Votes Against Secession

“God in His omnipotent wisdom,” the governor continued, “I believe, created the cotton plant – the African slave – 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.”

The Union was already destroyed, Governor Rector concluded. The only question would was, to which part would Arkansas give its allegiance?

That was a clear call to the convention to vote the state out of the Union, in defense of slavery. But Arkansas refused to take that step. The convention voted down secession 39 to 35. At Fort Smith and Van Buren, salutes of 39 guns were fired in celebration of the choice.

The garrisoned city of Fort Smith in 1862.

Arkansas never did leave the Union out of support for slavery. The truth is that slavery, though existing on a large scale in the state in 1861, and representing a huge capital investment, was nevertheless, a matter of minority interest to the people of Arkansas as whole.

On that point, David Y. Thomas says in his history of the state:

“The non-slaveholding population was growing rapidly, much more than the slave-holding population; free labor was increasing; capital was being invested in manufacturing. Political control and influence was shifting more to the West of the state. Eventually slavery would have been abolished by Arkansas without a Civil War.

It was for a higher, prouder reason than to continue slave-holding that Arkansas later reversed the first convention vote against secession, and withdrew from the Union. The state took that solemn course, not to defend a property interest, but to stand with its own kindred and neighbors in a tragic, heart-testing hour. Risking all its hard-won possessions, with far more to lose than gain, young Arkansas rose above material considerations to unselfish sacrifice when it joined the Confederacy.

That momentous choice was made on May 6, 1861.

President Lincoln had, in the meantime, on April 15, called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress opposition to the laws of the United States. Requisition was made on Governor Rector for 780 men from Arkansas. The governor replied that this was “adding insult to injury.” He wrote the president that “the people of the commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity their honor, lives, and property against Northern mendacity and usurpation.”

Governor Henry M. Rector