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Admission to the Union.
The admission of Arkansas
into the Union in 1836 gave rise, temporarily, to a species of agitation
which was destined to break out into greater fury some years later, and
that was agitation of the subject of slavery. With that jealous
watchfulness of the balance of power as between the slave states and the
free, which had governed legislative action for a decade, it had become
the settled policy of Congress to admit states to the Union in pairs, and
so when the time was at hand for the admission of Arkansas, Michigan was
likewise admitted as her free sister—her co-mate in the galaxy of stars.
This policy was the direct outgrowth of the Missouri Compromise, wherein
it was settled that no state allowing slavery should be created north of
the compromise line, the south line of Missouri, but that south of the
line states might have slavery or not as they chose. They could only be
free north of the line; they might be free south of it, if so ordered. So
when the question of statehood for Arkansas was up, it hung fire in the
legislative halls. Among her people the desire to pass out of territorial
government into that of a state had been gaining headway, and for five
years had been actively pressed. Arkansas had now been a territory for
fifteen years, dating, as she did, from the bill introduced by John Scott,
territorial representative, detaching her from Missouri territory in 1819.
The new territory was a region but sparsely
settled. The census of 1820, the year after her creation, showed only a
total population of 14,255. This had been more than doubled in 1830, which
showed 30,388, and the next census showed 97,574. These figures indicate
that the tide of emigration was setting strongly in her direction. The
advantages the new territory had to offer were not lost on the
home-seeker. Her fine lands, her illimitable timber resources, her mineral
fields, her splendid rivers for navigation, her equable climate, were
beginning to be understood and availed of. And so, with her population
advanced to sufficient proportions and the state of public affairs seeming
propitious, in 1834 Ambrose H. Sevier, her delegate, introduced a bill in
Congress for her admission as a state. At once the opposition to receiving
a state allowing slavery became active, and the subject was held back for
two years. But public interest was aroused, and meetings favoring
statehood were held at many points. Finally a convention was called and
held, which framed a constitution, reciting their sufficiency of
population and their ability to maintain themselves, and asking to be
admitted into the Federal Union. The constitution was forwarded to
"Washington and laid before Congress.
Upon the subject being thus presented, the
opposition arose stronger than ever. The act of the people was declared to
be revolutionary, in that they had presumed to frame a constitution and
petition for admission without first asking permission of Congress to do
so. The opposition was carried to the extent of taking the opinion of the
attorney-general Benjamin F. Butler as to the legality of the proceedings.
Mr. Butler put a quietus on the opposition by rendering the common-sense
opinion that it was the right of the people at all times peaceably to
assemble and, by petition, to make any request that they saw fit; that the
holding of the convention was nothing more than their peaceably
assembling, and their request to be admitted to the Union was nothing more
than the exercise of their undoubted right to make, by petition, any
request that they saw fit, and hence there was no illegality in the
proceedings. So with all further opposition removed and with nothing at
hand to prevent her reception, along with Michigan, Arkansas was duly
enrolled in the sisterhood of states—the twelfth state after the original
thirteen. Politics
and Parties. In
her territorial life, and even more accentuated in her statehood, the vote
of Arkansas was overwhelmingly Democratic, and such it has continued to be
up to the present time. The two parties dividing public attention of the
time were the Whigs, who dated from about 1820, and who, from about 1829,
were called Whigs from the name of one of the parties of the American
Revolution, and the other the Democrats, the successors of the old
Republican party, or as founded by Jefferson, the party of the people;
who, from near the opening of the century took the name of Democrats.
The Whigs of Arkansas were headed by able men
and leaders, of whom Robert Crittenden, the first secretary of the
territory, was the chief, and associated with him were Absalom Fowler,
Ebenezer Cummins, Benjamin Desha, Frederick W. Trapnall, and others of
like ability; but their vote was in so much of a minority that the
political contests of the day were a succession of Democratic triumphs,
under the leadership of Ambrose H. Sevier, Chester Ashley, the Conways,
Henry W. and James S., Archibald Yell, Charles Caldwell, the Rectors,
Wharton and Elias, William S. Fulton, and others equally eminent; while
the power of the press was wielded for the Democratic side by William E.
Woodruff, as editor of the Gazette, which, from its early beginning in
1819, was a moulder and leader of public opinion, which it still continues
to be. For the Whigs
the Advocate was the party organ, founded by Charles P. Bertrand, but
later passing to Albert Pike.
Ambrose H. Sevier was the territory's chief
political factor. He was her "tower of strength that stood foursquare to
every wind that blew.'' At the state organization James S. Conway was
chosen governor, and A. H. Sevier and William S. Fulton (the last governor
of the territory) were made United States senators. Upon the death of
Fulton, Chester Ashley became senator. Both he and Sevier were men of mark
in the Assembly. Both were eminent for their services, and were recognized
by appointment on important committees, Ashley going to that of the
judiciary. Archibald Yell was elected congressman, and served as such
until the outbreak of the Mexican War, in which he lost his life, his
associate, after 1839, being Edward Cross. Yell was succeeded by Thomas W.
Newton, the only Whig who ever sat in Congress from Arkansas.
Economic and Social Condition.
The general quality of the population of
Arkansas at this time was of the very best. The emigration which had
flowed into her borders had been largely of the best element, drawn in
great measure from cultured families of the South. Around points such as
Little Bock, Hot Springs, Arkadelphia, Camden, Washington, Pine Bluff,
Helena, Van Buren and Fort Smith, were clustered groups of families of
culture and refinement, while in and through the region of Jefferson
county were many residents from old French families.
The home life of these people was of a
delightful order. Generally of education, of refinement and means, and
with hospitality which has grown world-famous as the universal attribute
of their section; frequently of literary and even scholastic attainments,
their communities were charming social centres. Being generally
slave-owners, agricultural pursuits engaged the attention of the people,
ranging from the well-cultivated small farms of the north and west, with
their chief products of grains and fruits, to the immense cotton
plantations of the east and south, for all of which the chief market was
New Orleans, and river traffic the chief mode of travel and conveyance.
Wildcat Banking.
Unfortunately, the first step taken by
Arkansas in beginning her career of statehood was a false and mistaken
one. It in a decided measure committed the state to the dangerous
enterprise of herself going into the banking business. The wisdom of the
hour saw only present necessities. The situation was that everybody had
land, while but few had ready money. So, to relieve the keenness of the
situation and provide a circulating medium, the state created two banks,
known respectively as the State Bank and Real Estate Bank. The State Bank
was a state institution, with officers elected by the legislature, and
owned and controlled exclusively by the state. The capital stock was one
million dollars, for which the state issued her bonds, which the bank
sold, the proceeds constituting her banking capital. This amount was
speedily loaned out, and in five years the bank was put into liquidation,
owing two million dollars, with assets nominally nearly the same, but
three-fourths of which were represented by borrower's notes, which were
uncollectable; so that for the outstanding debts the state stood in the
attitude of an endorser whose principal has become insolvent and left him
with the debt to pay. And paying the debt meant additional burdens on the
people to get the money to pay it with.
With the Real Estate Bank, affairs were
somewhat similar. The capital stock here was two million dollars. Any
stockholder could borrow money of it with a lien on his real estate for
security. Here, also, the proceeds of the state's bonds were the banking
capital. So many men offered to subscribe for stock that they could not
all be accommodated. The funds were loaned out on long terms, with real
estate security. In but a short time this bank also failed, and a struggle
to realize on its securities was begun by its trustees that ran through
nearly sixty years. But the state stood responsible on the bonds she had
issued, and a certain half million of them played an exciting part in
after history. They
were deposited with a loan and trust company of New York as collateral for
the loan of $121,000. Without waiting for the state to redeem her pledge
and take up the collateral, the trust company, by a breach of faith, sold
the bonds to James Holford, a banker of London, for $325,000, and in a
short time thereafter the trust company failed and made an assignment,
having pocketed something over $200,000 by their method of handling the
Arkansas bonds. These bonds thereafter became known as the "Holford
Bonds." In the reconstruction times following the war, the legislature
passed laws for the refunding of these bonds, but their issue was
afterwards contested on the ground of there being fraud and breach of
faith in their sale by the trust company, and an amendment known as the
Fishback Amendment, taking its name from William M. Fishback, of Fort
Smith, the author of the measure, prohibiting their payment, was adopted
by the people in 1884 as amendment No. 1 to the state constitution.
Thus the bank mania had run its course of
confusion and ruin through infinite channels. With the planting of the
seed in 1836 there had come the gathering of the outgrowth as late as
1896, or even 1906, in impoverished estates, mortgaged homes, clouded
titles and struggling debtors, often born to cope with inherited debts. It
was the sowing of the storm in the one generation, and the reaping of the
whirlwind in succeeding ones.
Arkansas in the Mexican War.
The ten years following the entry of Arkansas
into the Union were years of growing prosperity, but suddenly the serenity
of the time was disturbed by the outbreak of a war with Mexico, in which
she was called to take an active part. It is said that "Revolutions have
long roots in the past," and it is a circumstance worthy of note that out
of Arkansas came an initial event which was destined to have an effect, a
great and controlling effect, on the final events that led to that
struggle. In the year 1820 there came from Potosi, Missouri, to "the
little rock" on the Arkansas River, one Moses Austin, who built the first
cabin at the place where the capital city now is. Soon came also his son,
Stephen F. Austin, than which there is no greater name in Texas history,
who became one of the founders of the town of Little Rock, and one of the
original townsite proprietors. Soon Moses Austin went to New Orleans, and
there Stephen F. Austin joined him and gathered together his colony which
he led into Texas and planted: the first American settlers to populate or
gain a footing in that magnificent region.
Austin's colony proving successful, a number
of other American colonies likewise came in, until, by 1835, they had
grown so strong and prosperous as to excite the jealousy of the Mexican
government, which treated them with great harshness and injustice. This
precipitated a revolution in which Texan independence was gloriously won
at San Jacinto in 1836, and her separate existence was recognized by many
governments and acquiesced in by Mexico. Then for nine years the Republic
of Texas stood knocking at the door, requesting admission to the American
Union. The same demurrage and baffling delays that Arkansas had
experienced were again exerted, because Texas was a slave state. But
finally the door was opened and Texas was duly received into the Union. At
once Mexico, although she had done nothing to repossess herself of Texas,
suddenly asserted a claim to her territory and began war against the
United States. Each nation sprang to arms. Under President Polk's
proclamation the quota of troops from Arkansas was 1,400. These were
speedily raised, more men volunteering than could be received, and two
commands were formed: a cavalry regiment under Archibald Yell, who
resigned his seat in Congress to command it, and a battalion for the
defense of the frontier under Col. William Gray, and two companies of the
Twelfth Infantry Regulars were recruited from Arkansas. The rendezvous of
the troops was at "Washington, Hempstead county, and from there they
marched to Mexico. On arriving at the scene of action Yell's regiment was
put into active service, and at Buena Vista, the decisive battle of the
war, distinguished themselves. In a charge of the Mexican lancers, which
they received and repulsed, Yell was killed by a lance wound, and they
lost many officers and men. The battle of Buena Vista was fought Feb. 23,
1847, but the news did not reach Little Rock until April, when some
discharged soldiers from the town, returning by the method of ox-cart
traveling, brought the information to the astonished villagers.
Buena Vista was the principal battle of this
war in which Arkansas troops took part, but those of the Twelfth Infantry,
under Capt. Allan Wood, participated in the engagements of Contreras and
Cherubusco. But these
incidents were the early forerunners of peace. The state's senior senator,
A. H. Sevier, resigned his office and was sent as Minister to Mexico,
concluding a treaty of peace which added greatly to our public domain, as
the valor of our troops in the war had added greatly to our prestige among
the nations of the earth.
The Rising War-Cloud.
The ten years from 1850 to 1860 were years of
an unctuous peace for Arkansas. It was that fatness and increase were all
in all,
"and Peace Piped on her
pastoral hillock a languid note,
Watching her harvests ripen; her herds increase,"
but it was broken by a distant muttering that
grew louder as the decade waned, until it broke in a thunderous roar.
Growth and prosperity was abroad on every hand; but through it all
"There ran a dark thought, like a creeping
trace;
Or like a black threat, that by some misplace,
Life had strung through the pearls of happy years;
A thought that bordered all our joys with tears."
That thought was the incessant agitation of
the subject of slavery. By 1840 a political party had been formed at the
North, bearing the name of the Abolition party, the avowed object of which
was the abolition of slavery, from which it took its name. From about 1854
this party was absorbed by a stronger organization formed about that time,
which took the name of the Republican party, harking back to the opening
of the century to appropriate a name under which the Democratic party had
at that time existed. The growing strength of this newly formed party was
evident, and the increasing heat of public excitement, fanned into flame
by the enactment in Congress of the "Fugitive Slave Law," resulting in the
counter enactment in many Northern states of what were called "Personal
Liberty" bills, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise act, the bill
establishing territorial governments for Kansas and Nebraska, with or
without slavery, as the people of these territories might choose; and the
delivery by the Supreme Court of the Dred Scott decision had the effect of
drawing to them many adherents whose interest had previously only loosely
attached to any precise form of doctrine on such subjects.
And contributing not a little to the firing of
the Northern mind in the same direction was the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin,
both in its book and in its dramatized form; and in the Central West the
great debate between Lincoln and Douglas over the subject of slavery, in
which Lincoln had enunciated his doctrine that "this country could not
exist part slave and part free," had simply brought public excitement to a
white heat. The nation had become little less than a powder magazine that
needed only a single spark to produce an explosion, and that spark came
out of the long and bloody war in Kansas, called the Border "War, and John
Brown's Insurrection at Harper's Ferry. These were the torches applied to
the dry stubble, and the blaze went sweeping onward like a besom of
destruction. The desirability of withdrawing from the Union began to be
advocated in many parts of the South, through the press and on the stump,
on the street corner and in the private home, and secession, as an
abstract right, was defended. Eloquent orators like E. C. Jordan and E. W.
Gantt, in our own midst, were not wanting to strongly advocate secession,
recommending it as a proceeding which states of the North had themselves
three times threatened to put into effect, over the Louisiana Purchase of
1803, in the Hartford Convention of 1815, and in the Haverhill Resolutions
of 1842; but there were equally eloquent orators like John B. Fellows,
John Kirkwood, J. M. S. Causin, and many others who made powerful pleas
for the perpetuity of the Union, and so the debate went on from forum to
forum, and from stump to stump, irrespective of whether the speakers were
candidates for office, or merely discussing the tendency of the times.
The year 1860 brought matters to a crisis. It
was in the midst of this condition of public unrest that an election for
governor of Arkansas was held. Richard H. Johnson was the regular
Democratic nominee, and his opponent was Henry M. Rector, who had resigned
his seat as judge of the Supreme Court of Arkansas to become an
independent candidate for the office. Johnson represented the views of
extremists, while Rector's platform was for moderation and conservatism.
After a campaign of tremendous excitement, Rector was elected. The vote
cast was a large one, as the vote then stood 61,198, of which Rector's
vote was nearly 32,000. The vote was, of course, affected by local issues
and personal preferences, but the majority, as pronounced in favor of
conservative views rather than the opposite, was significant.
Secession.
There is no room for doubt that the close of
1860 and the opening of 1861 found the Union sentiment in Arkansas in the
ascendancy. This was not only reflected in the vote in the race between
Rector and Johnson, but it was emphasized in the trend of public action.
Rector, being inaugurated before the legislature which sat in January,
1861, delivered an inaugural counselling moderation in the impending
crisis, and expressing conservative sentiments. In the exercise of their
undeniable right as the lawmaking body of a state in the Federal Union, an
act was passed by the legislature directing that a vote of the people be
had as to whether a convention should be held "to take into consideration
the condition of public affairs and to determine what course the state of
Arkansas should take in the present political crisis." The vote upon the
proposition exhibited a decided majority for the holding of the
convention. The
convention thus ordered sat in March, with David Walker, of Fayetteville,
as president. Its membership comprised the best and ablest minds in
Arkansas. In its general result, nothing favorable to secession was done.
Several times during the session measures providing for a withdrawal from
the Union were presented, but they were either voted down or were
strangled by parliamentary procedure, and the body adjourned to a date in
August, but with power in the president to call it together again at an
earlier date should the exigencies of the times require.
Two things it did were in the line of peace
and the Union by unmistakable act. One was a vote of thanks to John J.
Crittenden for his efforts to secure a compromise between the two
divergent views of the times, and the other was to name five delegates to
attend a peace convention proposed by the states of Virginia and Missouri,
to be held at Frankfort, Kentucky, in May.
But the delegates appointed to it never
served, for before the time arrived at which the convention was to be
held, the nation was in the throes of a mighty war. Like a thunder-clap
out of a clear sky came the news of the fall of Sumter, and the
proclamation of President Lincoln calling for troops to put down the
"Rebellion," and calling upon the unseceded states of the South to furnish
a portion of them, the quota for Arkansas being put at 780 men. Governor
Rector returned an indignant reply refusing to furnish the troops, and the
convention, under the call of its president, assembled a second time.
Events since their adjournment had completely altered public sentiment.
The commencement of hostilities, the call for troops, the call upon
Arkansas to furnish a portion of them, had entirely swept away the Union
sentiment. The convention was now practically unanimous for secession.
Shortly after assembling, it passed an ordinance, introduced by William
Porter Grace, of Jefferson county, "Dissolving the Union existing between
the State of Arkansas and those united with her under the compact entitled
' The Constitution of the United States of America.' " The vote on its
adoption was sixty-nine in the affirmative and one in the negative. The
negative vote was that of Isaac Murphy, of Madison county, who was made
governor when a state government was afterwards organized in Arkansas
under Federal auspices.
The adoption of the Ordinance of Secession had
not been any hasty conclusion impelled by the excitement of the moment,
but had been a step taken in the deliberate judgment that the sacred ties
of kinship and affinity demanded it. When the issue had been forced upon
her that she must either assist in making war upon the other states of the
South by remaining in the Union, or that she must stand with the South by
going out, she promptly withdrew.
An eye-witness to the passage of the Ordinance
of Secession said of the proceedings: "Doubtless every member who gave his
vote for it realized that it meant a conflict. But what else could be
done? Since the North had already begun the attempted subjugation of the
South, it was war if we remained in the Union, and war if we went out. It
was war, waged by us and through us if we stayed in, and war waged on us
and against us if we went out. But every principle of honor and right
dictated that we should rather be made war upon, than that we should,
either actively or passively, suffer ourselves to aid in making war upon
the other states of the South.''
Bibliography—Pope, W. P.: Early Days in
Arkansas. Fay
Hempstead,
Author of Hempstead's History of Arkansas. |
