Arkansas secession

In January 1861 the General Assembly called an election for the people to vote on whether Arkansas should hold a convention to consider secession.

When rumors were circulated that the Federal Government intended to reinforce the troops at the Little Rock Arsenal, the leading citizens of Helena sent Governor Henry M. Rector a telegram volunteering 500 men to assist in its seizure.

[6]In response to the Governor's message, militia companies began assembling in Little Rock by February 5, 1861, and they made their intention to seize the Arsenal known to its commander, Captain James Totten.

Eventually more than a thousand militiamen would assemble, representing Phillips, Jefferson, Prairie, White, Saline, Hot Spring, Montgomery, Monroe, and St. Francis counties.

[9] Later, artillery batteries were set up at Helena on the Mississippi River and Pine Bluff on the Arkansas to prevent reinforcement of Federal military posts.

They believe slavery a sin, we do not, and there lies the trouble.But it soon became evident that a majority of the delegates to the convention did not think that the situation at that time called for secession.

The convention voted down a resolution condemning Lincoln's inaugural address, and defeated a conditional ordinance of secession.

Still hoping for a compromise settlement that would avoid war, the delegates agreed to go adjourn, subject to recall by the president of the convention,[14] until after the people had voted on the secession question at a special election to be held in August.

[16] In spite of the fact that Arkansas had yet to officially secede, Governor Rector sensed that the move toward open war would shift public opinion into the secessionist camp and he quickly organized a militia battalion under the command of Solon Borland.

[17] Governor Rector's response to President Lincoln's request for troops was: "The people of this Commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity their honor, lives, and property, against Northern mendacity and usurpation.

[19] Now, faced with President Lincoln's demand for troops, the convention reconvened in Little Rock and, on May 6, 1861, passed the ordinance of secession[20] by a vote of 69 to 1.

[22] Three years later, one Arkansas man, supporting the view of the secession convention regarding slavery, stated that if the Union were to win the war, his "sister, wife, and mother are to be given up to the embraces of their present dusky male servitors.