. 2; February 1, 1860, p. 2. Hindman's faction was not unaware of the family's clandestine activity against him. See Old Line Democrat, September 29, 1859, p. 2; October 13, 1859, p. 2; November 24, 1859, p. 2.

27. True Democrat, November 30, .1859, p. 2. In the same issue the paper made a note of pointing out that Hindman was in Helena on November 19th, just returning from visiting his parents. It then said that it would be no trouble for Hindman to make it to Little Rock in five days for the scheduled November 24th meeting. In the True Democrat's view, Hindman's conduct has been "as cowardly as his excuse, elaborate and false," p. 2.

28. True Democrat, December 7, 1859, p. 2. Hindman's father- in-law defended his son in a letter to the Helena States Rights Democrat. The letter was reprinted m DesArc Citizen, December 2i, 1859, p. 1.

29. Fayetteville Arkansian, November 25, 1859, p. 2; December 9, 1859, p. 2; True Democrat, November 30, 1859, p. 2; December 14, 1859; p. 2.

30. At first the Hindman press said that W. L. Martin wrote the "Viator" letters, Old Line Democrat, December 11, 1859, p. 2; December 29, 1859, p. 2. Later Hindman admitted his part in their authorship, February 9, i860, p. 2.

31. True Democrat, February 15, 1860.

32. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 14. By late March the DesArc Citizen began to speak more highly of Hindman. See issue of March 23, 1860.

33. True Democrat, January 18, 1860.

34. Fayetteville Arkansian, June 23, 1860, p. 1.

35. Old Line Democrat, October 6, 1859, p. 2; January 26, 1860, p. 2.

36. Ibid., February 2, 1860, p. 2.

37. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 14. Footnotes

Chapter 4

38. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, p. 342; Harold T. Smith, "Arkansas Politics, 1850-1861" (M.A. thesis, Memphis State University, 1964), p. 72; Arkansas Gazette, February 19, 1859, p. 2; March 17, 1859, p. 2.

39. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 15.

40. Camden Eagle, n.d., quoted in True Democrat, February 22, 1860, p. 2.

41. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 15-16; True Democrat, April 14, I860, p. 4.

42. Smith, "Arkansas Politics," p. 73.

43. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 16, and DesArc Citizen, April 21, 1860, p. 2.

44. DesArc Citizen, April 21, p. 2. Other complaints by the Hindman majority consisted of the candidate being chosen before the platform, which was irregular, and also complaints that the county vote distribution was inconsistent with the 1856 gubernatorial election. P.2.

45. True Democrat, April 14, i860, p. 4; May 5, 1860, p. 3.

46. Napoleon Planter, n.d., quoted in True Democrat, April 14, 1860, p. 3. El Dorado Times, n.d., quoted in True Democrat, April 21, 1860, p. 3. Camden Eagle, quoted in True Democrat, May 19, 1860, p. 2.

47. DesArc Citizen, April 28, 1860, p. 2.

48. Pine Bluff Jefferson Independent^ n.d. quoted in DesArc Citizen, May 12, 1860, p. 2.

49. Old Line Democrat, April 14, 1860, p. 2.

50. Fayetteville Arkansian, May 4, 1860, p. 2.; May 11, 1860, p. 2 May 18, 1860, p. 2.; May 25, 1860, p. 2. Also, Old Line Democrat, May 17, 1860, p. 2.; May 24, I860, p. 2.

51. True Democrat, May 19, 1860, p. 2.; May 26, 1860, p. 2.

52. The life of can be pieced together from various sources. Hallum, Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas, pp. 404-408. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, pp. 197, 255, 257, 309, 313. Footnotes

Chapter 4

53. Old Line Democrat, May 24, 1860, p. 2.

54. True Democrat, May 26, 1860, p. 2.

55. Ibid.

56. The Old Line Democrat began attacking the family for supporting Jesse Cypert in late June of 1860, and continued the charge during the campaign. Old Line Democrat, June 21, 1860, p. 3; June 28, 1860, p. 2; July 17, 1860, p. 2. The True Democrat always denied the charge, but usually spoke quite favorably of Cypert's candidacy. See True Democrat, June 30, 1860, p. 2; July 14, 1860, p. 2; July 21, 1860, p. 3: July 28, 1860, p. 2. At the end of the campaign, the paper had this to say about the race in the northern Congressional district: "Hindman has estranged good Democrats . . . and has well secured the election of Cypert, the independent candidate,” August 4, 1860, p. 1.

57. Arkansas Gazette, June 2, i860, p. 2.

58. Ibid, June 9, 1860, p.2; June 16, 1860, p.2.

59. Washington (Ark.), Telegraph, n.d., quoted in True Democrat, April 28, 1860, p.2. Hubbard also appears as the "opposition" candidate in Arkansas Gazette, May 26, 1860, p.l, and June 2, 1860, p.2.

60. True Democrat, April 28, 1860, p.2.

61. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 1Y.

62. Arkansas Gazette, June 23, 1860, p.2.

63. DesArc Citizen, June 2, i860, p.2.

64. Old Line Democrat, June 7, 1860, p.l.

65. Ibid.

66. Ibid., July 13, 1860, p.2; August 6, 1860, p. 2.

67. DesArc Citizen, June 30, 1860, p. 2.

68. True Democrat, July 21, 1860, p. 2; July 28, 1860, p. 2.

69. Batesville Democratic Sentinal, n.d., quoted in True Democrat, July 28, 1860, p. 1. Footnotes

Chapter 4

70. Arkansas Gazette, June 16, 1860, p. 2.

7A. Ibid., June 9, 1860, p. 2.

72. Arkansas Gazette, June 16, 1860, p. 1. In the same issue, editor Danley termed Governor Conway’s ’’plan” for paying the bank debt a myth, and stated that the only reality was the dynasty's mis-management of public affairs since statehood. According to the Little Rock editor, the family’s financial policy had ’’made the banks and then broke them,” p. 2.

73. True Democrat, June 9, i860, p. 2. Old Line Democrat, July 17, 1860, p. 2.

74. Arkansas Gazette, July 28, 1860, p. 2.

75. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 20. Arkansas Gazette, June 9, 1860, p. 2.

76. Old Line Democrat, June 28, 1860, p. 2.

77V Arkansas Gazette, June 9, i860, p. 2.

78. True Democrat, June 9, J.860, p. 2; June 16, 1860, p. 2.

79. Old Line Democrat, July 20, 1860, p. 2. True Democrat, July 21, 1860, p. 2.

80. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 20.

81. Old Line Democrat, July 20, 1860, p. 2.

82. True Democrat, July 28, i860, p. 2. The family tried to mitigate the damage done by Trumpler’s accusation by staging a public rally for mechanics in Little' Rock on August 4. See the announcement in True Democrat, August 4, 1860, p. 1.

83. Old Line Democrat, July 27, 1860, p. 2; August 6, 1860, p

84. Herndon, Centennial History of Arkansas, vol. I, p. 273.

85. Old Line Democrat, August 16, I860, p. 2.

86. Arkansas Gazette, Oct. 13, i860, p. 2. John M. Harrell, Arkansas, in General Clement A. Evans, ed., Confederate Military History vol. X. (Atlanta, Ga.: Blue and Gray Press, 1899), p. 3. Footnotes

Chapter 4 87. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 21-22. 88. Batesville Independent Balance, n.d., quoted in Arkansas Gazette, July 28, 1860. 89. Diary of Judge John Brown, August 4, 1860. Found in the Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock, Ark. 90. John W. Woodward, letter to David Walker, Little Rock, August 19, 1860. Found in Arkansas Gazette Foundation Library.

■\ 91. Ibid. 92. Such characterizations found in Nash, Biographical Sketches of Cleburne and Hindman. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas. 93. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 22. 94. Thomas D. Clark and Albert Kirwan, The South Since Appomattox (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. HO. 95. DesArc Citizen, August 3, 1859, p. 1. 96. Old. Line Democrat, August 2, 1860, p. 2. 97. True Democrat, July 14, i860, p. 2. Old Line Democrat, July 10, 1860, p. 2. DesArc Citizen, June 9, 1860, p. 2. 98. Arkansas Gazette, August 11, 1860, p. 2. Even these early county returns showed that both mountain and lowland counties went for Rector and Johnson without geo-political division. Dougan claimed that many mountain unionists voted for Rector because of the family's long association with the secession viewpoint. See Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 22. Footnotes

Chapter 5 1. John L. Ferguson and J. H. Atkinson, Historic Arkansas. (Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas History Commission, 1966), p. 91. 2. Fayetteville Arkansian, May 11, 1860, p. 2. Van Buren Press, July 13, 1860, p. 2. 3. Margaret Ross, Arkansas Gazette: The Early Years, 1819- 1866. (Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas Gazette Foundation, 1969), p. 347. Arkansas Gazette, August 4, 1860, p. 2. 4. Michael Dougan, Confederate Arkansas: The People and of a Frontier State in Wartime. (University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1976), p. 9. Old Line Democrat, September 15, 1859, p. 2, and September 22, 1859, p. 2. 5. Ferguson and Atkinson, Historic Arkansas, p. 97. 6. Editor quoted in Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 9. 7. True Democrat, October 27, 1858, p. 2. 8. Elsie Mae Lewis, ’’: Militant Spokesman of the Old Southwest,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XIII, (1954), pp. 16-30. Lewis quite accurately parallels Senator Johnson’s thoughts on slavery and southern minority rights in the Union with that of John C. Calhoun, p. 19. 9. True Democrat, June 23, 1859, p. 2, and October 5, 1859, p. 2, October 19, 1859, p. 2, March 7, 1860, p. 2. 10. Arkansas Gazette, December 31, 1859, p. 2. 11. Ibid., January 21, 1860, p. 2. Danley gives the usual defense for the reopening of slave trade: "Slavery in some form must exist in all countries, and we prefer that the Negro should be the slave rather than the white man. The African is the inferior race, and it is fit that he should serve the superior white man—especially as in this condition of slavery in this country, he advances as far as an African can advance, and when freed, falls back into the habits and status more degrading ' than that of his savage condition in his native country," p. 2. 12. Ibid., December 17, 1859, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 5

13. Ibid., January 14, 1860, p. 2; February 4, 1860, p. 2. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 23.

14. Arkansas Gazette, December 17, 1859, p. 2; December 24, 1859, p. 2; February 4, i860, p. 2; January 14, 1860, p. 2.

15. Ibid., February 11, 1860, p.2; March 3, 1860, p. 2.

16. Ibid, February 25, 1860, p. 2.

17. Pocahontas Advertiser, n.d. quoted in True Democrat, October 19, 1859, p. 2. Early in 1860, the Douglasite newspaper, the Fort Smith Herald, changed editors, becoming a Hindman sheet, Fayetteville Arkansian, January 20, 1860, p. 2.

18. True Democrat, October 28, 1858, p. 2.

19. Old Line Democrat, September 15, 1859, p. 2.; September 22, 1859, p. 2; September 29, 1859, p. 2; January 19, 1860, p. 2; March 22, 1860, p. 2.

20. Des Arc Citizen, February 15, 1860, p. 2.

21. True Democrat, March 24, 1860, p. 2. Old Line Democrat, January 19, 1860, p.2.

22. Old Line Democrat, December 29, 1859, p. 2.

23. True Democrat, January 4, 1860, p. 2.

24. Des Arc Citizen, April 4, 1860, p. 2. Also see Old Line Democrat, March 29, 1860, p. 2.

25. The Pine Bluff Jefferson Independent, n.d., quoted in Des Arc Citizen, February 22, 1860, p. 2. The Pine Bluff paper defended its position and seemed to be more motivated by fear of the new Africans than the inhumanity of the foreign slave traffic. In a later issue it stated its opposition to the foreign importation of slaves because "it would intro¬ duce a swarm of savages, who would be fit tools of abolitionist vengeance." n.d. quoted in Des .Arc Citizen, March 28, 1860, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 5

26. True Democrat, March 24, i860, p. 2.

27. Joseph H. Ingraham, The South-West (2 vols., New York: Harper, 1835), vol. II, p. 85.

28. Eugene Genovese, "Southern Yeomen in a Slaveholders' Democracy," Agricultural History, vol. XLIX, (1975) > pp. 331-42. D. Y. Thomas, "Southern Non-Slaveholders and the Election of 1860," Political Science Quarterly, vol. XXVI, (1911), pp. 224-237.

29. Genovese, "Southern Yeomen in a Slaveholders' Democracy," pp. 340-41., This "white folks' democracy" theme is credited by Edmund Morgan as the reason for the strange growth oi freedom and slavery in colonial Virginia. Virginia was the proverbial mother of the Old South. See Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1975), pp, 213 -389. Then, of course, there is U. B. Phillips' famous remark that the central theme of southern history was the effort of the South to keep that region a white man's country. U. B. Phillips, "The Central Theme of Southern History," American Historical Review, vol. XXXIV (1928), p. 31.

. : 30True Democrat, April 14, 1860, p. 4.

31. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 26.

32. True Democrat, April 14, 1860, p. 4.

33. Ibid.

34. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 28.

35. Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1961), pp. 1-12, 24-36.

36. Douglas quoted in Ibid., p. 2v.

37. True Democrat, May 3, 1860, p. 2; May 12, 1860, p. 2.

38. Ibid., May 12, 1860, p. 3.

39. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 29.

40. Arkansas Gazette, May 19, 1860, p. 2.

41. Ibid. Footnotes

Chapter 5

42. True Democrat, May 12, 1860, p. 2.

43. Des Arc Citizen, May J.9, 1860, p. 2; May 26, 1860, p. 2. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 29. 44. Old Line Democrat, May 24, 1860, p. 2. 45. Flournoy’s letter appeared in True Democrat, May 26, 1860, p. 2. Flournoy asked why Arkansas’s Democrats could not support the platform at Charleston when it was essentially the same platform the state party supported after the 1852 and 1856 Democratic national conventions. He also called for a new state convention to meet in Little Rock on June 5. With Hindman breathing down the necks of the family leadership at that time, the Conway-Johnson clique dared not call another convention. Stirman's letter appeared in Fayetteville Arkansian, June 1, 1860, p. 1. Stirman said the delegates were not instructed to walk out. They insisted upon Congressional protection of slavery, but they were never given instructions to walk out if their demands were not met. 46. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 29. 47. True Democrat, May 19, 1860, p. 2.

48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid., June 2, 1860, p. 3. This call for national party unity was signed by such distinguished southern leaders as Robert Toombs and Benjamin Hill of Georgia, and Robert Hunter of Virginia, John Slidell and Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana, as well as Arkansas’s two senators, Robert W. Johnson and William K. Sebastian. 51. Catton, The Coming Fury, pp. 49-67. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 29-30. 52. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 30. 53. True Democrat, July 14, 1860, p. 3; August li, 1860, . p'. 3 . Each-of these issues contained, two.or three addresses, by Flournoy on behalf of Douglas. 54. Ibid., July 14, 1860, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 5

55. Most of the family in Hindman's newspapers endorsed the Breckinridge-Lane ticket. See Fayetteville Arkansian, July 21» 1860, p. 2; Des Arc Citizen, July 11, 1860, p. 2; and July 18, 1860, p. 2; Old Line Democrat, July 3, 1860, p. 2; July 10, 1860, p. 2; True Democrat, June 30, 1860, p. 2; July 14, 1860, p. 2.

56. James Walker to David Walker, May 9, 1860. Walker papers, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Ark. Quoted in Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 132, footnote 23.

57. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, p. 341.

58. Arkansas Gazette June 2, 1860, p. 2. The family at first dismissed the nomination of Bell as just another old Whig. They said that the Constitutional Union party might have carried Arkansas with Sam Houston as its nominee, but Bell would never carry the state. True Democrat, May 19, 1860, p. 2.

59. William Lerner, ed. and director, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. U. S. Department of Commerce (2 vols., Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975), vol. II, p. 1080. Slaveholding states that permitted Lincoln's name to be placed on the ballot were , Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Virginia.

60. True Democrat, May 26, 1860, p. 2. The Republican platform is printed on p. 1.

61. Old Line Democrat, August 6, 1860, p. 2. Des Arc Citizen, August 22, 1860, p. 2. John M. Harrell, Arkansas, vol. X, Clement A. Evans, ed., Confederate Military History (13 vols., Atlanta, Ga.: Blue and Gray Press, 1895-1900).

62. True Democrat,.August 18, 1860, p. 2. Van Buren Press, August 24, 1860, p. 2; August 31, 1860, p. 2.

63. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 30.

64. Elsie Mae Lewis, "From Nationalism to Disunion: A Study of the Secession Movement in Arkansas, 1849-1861" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1947), p. 355. Footnotes

Chapter 5 65. Old Line Democrat, August 18, 1860, p. 2. 66. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 30. 67. Judge John Brown’s Diary, October 27, 1860. (Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock, Ark.) 68. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 31. 6a. DesArc Citizen, September 5, 1860, p. 2. 70. Arkansas Gazette, October 27, 1862, p. 2. 7x. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 31. The rally was also described in John Brown’s Diary, but he did not go into a great amount of detail describing it. He mentions merely that there was much enthusiasm and a large attendance. He also mentions they made him the honorary president of the rally. October 23, 1860. 72. Examples of this line of argument in support of Bell are quite numerous. See the Arkansas Gazette, July 21, 1860, p. 2.; August 4, 1860, p. 2; September 1, 1860, p. 2; September 15, i860, p. 2; October 13, 1860, p. 2; October 27, 1860, p. 2. 73. Ibid., September 8, 1860, p. 2. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid., September 18, 1860, p. 2. 76. Ibid., October 20, 1860, p. 2. 77. Searcy Eagle, n.d. quoted in Des Arc Citizen, September 19, 1860, p. 2. In the same issue, the Citizen defended Hindman: "We believe him to be the ablest man of his age in the South-West," p. 2. 78. Old Line Democrat, October 25, 1860, p. 2, ana November 1, 1860, p. 2. Similar anti-Johnson family remarks found also in same newspaper September 6, 1860, p. 2. 79. Ibid, October 11, 1860, p. 2. 80. Ibid., September 20, 1860, p. 2, and October 4, 1860, p. 2. Only in October was there any discernible shift in the Hindman press from attacking Douglas to focusing on Bell. Des Arc Citizen, October 3, 1860, p. 2, and Old Line Democrat, October 18, 1860, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 5

81. Old Line Democrat, August 18, I860, p. 2; September 20, 1860, p. 2; October 18, 1860, p. 2. Des Arc Citizen, September 5, 1860, p. 2; September 19, 1860, p. 2. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 32-33.

82. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 32. True Democrat, August 18, p. 2; August 25, 1860, p. 2. Fayetteville Arkansian, July 7, 1860, p. 2; August 4, 1860, p. 2; September 7, 1860, p. 2.

83. True Democrat, August 18, 1860, pp. 2-3. Fayetteville Arkansian, August 31, 1860, pp. 1-2.

84. True Democrat, October 13, i860, p. 2.

85. Ibid., September 8, 1860, p. 2. Fayetteville Arkansian, August 31, 1860, p. 1; September 28, 1860, p. 2; October 5, 1860, p. 2.

86. Searcy Eagle, n.d. quoted in True Democrat, September 15, 1860, p. 2.

87. Fayetteville Arkansian, August 31, 1860, p. 2; September 21, 1860, p. 2.

' ' 88. True Democrat, November 3, 1860, p. 2.

89. Fayetteville Arkansian, November 2, 1860, p. 2.

90. Judge John Brown's Diary, November 6, 1860.

9A. Lemer, ed., Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. II, pp. 1071-72. The actual percentage, 79.5 was the highest in Arkansas's history.

92. Dallas T. Herndon, The Centennial History of Arkansas (4 vois., Chicago: Clarke Publishing Company, 1922), vol. I, p. 273. There is some evidence that contradicts the ofiicial tally for Lincoln. A letter by Dr. Z; Wales from Van Buren and Crawford County.wrote the President-elect, Abraham Lincoln, that he had voted for him in the last election. He claimed that he was from Illinois and he wanted to be appointed as United States' Marshal of the western district of ' - • Arkansas. Dr. Z. Wales to Abraham Lincoln, November 24, 1860. (Arkansas Gazette Foundation Library, Little Rock, Ark.)

93. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 33-34. Footnotes

Chapter 5

94. D. Y. Thomas, ’’The Southern Non-Slaveholder in the Election of 1860," p. 237,

95. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 34.

96. Genovese, "Yeoman Farmers in a Slaveholders' Democracy, pp. 331-34!. D. Y. Thomas, "Southern Non-Slaveholders in the Election of 1860," pp. 226-37. Footnotes

Chapter 6

1. Judge John Brown's Diary, November 11, 1860. (Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock, Ark.)

2. Ibid., November 18, 1860, and November 29, 1860.

3. Ibid., November 26, i860.

4. Arkansas Gazette, November i7, 1860, p. 2.

5. Ibid., In the same editorial Danley shrewdly points out that the father of the Democratic party, Thomas Jefferson, first restricted slavery in the territories with his Northwest Ordinance, which prohibited slavery in the Great Lakes' region of the country. Danley thought it ironic that southern Democrats, claiming devotion to Jefferson, were all ready to secede just because Lincoln and the Republicans promised to do in the western territories what Jefferson did for the old northwest—prohibit slavery.

6. Ibid., November 10, 1860, p. 2. Danley hoped that Arkansas ■and the: South : would not listen: to "a, few restless and reckless, political adventurers, the whole ambition of their lives is to destroy the best govern¬ ment the world has ever seen.” November 24, 1860, p. 2.

7. Des Arc Constitutional Union, November 30, 1860, p. 2.

8. Van Buren Press, November 16, i860, p. 2. Also see November 23, 1860, p. 2. for the same cautious sentiments.

9. True Democrat, November 24, i860, p. 2.

10. Fayetteville Arkansian, November 24, 1860, p. 2.

11. Old Line Democrat, December 13, 1860, p. 2. For the same secessionist feelings see November 22, 1860, p. 2, and November 29, 1860, p. 2.

12. Ibid., December 13, i860, p. 2.

13. Arkansas Gazette, November 24, 1860, p. 2. The Johnson dynasty press pointed out that Rector's banking policy, as stated in his inaugural address, was "almost the identical position, with one exception, of Governor Conway's policy." True Democrat, December 8, 1860, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 6 14. The question over whether Rector's inaugural address was secessionist has a curious history. An early historian of Arkansas, Fay Hempstead, accurately characterizes Rector's inaugural address as most moderate in tone. See Fay Hempstead, A Pictorial History of Arkansas. (St. Louis, Missouri: N.D. Thompson Company, 1890), p. 343. Thirty years later Dallas Herndon quotes the address at length more than any other secondary source. The section he quotes shows that Rector's address did not call for immediate secession. Dallas Herndon, The Centennial History of Arkansas v.4 vols., Chicago, 111.: Clark Publishing Company, 1922), vol. I, pp. 277-78. Apparently David Y. Thomas was the first Arkansas historian to judge Rector's inaugural address inaccurately as "secessionist." David Y. Thomas, Arkansas in War and Reconstruction (Little Rock, Ark.: United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1926), p. 41. David Y. Thomas's myth of Governor Rector's inaugural address as calling for immediate secession was passed on in Arkansas historiography for the next fifty years. Those who have continued his error include Elsie Mae Lewis, "From Nationalism to Disunion: A Study of the Secession Move¬ ment in Arkansas" (unpublished Ph .D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1947), p. 361. Jack Scroggs, "Arkansas in the Secession Crisis," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XII (ly53), p. i94. Margaret Ross, Arkansas Gazette: The Early Years, 1819-1866 (Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas Gazette Foundation, 1969), p. 349. Michael Dougan, Confederate Arkansas: The . People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1976), p. 35. 15. Arkansas Gazette, November 24, 1861, p; 1. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., December 1, 1860, p. 2. 19. Ibid. George Clarke to Jessie Turner, a letter quoted in Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 36. 20. Arkansas Gazette, November 24, 1860, p. 2. 21. Dougan, Contederate Arkansas, p. 36-37. 22. True Democrat, November 24, 1860, p. 2. 23. Arkansas Gazette, December 22, i860, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 6

24. Ibid., December 29, 1860, p. 2, and Elsie Mae Lewis, "From Nationalism to Disunion,” pp. 363-64.

25. The Journal of the House of Representatives: 13th Session of the Arkansas General Assembly. (Little Rock, Ark.: Johnson and Yerkes, Printers, 1860-61), pp. 290-309. Jack Scroggs, "Arkansas in the Secession Crisis," p. 198.

26. Journal of the House of Representatives, p. 301-305. Also, Arkansas Gazette, December 22, 1860, p. 1.

27. Ibid.

28. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 37.

29. True Democrat, October 13, 1860, p. 2.

30. Arkansas Gazette, December 22, 1860, p. 2.

31. Ibid.

> - 32. Ibid., and True Democrat, November 24, 1860, p. 2.

33. Arkansas Gazette, December 29, 1860, p. 2. The final vote for Mitchel as U. S. Senator came on December 20, 1860, the day South Carolina seceded.

34. Jack Scroggs, "The Secession Movement in Arkansas" (Un¬ published Masters’ thesis, University of Arkansas, 1948), pp. 73-74.

35. The resolution quoted in Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 39.

36. Elsie Mae Lewis, "From Nationalism to Disunion," p. 363.

37. True Democrat, January 5, 1861, p. 2.

38. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 135, footnote 6. Arkansas Gazette, January 5, 1861, p. 2.

39. Judge John Brown's Diary, January 10, 1861.

40. Arkansas Gazette, December 15, i860, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 6

41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. Fayetteville Arkansian, December 22, 1860, p. 2. 43. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 364. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 39. 44. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 39. 45. W. J. Lemke, ed., Judge David Walker: His Life and Letters. (Fayetteville, Ark.: Washington County Historical Society, 1957), p. 44, 46. Old Line Democrat, January 3, 1861, p. 2. Thomas Peek of course denied that he had sold out "bag and baggage" to the Johnson dynasty, p. 2. 47. Fayetteville Arkansian, December 22, i860, p. 2. To show the shifting ground of Arkansas politics, one newspaper in Pine Bluff, the Jefferson Independent, stood with Hindman against the dynasty in the state contest during the summer, supported Douglas in the Presidential race in - * ui>the fall , and then became Unionist during the secession crisis*in Arkansas.; H -V*,*- r The paper was so effective that the Hindman-Johnson secessionists were forced to establish a counter newspaper in Pine Bluff known as the True Southerner. See Fayetteville Arkansian, January 5, 1861, p. 2. 48. True Democrat, January 5, 1861, p. 2. Des Arc Constitutional Union, January ll, 1861, p. 2. 4y. Arkansas Gazette, January 5, 1861, p. 2; January 12, 1861, p.2; January 26, 1861, p.2. 50. Ibid., January 12, 1861, p. 2. 51. Ibid. - 52. Paul Escott, "Southern Yeomen and the Confederacy," South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. LXXVII. (1978), p. 146-158. Quote on p. 147.

53. John Smith, "An Appeal to the Voters of Benton County," Broadside, dated.February .12, JL861.. .. (In the Eno Collection, Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock, Ark.) The Broadside also stated that South Carolina started secession, and in that state you could not be elected to the legislature unless you owned a great deal of property or a few slaves. Footnotes Chapter 6

54. Ted Worley, ’’The Arkansas Peace Society of 1861: A Study in Mountain Unionism," Journal of Southern History, vol. XXIV, (1958), pp. 445-456. 55. Such reasons for opposing secession can be found frequently in Danley's editorials. Arkansas Gazette, January 5, 1861, p. 2; January 12, 1861, p. 2; January 26, 1861, p. 2. On January 5, 1861 Danley editorialized that dis-Unionists talk of peaceful secession, and then "show their lack of faith in their profession by recommending the strictest and fullest military expenditures . . . They cry ’peace' when there is no real peace,” p. 2. 56. January 23, 1861, p. 2. 57. Ibid.

58. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 34-39. These three river counties that went for Bell all voted heavily for a secession convention, and sent rabid secessionists to the assembly. See True Democrat, February 21, 1861, pp. 2, 3. 59. Jack Scroggs, "The Secession Movement in Arkansas," pp. 73-74, 7v; also True Democrat, January il, 1861, p. 2. 60. Fayetteville Arkansian, December 15, 1860, p. 2. 61. Letter of Henry C. Lay to Mrs. Lay, February 20, 1861. (Arkansas Gazette Foundation Library, Little Rock, Ark.) 62. Eugene Genovese, "Yeomen Farmers in a Slaveholders’ Democracy," Agriculture History, vol. XLIX, (1975), p. 340. 63. Arkadelphia Convention quoted in Scroggs, "Secession Movement in Arkansas," p. 77. 64. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 41. Ross, Arkansas Gazette, pp. 352-53. 65. Robert Scott, ed. and comp., The War of the Rebellion: Official Records -of the Union and Confederate Armies. (4 series, 69-vols., Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1900), senes I, vol. I, pp. 638-639. Footnotes

Chapter 6

67. Scroggs, "The Secession Movement in Arkansas,” p. 83.

68. Scott, ed., The War of the Rebellion: Official Records, series I, vol. I, p. 641.

69. Ibid., pp. 641-42.

70. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 42.

71. Scott, ed., The War of the Rebellion: Official Records, series I, vol. I, p. 640.

72. Ibid., pp. 643-645. The ladies of Little Rock showed their appreciation to Totten by getting him a sword. One lady regretted the gift for Totten served with the in Missouri. A woman wrote in the summer of 1861: ’’Totten is in Missouri, wielding the sword we gave him against us.’” Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 42, 136, footnote 28.

73. Scott, The War of the Rebellion: Official Records, series I, vol. I, p. 683. ' _

74. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 42-43.

75. Van Buren Press, February 15, 1861, p. 2.

76. Des Arc Constitutional Union, February 8, 1861, p. 2.

77. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 365. Albert Rust to D. C. Williams, February 7, 1861, (D. C. Williams Papers, Eno Collection, Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock, Ark.).

78. Scott, The War of the Rebellion: Official Records, series I, vol. I, p. 645.

79. True Democrat, January 26, 1861, p. 3. Statement dated January 8, 1861.

80. Ibid, February 7, 1861, p. 2.

81. Ibid., February 14, 1861, p. 2, Footnotes

Chapter 6

82. Scroggs, "The Secession Movement in Arkansas," p. 78. Fayetteville Arkansian, December 22, 1860, p. 2; January 5, 1861, p. 2; January 25, 1861, p. 2; February 8, 1861, p. 2.

83. John Smith to D. C. Williams, February 18, 1861. (D. C. Williams Papers).

84. Arkansas Gazette, January 26, 1861, p. 2.

85A. Ibid., March U, 1861, p. 2.

85B. Ibid.

86. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 45.

87. True Democrat, February 21, 1861, and Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," pp. 371-72.

88. Lewis, "Nationalism to Disunion," p. 372.

89. True Democrat, February 2x, 1861, p. 2.

90. John Brown's Diary, February 21, 1861.

91. Ibid, February 18, 186x.

92. Lemke, ed., Judge David Walker, p. 43.

93. Van Buren Press, February 22, 186I, p. 2.

94. True Democrat, February 28, 1861, p. 3.

9o. Quisenberry to D. C. Williams, February 2i, 1861. (D. C. Williams Papers).

96. Scott, War of the Rebellion: Official Records, series I, vol. I, p. 683.

97. True Democrat, February 28, 186x, p. 2.

98. Ibid. Footnotes Chapter 7 1. Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury: The Centennial History of the Civil War, (3 vols., Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1961-65), vol. I, pp. 258-70. 2. Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative History, (3 vols., New York: Random House, 1958-74), vol. I, p. 39. 3. The Daily True Democrat, March 9, 1861, pp. 2, 3. Quote on p. 2. Editor Richard Johnson turned the True Democrat in Little Rock into a daily in order to influence the Secession Convention. 4. Ibid., p. 2. 5. Ibid., p. 3. 6. Catton, The Coming Fury, p. 265. 7. Ibid.

8. Daily True Democrat, March 13, 1861, p. 2. 9. Fayetteville Arkansian, March 15, 1861, p. 2.

10. Ibid., p. 4. Both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address were printed alongside one another. In an editorial in the same issue the editor gives the reason for putting the two addresses together, p. 2. 11. Michael Dougan, Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime (University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1976), p. 49. 12. Van Buren Press, March 8, 1861, p. 2. 13. Arkansas Gazette, March 9, 1861, p. 2. ^

14. Ibid. ' 15. Alfred Holt Carrigan, ’’Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," Publication of the Arkansas Historical Association, vol. I (1906), pp. 305-313. Quote on p.. 306. There apparently were other influences upon the delegates, and the True Democrat records some of the pressures exerted from the gallery. The correspondent for the True Democrat apologizes for missing a few words of the convention because his eyes were distracted by the "partiotic beauties Footnotes Chapter 7 thrilled with noble zeal for the cause of the South. The heroines of the revo¬ lution were neither braver nor more self-sacrificing then the fair women of Arkansas who thronged the gallery of the convention and showered down lovely flowers and approving smiles upon the advocates of secession and southern rights. We can offer no better apology for our sins of omission.” Daily True Democrat, March 16, 1861, p. 2. 16. Ralph Wooster, ”The Arkansas Secession Convention,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 13 (1954), pp. 172-195. On the experience of the Arkansas convention, see p. 174. For Ralph Wooster's study of all the secession conventions, see Ralph Wooster, The Secession Conventions of the South (West Brooke, Kentucky: Greenwood Press, reprint, 1976. Original edition 1962). 17. John Hallum, Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons & Co., 1887), p. 103. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 47. 18. David Y. Thomas, Arkansas in War and Reconstruction (Little Rock, Ark.: United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1926), p. 57. Thomas is wrong in calling Harris Flanagin of Clarke County as Clarke Flanagin. For a dry, factual history of Arkansas politics from 1862 until 1894, which would cover the administrations of Flanagin, Murphy, Garland, and Fishback, see Dallas T. Herndon, Centennial History of Arkansas (4 vols., Chicago, 111.: Clarke Publishing Co., 1922), vol. I, pp. 284-345. Also, D. Y. Thomas, Arkansas in War and Reconstruction, p. 57, identifies William Mansfield and David Walker as the two delegates who would later serve on the state supreme court. 19. Wooster, "The Arkansas Secession Convention." See chart between pp. 184-185. S. L. Griffith of Sebastian County was the only Unionist born in the lower South. 20. Ibid., pp. 177-78. Michael Dougan identifies some of Wooster's unidentified delegates. One of them was Jilson Johnson of Desha County. Joshua Gould and Benjamin Hawkins were listed as planters by the True Democrat. Wooster had claimed he could find nothing about these men and their holdings. Dougan also claims that I. C. Wallace's address* was in Louisiana, but give no information on G. P. Smoote. See Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 138, footnote 5. 21. Wooster, "Arkansas Secession Convention." Chart between pp. 184- 85, and p. 178. 22. Ibid., p. 179-80, 181, 187-195. Wooster gives detailed proof that Secessionists owned more slaves and property. Footnotes

Chapter 7

23. Carrigan, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," p. 311.

24.. Ibid., pp. 305-313. Also see Wooster, "Arkansas Secession Convention," chart between pp. 184-85.

. 25. Carrigan, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," p. 307.

26. Ibid., pp. 307-308. According to Carrigan, nothing delighted Adams more than "to engage Fishback in debate." p. 307. Adams was also described as a scholarly man who was sometimes referred to as "Pike, the second," p. 308. For Charles Adams' career as a Whig and a Bell elector, see Hallum, Biographical and Pictorial History, p. 309. For a romantic biography of Charles Adams, see pp. 306-13 in same book.

27. Carrigan, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," p. 308.

28. Ibid., pp. 306-11. Jesse Cypert, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," Publication of the Arkansas Historical Association, vol. I, (1906) pp. 312-323. Wooster, "Arkansas Secession Convention," chart between pp. 184-85

29v Wooster, "Arkansas Secession Convention," chart between pp. 184-85.

30. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, P. 47.

31. Journal of Both Sessions of the Convention of the State of Arkansas, Which Were Begun and Held in the Capitol, in the City of Little Rock. (Little Rock, Ark.: Johnson and Yerks, state printers, 1861), pp. 10-H.

32. Ibid., pp. 16-17.

33. Elsie Mae Lewis, "From Nationalism to Disunion: A Study of the Secession Movement in Arkansas" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1947), p. 376. » 34. Journal'of Both Sessions, p. 33.

35. Daily True Democrat, March 9, 1861, p. 2.

36. Ibid., Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 51.

37. Daily True Democrat, March 15, 1861, p. 2.

38. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 50. Footnotes

Chapter 7

39. Journal of Both Sessions. Governor Rector's message on pp. 39-49 , quote on p. 45. On the very same page from which I took this quote Rector stated his belief that "God, in his omnipotent wisdom . . . created the cotton plant, the African Negro, and the lower Mississippi Valley, to clothe and feed the world, and a gallant race of men and women produced upon its soil to defend it and execute that decree." 40. Ibid., p. 46. 41. Ibid, pp. 36-38, 47-49, 56-57, 70. 42. James Yell quoted in Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 51. 43. Journal of Both Sessions, pp. 38-39. 44. Batesville Southern Aurora, n.d., quoted in True Democrat, February 28, 1861, p. 2. 45. Daily True Democrat, March 12, 1861, p. 2. 46... Fayetteville Arkansian, March 8, 1861, p. 2. 47. Ibid. 48. Arkansas Gazette, March 9, 1861, p. 2. 49. Ibid., March 16, 1861, p. 2. 50. Ibid.,. March 23, 1861, p. 2. The same fear of the splitting up of the state was also expressed in the Arkansas Gazette, March 9, 1861, p. 2, and March 16, 1861, p. 2. On the latter date Danley wrote: "Let the state be divided by secession and the contagion will spread to counties and towns. Towns will secede from counties, and towns will make themselves free cities. Thus an error inaugurated which will end in anarçhy and destruction of property, and in insecurity and in loss of life." p. 2. 51. Van Buren Press, March 13, 1861, p. 2. 52. Fayetteville Democrat, n.d., quoted in Fayetteville Arkansian, March 8, 1861, p. 2. 53. Fayetteville Arkansian, March 8, 1861, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 7

54. John Rives, ed. and comp., The Congressional Globe Containing the Debates and the Proceedings of the Second Session of the Thirty-Sixth Congress and the Special Session of the Senate, (Washington, D.C.: Con¬ gressional Globe Office, 1861), pp. 1433-1526. A review of the special session of the Senate from March 4 to March 28, 1861, reveals that Mitchel did not speak once, and quite naturally voted with the upper South and the border state Democrats.

55. Arkansas Gazette, March 16, 1861, p. 2. Mitchel’s telegraphed message was dated March 11, 1861. The rumor was widely circulated and believed, and even printed in major eastern newspapers. See Catton, The Coming FUIT, pp. 277-78.

56. Journal of Both Sessions. Thomason’s lengthy proposals on pp. 51-54 Quote on p. 51.

57. Ibid., pp. 53-54.

58. J. G. Randall and David Donald, Civil War and Reconstruction, 2nd edition. (Boston, Mass.: D.C. Heath & Co., 1961), pp. 148-149. Randall and Donald give a synopsis of the Crittenden Compromise and its fate.

59. Journal of Both Sessions, pp. 56-57. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 52.

60. Daily True Democrat, March 15, 1861, p. 2.

61. Journal of Both Sessions, p. 63.

62. Ibid., p. 62.

63. Ibid., pp. 64-67.

64. Ibid., pp. 73-75. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 53-54.

65. Dougan,' Confederate Arkansas, pp. 53-54.

66. Daily Tine Democrat, March 14, 1861, p. 2.

67. Arkansas Gazette, March 16, 1861, p. 2.

68. Journal of Both Sessions, p. 82.

69. Ibid., p. 82-85. . Footnotes

Chapter 7

70. Ibid., pp. 90-93. The vote to participate in the Border State Convention was 41-27. Also, on p. 105, the convention elected delegates who were former Congressmen Edward Warren and Albert Rust. They also chose as delegates to the Border State Convention Thomas Bradley, J. P. Spring, and Samuel Hempstead.

71. Ibid., pp. 90-93.

72. Ibid., p. 106.

73. True Democrat, April 11, 1861, p. 2. The now mildly secessionist Des Arc Constitutional Union said that the abuse heaped upon Unionist members by the secessionist press was not entirely fair and just. March 21, 1861, p. 2.

74. Des Arc Constitutional Union, April 5, 1861, p. 2.

75. Arkansas Gazette, March 30, 1861, p. 2; April 6, 1861, p. 2.

76. True Democrat, April 11, 1861, p. 2.

77. Van Buren Press, March 20, 1861, p. 2.

78: Ibid. ' •

79. Diary of Judge John Brown, March 24, 1861. (Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock, Ark.)

80. Arkansas Gazette, April 6, 1861, p. 2.

81. Ibid.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid.

84. Ibid. *

85. Ibid. Exact words of the Unionist Manifesto read: "While Arkansas is not committed to the doctrine of secession, she is against the coercion by the Federal government of the seceded states."

86. Journal of Both Sessions, p. 55.

87. Cypert, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," p. 317.

88. Arkansas Gazette, March 8, 1861, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 7

89. Albert Pike, State or Province? Bond or Free?. Addressed parti¬ cularly to the people of Arkansas [Little Rock? no imprint given] (1861), (found in Arkansas Gazette Foundation, Little Rock, Ark.), Alexander Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, believed the Civil War was fought over the constitutional issue of whether or not the Federal government was the creature of the states or vice-versa. After the war he wrote an elo¬ quent defense of secession and the principal that the Federal government was the creature of the states. See Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States. (2 vols., , Pa.: National Publishing Co., 1868-1870). Also, Stephens made life difficult for Confederate President Jefferson Davis because Stephens was always upholding states-rights over the Confederate government. See James Rabun, ’’Alexander H. Stephens and Jefferson Davis,” American Historical Review, vol. LVIII, (1953), pp. 290-321. Also see Frank Owsley, States Rights in the Confederacy (Chicago, 111.: University of Chicago Press, 1925).

90. Margaret Ross, The Arkansas Gazette: The Early Years, 1819-1866 (Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas Gazette Foundation, 1969), pp. 348-349.

91. Ibid., p. 349.

92. Randall and Donald, Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 176.

93. Ibid., p. 177.

94. N. Bart Pearce, ’’Price’s Campaign of 1861," Publication of the Arkansas Historical Association, vol. IV (1917), pp. 332-51. Quote on p. 332.

95. Ibid., p. 333.

96. Arkansas Gazette, April 20, 1861, p. 2.

97. Van Buren Press, April 17, 1861, p. 2.

98. True Democrat, April 18, 1861, p. 2. Richard Johnson appealed for unity: "Let. us forget all past party distinctions and bury all past party fueds,” p. 2.

99. Ibid., April 18, 1861, pp. 2-3; April 25, 1861, p. 2; May 2, 1861, p.2.

100. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 60.

lOx. True Democrat, April 18, 1861, p. 2. Footnotes

Chapter 7

102. Arkansas Gazette, April 2V, 1861, p. 2. 103. Judge Brown's Diary, April 22, 1861. 104. Ibid., April 20, 1861. 105. Hanly?s letter quoted in Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 60. 106. Ibid., p. 140, footnote 47 . 107. Jackson's letter quoted in Ibid., p. 60.

108. Van Buren Press, April 24, 1861, p. 2. Arkansas Gazette, April 20, 1861, p. 2. 109. True Democrat, April 25, 1861, p. 2. Arkansas Gazette, April 27, 1861, p.2. Christopher Danley encouraged David Walker to call the convention because ''if we take the initiative, the Conservative men of this state will control this movement. If we do not, revolutionaries will take charge, and we will have to blame ourselves for the events that will rise necessary (sic) from them." C. C. Danley to David Walker, April 15, 1861. (Letter found in Arkansas Gazette Foundation, Little Rock, Ark.) Danley also expressed, in an editorial, his belief that conservative Unionists could not win once the state secedes unless the conservatives take the initiative and pull the state out of the Union. Arkansas Gazette, May 4, 1861, p. 2.

110. Robert Scott, ed. and comp., The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Four series, 69 vols., Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1900), series I, vol. I, p. 687. Confederate President Jefferson Davis also called for volunteers, and the Confederate Secretary of War, L. P. Walker, asked Governor Rector for troops even though the state had not seceded. Rector replied: "You may be assured of the immediate action of Arkansas in joining the Confederate Confederacy, but I have no power. I regret to comply with your request. Our convention assembles on the sixth of May. Then we can, and will, aid," p. 687. » 111. Thomas, Arkansas in War and Reconstruction, p. 79. Thomas also records on the very same page that: "On the return trip down the river from this 'lark,' the members of the company were so hilarious that, according to the owner, they damaged the boat transporting them to the extent of $500." 112. Journal of Both Sessions, pp. 113-116. 113. Ibid., Samuel Hempstead's letter, pp. Ii7-120. Quote on p. 119. Footnotes

Chapter 7

114. Ibid., p. 118.

115. Ibid., pp. 121-22. Cypert, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention, p. 318.

116. Cypert, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," p. 318. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, p. 60.

117. Journal of Both Sessions, p. 123. The five negative votes against secession were: Isaac Murphy and H. H. Bolinger of Madison County, John Campbell of Searcy County, Thomas Gunter of Washington County, and Samuel "Parson" Kelley of Pike County, all counties in northwestern Arkansas.

118. Cypert, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," pp. 318-19.

119. Journal of Both Sessions, p. 124.

120. Cypert, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," p. 319.

121. Ibid.

122. Carrigan, "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention," p.~312.

123. Ibid.

124. Journal of Both Sessions, p. 124.

125. Scott, War of the Rebellion: Official Records, series I, vol. I, p. 690. Footnotes

Conclusion

1. Journal of Both Sessions of the Convention of the State of Arkansas, Which Were Begun and Held in the Capitol, the City of Little Rock (Little Rock, Ark.: Johnson and Yerkes, state printers, 1861), pp. 125-473. Michael Dougan, Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime (University* Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1976), pp. 63-66.

2. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 66-67.

3. Ibid., pp. 63-67, 81-83, 94-96, 122-125.

4. Michael Dougan shows that the family did not fare well during the Civil War. See Dougan, "A Look at the ’Family’ in Arkansas Politices, 1858- 1865," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXIX, (1970), pp. 99-111.

5. True Democrat, April 18, 1861, p. 2.

6. Dougan, Confederate Arkansas, pp. 72-73, 82-83. See also Ted Worley, ”The Arkansas Peace Society of 1861: A Study in Mountain Unionism,” Journal of Southern History, vol. XXIV, (1958), pp. 445-456. APPENDIX

FIGURES AND CHARTS TABLE 1

Arkansas Ts Population Grovrth, 1810-1860:

1810, 1820 1830 1840 1850 i860 •

Whites : 924 12,579 25,671 77,174 162,189 324,191

Slaves : 136 1,617 4,579 19,935 47,100 111,115 Free Blacks : 2 59 141 465 608 144

Total: 1 .,062 14,255 30,388 97,574 209,897 435,450

221# # Increase — 1,244# 112# 115V1# 107.5# in State:

# Increase -- 33.1# 33.5# 32.7# 35.9# 35.6# in Nation:

TABLE 2

Percentage of Growth in Arkansas *s Population Compared VJith Other Frontier States, 1810-1860:

1810-20 1820-30 1830-40 1840-50 1850-1860 * Arkansas : 1,224;'# 112.# 221.# 115.1# 107.5#

Illinois: 349.'# 185.1# 202.4# 78.8# 101.#

Louisiana: 100.3# 40.6# 63.3# 42.9# 36.7#

Michigan : 86.8# 255.6# 570. # 87.3# 88.3#

Mississippi : 86.9# 81. # 174.9# 61.4# 30.4#

Missouri : 219.4# 110.9# 173.1# 77.7# 73.7#

Average : 344. # 130.5# 242.4# 77.2# 71.2# TABLE 3

Whites Only — - Percentage of Growth as Compared With Other Frontier States, 1810-1860,

1810-20 1820-30 1830-40 1840-50 1850-1860

Arkansas : 1261. % 104.1% 200.6% 110.1% 99.8%

Illinois : 367.6% 188.5% 204.5% 79.1% 101.1%

Louisiana : 113.8% 21.5% 71.6% 61.2% 39.9%

Michigan : 86.0% 264.8% 574.9% 86.7% 86.3%

Mississippi: 83.1% 67. % 154.2% 65.1% 19.6%

Missouri: 225. % 105.3% 182.1% 65.1% 79.6%

Average : 356. % 125.2% 231.3% 77.8% 71. %

TABLE 4

Population of Arkansas and Other Frontier States, 1810 and i860

1810 1860

Whites Total Whites Total Arkansas : 924 1,062 324,143 435,450 Illinois : 11,501 12,282 1,704,291 1,711,951 • Louisiana: 34,311 76,556 357,456 708,002

Michigan : 4,618 4,762 736,142 749,113

Mississippi: 23,024 40,352 353,399 791,305 Missouri : 17,227 20,825 1,063,439 1,182,012 Average : TABLE 5

Total Percentage of Growth in Population of Arkansas and Other Frontier States, 181Q-1$6C) White Total

Arkansas : 3$,9$4.5% 40,902.2?$ Illinois : 14,710.6% 13, $3$. 7?» Louisiana: 941M $24.$^ Michigan: 15,$40*7$ 15,631. % Mississippi: 1,3$1.3% 3,127.1^ Missouri: 6,073.3% 5,570.4^ * TABLE 6 Livestock Values in Arkansas, 1$40-1$60 1$40 1$50 1$60 Cattle : $1$$',7$6. I 292,710. $ 567,799 Sheep : $ 42,141. $ 91,256. $ 202 ,*753 Swine : $393,05$. $ $36,727. $ 1,171,630 Estimated Value Not given.. $6,647,769. $22,096,977 of Total Livestock:

TABLE 7* Agricultural Production in'Arkansas 1$40-1$60

1$40 . 1$50 1$60

Wheat -.No* Bushels: 105,$7$ 199,63.9 957,601 Corn - No* Bushels: $93,939 4,046,632 17,$23,5$$ Wool - No * Pounds : : 64,943 1$2,595 410,3$2- Tobacco:- No. Pounds : 14$,439 21S,936 9$9,9$0 Butter - No* Pounds: Not given. 1,054,239 4,067,556 Garden Products, $2,739. $17,150, . $37,$45. Market Value of: TABLE S

Average Farm Value Per Acre in the South, 1B50-1S60

1S50 1S60

Alabama # 5.30 § 9.20

Arkansas $ 5*£3 $ 9.57

Georgia $ 4.20 # 5.S9 Louisiana #15.20 #22.04

Mississippi # 5.22 #12.04

N. Carolina # 3.23 $ 6.03

S* Carolina # 5.OS #•0.62

Tennessee # 5.15 #13.13 Texas # 1.44 # 3.40

Virginia #70,27' #11.95

Tables marked with asterisks contain census data compiled by Dr. Walter L. Brown of the University of Arkansas»

TABLE 9

Percentages of White» Slave, and Free Black Population Groxvfch in Arkansas, 1810-1860, 1S10-20 . 1S20-30 1S3Q-40 1S40-50 1S50-60

White 1,261. % 104.1# 200.6% 110.1# 96.8% Slave 1,008.9% 182.9% 335.6% 136.2# 135.9% Free Black 2,050. % 138.9% 229.1% 30.6# - Si.2#* *This figure shows a minus because free blacks were ëxpelled from the state by a law passed in 1S59. TABLE 10

Number and Size of Slaveholdings in Arkansas, 1850-1360

Size of Slaveholding Number of Slaveholders

1Ô50 l£60

1 slave 1,303 2,339

2-5 slaves 1,951 3,467

5-10 slaves 1,365 2,535

10-20 slaves 70S 1,777 20-50 slaves 3Ô2 1,010

50-100 slaves 109 279

100-200 slaves 19 59

200-300 slaves 2 6

300-500 slaves — —

500-1000 slaves — 1

1,000 and over — —

TABLE 11

Percentage of Whites Involved in Slavery , 1S60

Alabama — 32. # Kentucky — 21. # Tennessee — 22.2#

Arkansas — 17.7$ Louisiana — 30. S# Texas — 25.9#

Delaware — 3*2$ Maryland — 13.3# Virginia — 24.S# Dist. of — 10*1# Mississippi — 43*7# Columbia Missouri — 11.4# Florida — 33.1# N. Carolina --.27,5# Georgia — 34.7# S. Carolina — 45• &#

* This percentage includes slaveholders and their families, whose average size consists of 5 people. For an explanation of the methodology used in compiling these figures, see Chapter 1, Foot¬ note 72. TABLE 12

Major Political Figures in Arkansas, 1319-1361

Jxcuiocio lcxu

Governor Secretary Delegate

James Miller Robert Crittenden James W. Bates 1319-1325 1319-1329 1319-1323 William Fulton Henry W. Conway 1325-1323 1329-1335 1323-1327 John Pope Lewis Randolph Ambrose Sevier 1329-1335 1335-1336 1327-1336 William Fulton 1335-1336 •

The State of Arkansas, 1336-1361

U. S. Senators Governors

Ambrose Sevier William Fulton James S. Conway 1336-1343 1336-1344 1336-1340' Solon Borland Archibald Yell 1343-1353 1344-1343 1340-1344 Robert W. Johnson William Sebastian* Thomas Drew 1353-1361 1343-1361 1344-1349 Charles Mitchel* John Roane 1361-. 1349-1352 *Mitchel and Sebastian were expelled from Elias N. Conway U.S. Senate, July 11, 1361. 1352-1360

' Henry Rector 1360-1361

U. S. Representstivesr 1336-1353

Archibald Yell Thomas Newton 1336-1339 1347 Edward Cross Robert W. Johnson 1339-1345 1347-1353 Archibald Yell 1345-1046 TABLE 12

U. S, Representatives. 1653-1661

First District — Northern Second District — Southern Alfred Greenwood 1053-1259 Edv/ard Warren 1253-1£55 Thomas C. Hindman* Albert Rust 1259-1261 1255-1657 Edward Warren 1257-1659 Albert Rust 1259-1661

Edward Gnatt* 1261

*Hindman was expelled from the House on July 11, 1261. Gnatt never took his seat in Congress. TABLE 13

The Election of i860 and the Slaveholding States :

Numbers estimated to the nearest thousandth.. • Douglas Breckinridge Bell Total

Alabama 14,000 49,000 28,000 90,000

Arkansas 5,000 29,000 20,000 54,000

Delaware* 1,000 7,000 4,000 16,000

Florida** 8,000 5,000 13,000 Georgia 12,000 52,000 43,000 107,000

Kentucky * 26,000 53,000 66,000 146,000

Louisiana 8,000 23,000 20,000 51,000

Maryland* 6,000 43,000 42,000 93,000 o o o Mississippi V 40,000 69,000 V 25,000

Missouri* 59,000 31,000 58,000 165,000

N. Carolina ‘ 3 ,.00Q 49,000 45,000 96,000

S. Carolina*** — — — —

Tennessee 11,000 64,000 ' 69,000 144,000

Texas** mmmm 48,000 15,000 63,000

Virginia* 16,000 74,000 75,000 167,000

o * Lincoln’s name did not appear in ten states below the 36 30r para- 11el. In five slaveliolding states Lincoln picked up a few votes: Delaware - 4,000; Kentucky - 1,000; Maryland - 2,000; Missouri -.17,000 Virginia - 2,000.

**In Florida and Texas neither Lincoln nor Douglas’s name appeared on the ballot. The race in these two states was between two southerners, Bell and Breckinridge. They both gave Breckinridge his greatest per¬ centage of support. See Table 14*

$«*The people of South Carolina did not have a chance to vote directly for President until 1868. Before then the legislature, since 1789, had voted for the President. TABLE 14

Percentage of Votes by Which Each Candidate Carried the Slaveholding States:

Breckinridge Percentage Electoral

Alabama 54.4 9

Arkansas 53.7 4

Delaware 43.7 3

Florida 61.5 3

Georgia 4Ô.5 10 Louisiana 45.0 6

Maryland 46.2 Ô

Mississippi 57.9 7 N. Carolina 51.0 10

S. Carolina* —

Texas 76.1 4

Bell

Kentucky 45.2 12

Tennessee 47.9 12

Virginia 44.9 15

Douglas

Missouri 35.7 9

*As reported in Table 13, the people of South Carolina did not vote directly for their Presidential candidate0 FIGURE I MA? NO. COS3—ARKANSAS L,*jUuds Wist •/ FIGURE II cr £

5- C BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondary Sources: General Works on Slavery, Secession in the South, and the Civil War,

Catton, Bruce, The Centennial History of the Civil War, 3 vols., Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday & Co., 1961-65. Vol. I: The Coming Fury. Clark, Thomas, and Kerwin, Albert, The South Since Appomattox. New York: Oxford Üniversity Press, 1967. Eaton, Clement. The Growth of Southern Civilization, 1790-1&60. New York*: Harper-TorchbackEdi'tion, 1961.

Eaton, Clement. Historv of the Southern Confederacy. New York: MacMillan, Ï9&3.

Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative History0 3 vols., New York : Random House , Ï958-74. Vol . I. Freehling, William. "The Editorial Revolution, Virginia and the Coming of the Civil War: A Review of George M. ReeseTs Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention.” Civil War History, Vol. XVI, (197QJ, PP. 68-71»

Genovese, Eugene.. "Yeomen Farmers in a SlaveholdersT Democracy”. Agriculture History. Vol. XLIX, (1975), PP. 331-342.

Hardon, John, S. J. The Protestant Churches of America. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday-Image Edition, 1969. \ Johnson, Michael. Toward a Patriarchal Republic: The Secession of Georgia. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.

Jordan, Winthrop. White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1815. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1968.

Lynch, William. ”The Westward Flow of Southern Colonists Before 1Ô61.” Journal of Southern. History, Vol. IX, (1943), pp. 303-327: : *

Morgan, Edmund. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: W. W. Morton & Co., 1975.

Overdyke, W. Darrell. The Know-Nothing Party in the South. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1950•

Owsley, Frank. Plain Folk of the Old South. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State Üniversity Press, 1949.

Owsley, Frank. States Rights in the Confederacy. Chicago, 111.: University of Chicago Press, 1925. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondary Sources: General Works on Slavery, Secession in the South, and the Civil War.

Philips, Ulrich B. ,TThe Central Theme of Southern History". American Historical Review, Vol. XXXIV, (192S-29), pp. 30-43.

Rabun, James. "Alexander H. Stephens and Jefferson Davis”. American Historical Review, Vol. LVIII, (1952-53). pp. 290-321. Randall, J. G., and Donald, David. The Civil War and Reconstruc- tion. Boston, Mass.: D. C. Heath & Co., 2nd Edition, - I95T. Stephens, Alexander H. A Constitutional View of the Late War Be¬ tween the States. 2 vols., Philadelphia, Pa.: National Publishing Company, 1S6S-70.

Thomas, David Y. "Southern Non-Slaveholders and the Election of lS60." Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, (1911), pp. 224-237.

Thomas, Emory. "A Review of Toward a Patriarchal Republic: The Secession of Georgia." Civil War History, Vol. XXIV, (1978), pp. 93-95.

Wooster, Ralph. Politicians, Planters and Plainfolk: Courthouse and Statehouse in the Upper South. Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1974.

Wooster, Ralph. People in Power: Courthouse and Statehouse in the Lower South. Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Hress, 19&9.

Wooster, Ralph. The Secession Conventions of the South. Westbrooke, Ky.: Greenwood Press Reprint, 1974. Original edition, 1962.

Wright, Gaven. The Political Economy of the Cotton South: House¬ holds, Markets, and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century. New York: ,W. W. Norton & Co., 1978. T"

Wright, William. The Secession Movement in the Middle Atlantic States. Rutherford, N. J.: Fairleigh-Dickinson Univer- sity Press, 1973. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondary Sources : Arkansas History and Biography Before l£6l.

Boyette, Gene. "Quantitative Differences Between the Arkansas Whig and Democratic Parties." Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol.. XXXIV, (1975), PP. 21

Brown, Mattie. "River Transportation in Arkansas, 1Ô19-90." Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol.. I, (1942), pp. 342-54»

Brown, Walter. "Albert Pike". Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1955.

Carrigan, Alfred Holt. "Reminiscences of the Secession Convention." Publication of the Arkansas Historical Association, vol. I. 119Ô6), pp. 303-311. :

Crawford, Sidney. "Arkansas Suffrage Qualifications", Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. II, (1943), pp. 331-39.

Cypert, Jesse. "Reminiscenees of the Secession Convention", Publication of the Arkansas Historical Association, vol. I (1906), pp. 312-21.

Davis, Granville. "Arkansas and the Bloodof :Kansas", Journal of- Southern History, vol. XVI, (1950), pp. 431-56.

Dougan, Michael. Confederate Arkansas ; The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1976.

Ferguson, John L., and Atkinson, J. H., Historic Arkansas. Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas History Commission,' 1966. ~"

Flippin, W. P. "The Tutt and Everett War in Marion County", Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XVTI, (1958), pp. 155-63.

Hallum, John. Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas. Albany, N.' Y.:' Weed Parsons & Co., 1889.

Harrell, John M. Vol. X of Confederate Military Historÿ.. Clement Evans, ed.. Atlanta, Ga.': Blue and Gray Press, 1899.

Harrison, Robert, and Killmorgen, Walter. "Land Reclamation .in Arkansas Under the Swampland Grant of 1&50." Arkansas Historical Quarterly. Vol. VI, (1947), pp. 369-418.

Hempstead, Fay, A Pictorial History of Arkansas. St. Louis, Mo.: M. D. Thompson & Co., 1890. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondary Sources: Arkansas History and Biography Before 1861.

Hempstead, Fay. Historical Review of Arkansas. 2 vols., Chicago, 111.: Lewis Publishing Co., 1911, vol. I.

Herndon, Dallas. The Centennial History of Arkansas. 4 vols., Chicago, 111., Clarke Publishing Co., 1922, vol. I.

Hindman, Biscoe. "Thomas C. Hindman", , Vol. XXXVIII, (1930), pp. 97-101.

Johnson, William. "Prelude to the Missouri Compromise", Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. XXIV, (1965), pp. 47-6o.

Lerake, W. J., Judge David Walker, His Life and Letters. Fayette¬ ville, Ark.; Washington County Historical Society, 1957.

Lewis, Elsie Mae. "From Nationalism to Disunion: A Study of the Secession Movement in Arkansas, 1&49-1661." Unpub¬ lished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1947.

Lewis, Elsie Mae. "Robert W. Johnson: Militant Spokesman of the Old South-West." Arkansas Historical Quarterly. Vol. XIII, (1954), PP* 16-31. Malone, Dumas, ed., "Robert W. Johnson." Dictionary of American . Biography, 20 vols., New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, I9Z8=I93£ Mula, John. "The Public Career of William King Sebastian." Un¬ published M.A. thesis, University of Arkansas, 1969.

Nash, Charles Edward. Biographical Sketches of General Pat Cleburne and General T. C. Hindman: Together With Humor¬ ous Anecdotes and Reminiscences oF the Late Civil War. Little Rock, Ark.: Tunnah & Pittard, Printers, 1898.

Pearce, N. Bart. "The Price Campaign of 1S61." Publication of the Arkansas Historical Association, Vol, XT] (1917)* pp. 332-351. * Ross, Margaret. The Arkansas Gazette: The Early Years, 1S19-1A66. Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas Gazette Foundation, 1969. Scroggs, Jack. "Arkansas in the Secession Crisis". Arkansas Historical Quarterly. Vol. XIII, (1953), pp* 175-221.

Scroggs, Jack. "Arkansas Statehood, A Study in State and National Party Schism". Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. XX, (1961), pp. 227-245^ BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondary Sources: Arkansas History and Biography Before lS6l.

Scroggs, Jack. "The Secession Movement in Arkansas". Unpublished M. A. thesis, University of Arkansas, 1943..

Shinn, Josiah. Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas..Little Rock, Ark.: Democrat Lithograph & Company, 1908. Smith, Harold T. . "Arkansas Politics, 1350-1S61." Unpublished M.A. thesis, Memphis State University, 1964.

Smith, Harold T. "The Know-Nothings in Arkansas." The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXXIV, (1975), pp. 291-303"."“

Stokes, Dewey. "Public Affairs in Arkansas, lS36-l350.,r Unpub¬ lished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1966.

Taylor, Orville. Negro Slavery in Arkansas. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1958. Thomas, D* Y. Arkansas and Its People. New York: American Histori¬ cal Association, 1930.

Thomas, David Y. Arkansas in War and Reconstruction. Little Rock, Ark.: United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1926. -

Thompson, George. Arkansas and Reconstruction: The Influence of Geography, Economics',' and Personality. Port Washington, N. Y.: Kennik'at Press, 1976'.

Walton, Brian. "Ambrose Hundley Sevier in the United States Senate, 1036-1343." Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXXII, (1973), p. 25^ Walton, Brian. "Arkansas Politics During the Compromise Crisis, 1343-1352." Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXXVI, (1977), PP. 307-337. : Walton, Brian. "The Second Party System in Arkansas, 1336-1343" Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXVIII, (1969), ‘ pp. 12Ü-155.

Walz, Robert. "Migration Into Arkansas, 1320-1330." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1953.

Walz, Robert. "Migration Into Arkansas, 1320-1330: Incentives and Means of Travel." Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XVII, (1953), pp. 309-24. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondarv Sources : Arkansas History and Biography Before 1S61.

White, Lonnie J. Politics on the Southwestern Frontier: Arkansas Territory « 1819-183^ Memphis , Tenn.: Memphis State University Press, 1964. Wooster, Ralph. "The Arkansas Secession Convention". Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XIII, (1954), pp. 172-193. V/orley, Ted. ’’Arkansas and the Money Crisis,'1536-1037.,T The Journal of Southern History, vol. XV, (1949), pp. 173-91. Worley, Ted. "The Arkansas Peace Society of 1S61: A Study in Mountain Unionism". Journal of Southern History, vol. xsonr, (1953), PP. 445^ Worley, Ted. "The Arkansas State Bank: Ante-Bellum Period". Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. XXIII, (1964), pp. 65-75. V/orley, Ted. "Control of the Real Estate Bank of the State of " Arkansas”. Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. XXXVII, (1950), pp. 403-26. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources : Newspapers.

Arkansas Gazette - Little Rock, Ark., 1859-1861. Scattered issues cited before 1859*

Arkansas Intelligencer - Van Bur en, Ark*, November 3, 1849.

The Arkansian, Fayetteville, Ark., 1859 to March, 1861.

The Citizen - Des Arc, Ark., 1859 to. September, i860. The Constitutional Union - Des Arc, Ark., November, i860 - April, 1861.

The Old Line Democrat - Little Rock, Ark., September, 1859 to January, 1S^1#

The Press - Van Buren, Ark., 1859 - 1861.

Southern Standard - Helena, Ark., August 3, i860.

True Democrat - Little Rock, Ark., 1859-1861. Scattered issues cited before 1859.

Primary Sources ; Official Publications of the Federal and State Governments.

The Census of 1810, Washington, D. C., Govt. Printing Office, 1811.

The Census of i860, 4 vols., Washington, D.C., Govt. Printing Office, 1864, vol. I. The Journal of the House of Representatives, 13th Session of the Arkansas General Assembly. Little Rock. Ark.: Johnson & Yerices, State Printers," l’86l.

The Journal of Both Sessions of the Convention of the State of Arkansas, Which Were Begun and Held in the Capitol in the City of Little 'Rock. Little Rock, Ark.: Johnson & Yerkes, State Printers, 1861. * Lerner,William, ed. and comp., Historical Statistics of the United States from Colonial Times to 197Û. 2 vols., Washington, D;C. United States Department of Commerce, Govt. Printing Office, 1975, vol• I.

Rives, John,Congressional Globe: Debates and Proceedings of the 36th Congress and the Special Session of the Senate. Washington, D. C.: Congressional Globe Ôffice, 1861. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources: Official Publications of the Federal and State Governments 0 Scott, Robert, ed, and comp., The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 4 ~series, 69 vols., Washington, D. C.: Govt. Printing Office, 1880-1900. Series I, Vol. I.

Thorpe, Francis, ed. and comp., The Federal and State Constitutions: Colonial Charters and Other Organic Laws of the States^ Territories, and Colonies. Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America. 2 vols., Washington, D. C.: Govt. Printing Office, 1909-1911. Vol'. I.

Primary Sources: Publications and Imprints Prior to i860.

DeBow^s Review, Vol. XXIX, (i860). Published in New Orleans, La.

Featherstonhaugh, Sir George William, An Excursion Through the Slave States; New York: Harper & Bros., 1844.

Hindman, Thomas, Federal and Arkansas Politics: Speech Delivered in Little Rock, February 1$, 1859. Little Rock, Ark.: James Butter, Printer',' T8'5'9. (Found in Arkansas Gazette Foundation, Little Rock, Ark.)

Ingraham, Joseph. The South-West. 2 vols., New York: Harper & Bros., 1835. Vol. II.

Pike, Albert, State or Province, Bond or Free? Addressed Particular¬ ly to the People of Arkansas. (Little Roclc? No Imprint Given), l86l. (Found in Arkansas Gazette Foundation, Little Rock, Ark.)

Primary Sources: Manuscripts.

Diary of Judge John Brown, 1859-61. Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock, Ark.

David Walker Papers, University of .Arkansas, Phyetteville, Ark.

David Walker Papers, Arkansas Gazette Foundation, Little Rock, Ark.

Christopher C. Danley Papers, Arkansas Gazette Foundation, Little Rock, Ark.

D. C. Williams Papers, Clara Eno Collection, Arkansas History Com¬ mission, Little Rock, Ark.

Clara Eno Collection, Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock, Ark.