ORATION. 
 
AN 
 
 OEATIOJNT 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 FAYETTEVIUE, ARKANSAS, 
 
 Beig.-Gen. Albert w:' Bishop, 
 
 ADJUTANT-GENERAL OF THE 8TA1 
 
 JULY 4, 1865. 
 
 ^•r— .'. .♦. •. • ,• 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 BAKER <fe GODWIN, PRINTERS, 
 
 PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE, OPP. CITY HALL. 
 
 1865. 
 

 
Fatetteville, Aek., July 4, 1865. 
 Brig.- Gen. A. W. Bishop, A. G. State of Arkansas, — 
 
 General : In accordance with the resolution unanimously adopted by 
 the very large and spirited meeting held to-day, and adding our own im- 
 pression that publication of your address will accomj)lish much good, we 
 would earnestly solicit a copy for the public. 
 We remain, 
 
 "With high consideration and respect. 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 ELIAS HAEKELL, ~ 
 
 Chairman, 
 
 D. D. STAKK, ^ 
 
 r^„^^ ^^^^^^ Y Committee. 
 
 THOS. BROOKS, 
 
 J. H. VAN HOOSE, 
 
 Secretaries, 
 
 St. Louis, Mo., July 10, 1865. 
 
 Messrs. Elias Harrell, D. D. Stark, Thos. Brooks, and J. H. Van 
 HoosE, Committee, — 
 Gentlemen : I am in receipt of your favor requesting, for publication, 
 a copy of the address delivered by me at Fayetteville, Arkansas, on the 4th 
 inst. To this request I cheerfully respond, and in the hope that such 
 publication may not be unproductive of the good which you have been 
 pleased to express, the manuscript is placed at yom* disposal. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. W. BISHOP. 
 
ORATION, 
 
 At Springfield, Missouri, three years ago to-day, tliere were 
 scattered through an audience assembled in one of the beautiful 
 groves that then encompassed that city, a few loyal men from 
 Northwestern Arkansas. 
 
 There they could celebrate the anniversary of the natal day 
 of freedom, but kere^ from whence they went, they could not, 
 and sadly looking southward, they dispersed to their resting 
 places, not their homes. " The Earth," however, " was not all 
 bare, nor the Heavens empty." There was hope in the present 
 even, and very soon, men, whom I see before me now, were 
 marching hitherward to defend their rights and avenge their 
 wrongs. The work proceeded slowly and wearily, but at last 
 the days of rebellion have been numbered, and here, where 
 earlier hours were passed, property acquired, and families reared, 
 the loyal men of Northwestern Arkansas, are to-day as- 
 sembled, to hallow the memory of three years of suffering, 
 strife, and victory. 
 
 In February, 1862, a Texan Ranger, of more notoriety than 
 fame, burned your college, swept otherwise through Fayette- 
 ville, as with the besom of destruction ; wished you all " where 
 the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," though a 
 word of one syllable answered his purpose, and a month later 
 fell at Pea Ridge, as black with the maledictions of this com- 
 munity, as the habit he is reputed to have worn. 
 
6 
 
 The war had then been raging nearly a year, and yet your 
 troubles were not so great, your losses so severe, as they were 
 shortly to become. In 1861, the virus of secession worked 
 more mildly, at all events loyal men in Arkansas were not so 
 persecuted, as when rebels of even ordinary forecast saw, that 
 every man in the South, capable of bearing arms, must come to 
 the rescue of the new Confederacy, to save it from a fate as 
 disastrous as sudden. 
 
 Prior to the passage of the ordinance of secession, the Union 
 element in the State was very strong. There was an obvious 
 disposition among the masses to still adhere to the " old Consti- 
 tution." It was difficult to convince them that the North was 
 disposed to be tyrannical. They had thus far enjoyed the bless- 
 ings of a free Government. Every man's house was his castle, 
 and there was really no foe besieging it. 
 
 The first inaugural of our lamented late Chief Magistrate, 
 mourned to-day with a soitow unequaled in prevalence and in- 
 tensity, was eminently just to the South. 
 
 The rights of States were guaranteed not only, but the 
 power of the Government was pledged to their enforcement. 
 There was no occasion for this gigantic rebellion. Personal 
 Liberty bills may have been passed by the Legislatures of some 
 of the Northern States, in disregard of a provision of the Fed- 
 eral Constitution, the construction of which is generally agreed 
 upon, but such action was either rescinded, or, by the people 
 generally, considered unwise. 
 
 The Central Government was true to the grand, underlying 
 instrument that has withstood the buffetings of three-quarters 
 of a century, and whatever moralists may urge, or philanthro- 
 pists condemn, the fundamental law of a nation must continue 
 to be obeyed, while it is such. Our reverence for it should not 
 be shattered by every theory set afloat, and yet grievances, if 
 
there are any, are entitled to a calm and rational hearing, but 
 judgment must not precede trial ; and so far as Slavery, natm'- 
 ally suggested in this connection, is concerned, it was the most 
 consummate folly in its friends to disregard the clear and em- 
 phatic utterances of President Lincoln. 
 
 A fungus upon the tree of liberty, Slavery might have sur- 
 vived to a greater age, but cut off as it has been, the wound will 
 speedily be healed. That which was done to save has utterly 
 destroyed, and the mad enthusiasm that four years ago fired on 
 Sumter, and metamorphosed Legislatures into conferences of 
 traitors, has been followed by the wail of States, and the com- 
 plete and final overthrow of a great and dangerous heresy. 
 
 Circe sought to overcome Ulysses by offering him the medi- 
 cated cup, and when he had drank of it, struck him with her 
 wand, and bade him " go join his comrades in the sty," but his 
 antidote was ready, and the fascinating enchantress was foiled. 
 So likewise, have the leaders of public senthnent in the South 
 held the fatal cup to the lips of their fellow-citizens, and though 
 many drank and were ruined, the spell has been broken, and 
 the wand of the enchantress transformed into the scourge of 
 outraged law. 
 
 Not every scheme attractive in its inception, is destined to 
 final success. It was easy for Jefferson Davis to resign his seat 
 in the Senate of the United States four years ago, but for him 
 ultimately to avoid the consequences of his treason, will be far 
 more difiicult. 
 
 As the head of a gigantic conspiracy, full of vigorous hate, 
 he was a formidable antagonist, but fleeing through Southern 
 Georgia, and donning wrapper and shawl, to avoid capture, he 
 dwindles into the most ludicrous insignificance. The Pro- 
 visional Congress of the Confederate States, sittings at Mont- 
 gomery, in February, 1861, was a dignified body, and naturally 
 
8 
 
 enough gave great cause for alarm ; but its successor, closing its 
 sessions at Richmond, a few months ago, under the pressure of 
 loyal bayonets, and scattering Southward, as chaff blown by the 
 wind, was as harmless as a dove. 
 
 The logic of events is decisive, nor is it necessary that its 
 teacliings should be the slow growth of centm*ies. A single 
 Presidential temi, under our form of Government, may be 
 dotted thickly with great occurrences, and so was it with the 
 administrations of President Lincoln. 
 
 The first, beginning in doubt and discouragement, the latter 
 terminated tragically indeed, for him, but grand beyond com- 
 parison in the magnificent triumph of a great and holy cause. 
 In that triumph, fellow-citizens, our State shares, and has a 
 right to share. She rebelled, indeed ; those entrusted mainly 
 with the administration of her affairs were led astray by a bitter 
 prejudice, and an unsoundness of doctrine, yet thousands of her 
 citizens have battled manfully for the Stars and Stripes, since 
 the first feeble exodi were made from Batesville to RoUa, and 
 Northwestern Arkansas to Springfield. Pardon me, then, if I 
 rehearse a little State and local history, with which the most, if 
 not all of you, are familiar. 
 
 On the 15th of January, 1861, Henry M. Rector, then Gov- 
 ernor of the State, approved " an act to provide for a State 
 Convention," the principal object of which, in the language of 
 the act itself, was to " take into consideration the condition of 
 political affairs, and determine what course the State of Arkan- 
 sas should pursue in the present political crisis." 
 
 On the 18th of February, 1861, the election of delegates to 
 this convention was held, and, notwithstanding the perpetration 
 of nmiierous frauds, and the obvious efforts of many in author- 
 ity to create a public sentiment hostile to the maintenance of 
 
9 
 
 the Union, a majority of these delegates were opposed to se- 
 cession. 
 
 On the 4th of March, the convention met at Little Eock, 
 and after a violent session of two weeks, adjom-ned without 
 accomplishing the secession of the State. Commissioners duly 
 accredited, were present from Georgia and South Carolina, 
 bringing with them as the weapons of their diplomatic warfare, 
 ordinances of Recession passed by these States respectively, and 
 who were instructed also, to invite the co-operation of this con- 
 vention in forming a Southern Confederacy. The commission 
 issued by the Governor of South Carolina, was dated on the 1st 
 day of January, A. D. 1861, and in the " eighty-fifth year of the 
 sovereignty and independence" of that State. The intense se- 
 cessioiiism of South Carolinians cropped out thus, as usual, and 
 with the other appliances, brought to bear at this convention, 
 had a marked efiect upon public sentiment in Arkansas. 
 
 An ordinance was passed and approved, however, providing 
 for holding an election in the State, on the 5th day of Auo-ust, 
 1861, at which the sense of the people was to be taken upon the 
 question of " co-operation " or " secession ;" and just before the 
 adjournment of the convention, another ordinance was adopted, 
 providing, that should an exigency arise, between the passage of 
 the ordinance first referred to, and the 19th day of Auo-ust 
 1861 (when, by the terms of the adjournment, the convention 
 was to re-assemble), for its earlier convocation, it could, by pro- 
 clamation, or otherwise, be re-convened by the President 
 thereof. 
 
 A few weeks later occurred the attack on Fort Sumter, and 
 President Lincoln's call for 75,000 men. The "exigency" was 
 now considered to have arisen ; coercion was the cry of avowed 
 rebels and timorous Union men, and the Hon. David Walker 
 
10 
 
 president of tlie convention, and a citizen of tliis county, called 
 the convention for the 6th of Maj. 
 
 The proceedings of this body, fellow citizens, I do not pro- 
 pose to recall. The country knows that on that day the State of 
 Arkansas assumed to secede from the Union, and you know that 
 that act was the " direful spring " of all your woes. The ques- 
 tion of " co-operation " or " secession " was never submitted to 
 the people, and the Summer of 1861, as elsewhere in the United 
 States, passed away amid the din of arms. 
 
 By the 1st of November, Arkansas had sent nearly 20,000 
 men into the rebel army. The Union forces had been checked 
 at Bull Run and Wilson Creek, and quite generally throughout 
 the State the enthusiasm of tlie people ran high in behalf of 
 the new-born Confederacy. The beliefs of many, nevertheless, 
 were purely the creatm'es of the hour, and they were not anima- 
 ted by a deadly and persistent hostility to the Federal Govern- 
 ment. Not so with their leaders, civil as well as military. The 
 rebellion was the denouement of a plot they had been maturing 
 for years. The ghost of Callioun had appeared with its spectral 
 beckonings, and they followed it as Hamlet his father's, eager, 
 persistent, mad. The successes of the first year of the war 
 were the text of a thousand sermons, and from a few dearly- 
 bought victories were drawn inferences the most extravagant. 
 
 Henry M. Rector, tlien Governor of this State, was espe- 
 cially inclined to jubilation, and perhaps exceeded all other 
 officials in the Confederacy in the peculiarly exultant character 
 of his public utterances. In a message to the General Assem- 
 bly, called together in extra session in November, 1861, he 
 expatiates as follows : " To our gallant sons and countrymen 
 who survive the bloody fields of Manassas and Springfield, the 
 country owes its gratitude. The victory at Springfield aroused 
 the drooping spu'its of our friends in Missouri, and emboldened 
 
11 
 
 tliem for tne brilliant jacliievement at Lexington. Tlie tide of 
 war still sets strongly against tlie vandal forces, and with the 
 aid of Providence, we will drive them into the current of the 
 Mississijypi, whose turbid waters may serve to hide them from 
 the vengeance of an o^ppressed and outraged people.'''' 
 
 Alas ! the vanity of rebel predictions. The Father of Wa- 
 ters still goes " unvexed to the sea." The " tide of war " has 
 been strangely perverse, and the " vandal forces " have shown a 
 very decided aversion to making the acquaintance of the turbid 
 waters of the Mississippi under the humiliating circumstances 
 predicted. 
 
 But not alone in malediction of this description did this 
 valiant Governor indulge. He had a wonderful insight into the 
 future, and made predictions with the ease of the prophets of 
 old. Notwithstanding the immediate pressure of war on a gi- 
 gantic scale, " the axe-helves and painted buckets " of Massa- 
 chusetts had transferred their allegiance to Arkansas, and the 
 busy hum of mechanical industry, shut out from " Yankee 
 cunning and device," was inducing one of the most desirable 
 results that could flow from a separate nationality — encourage- 
 ment to men of small means, mechanics, artisans, and others, 
 who earn their bread in the sweat of their brows. Nay more, 
 this result, according to the Governor, was induced much sooner 
 by " Mr. Lincoln's Blockade, than it could have been without 
 it ; " " and so soon," he further says, " as the bitter fruits of expe- 
 rience shall induce them (the Yankees) to open the channels of 
 international commerce, a discriminating tariff will turn the 
 bows of their steamers as effectually as a ten-inch columbiad. 
 All in all — our liberties won — the era of 1861, is as much a 
 blessing to tlie South, as was that of Seventy-Six to the 
 Colonies." 
 
 Thus much for the material prosperity of Arkansas, as seen 
 
12 
 
 through the medium of a disloyal State paper. THe alaniiing 
 character of the contest, would still present itself. Banquo's 
 ghost was not half so obtrusive, and while the ides of this No- 
 vember were setting in, the clouds of war were slowlj darken- 
 ing. " Manassas and Springfield" had borne no fruits, and the 
 necessity for forcing every fighting man into the ranks, be- 
 came daily more imperative. 
 
 On this subject, also. Governor Rector enlarges thus : " A 
 sacred obligation rests upon every able-bodied man to assist in 
 defending his coimtry, when his services are required. If he 
 believes the cause of the South is an unjust one, he ought to 
 emigrate. If he is too cowardly to take up arms to defend his 
 country, he ought to pray God to hill himy 
 
 Alas! the perverseness of the invocations of Union men! 
 They neither prayed God to kill them, nor did they bow before 
 tliis Moloch of public sentiment. If moral courage be coward- 
 ice, according to this trenchant defender of a wide-spreading 
 usurpation, then indeed were Union men craven ; if the fact 
 that they were still unreconciled to the attempted secession of 
 the State was treasonable, then surely were they enemies of 
 the Confederacy. They were not " too cowardly to take up 
 arms ■ to defend their coimtry," but they understood the term 
 very differently from Henry M. Rector. It had with them no 
 synonym in the vaunted plu*ase " A Southern Confederacy," 
 but all its honors, triumphs, and glories, were wreathed about 
 the starry old banner, on whose ample folds they had inscribed 
 those words, possessing now a deeper significance than ever, — 
 " The Union, the Constitution, and the Laws." 
 
 But neither gubernatorial bluster, nor the ire of newspapers, 
 could awe them longer, especially in this section of the State, 
 and in silence, but resolutely, they prepared for the contest. 
 The air had hardly ceased to throb with the pulsations of Forts 
 
13 
 
 Henry and Donelsob, when around the little old Tavern on 
 Pea Ridge centered the wrath of contending armies, and the 
 smoke of battle had scarcely cleared away, when from the hills 
 and the valleys, the caves and the woods, came forth in rags and 
 in sorrow the Union men of Arkansas. 
 
 I remember well their first appearance at Springfield. I 
 was a stranger to them then, and I wondered at that constancy 
 to the Government of their Fathers, which had caused them to 
 suffer so much. 
 
 It was my fortune at this time, through the kindness of Col. 
 Harrison, to become connected with the first organized regi 
 ment of Arkansas Volunteers in the Union army. 
 
 On the 10th of July, 1862, I entered on duty, and, as many 
 before me will remember, the first battalion, the only one then 
 mustered, participated that afternoon in a brigade review. 
 "With me, fellow-citizens, this was a day never to be forgotten. 
 At 10 o'clock in the morning I first saw in line my future com- 
 rades in arms, and the most of them for the first time under any 
 circumstances, and as I looked along their front, rough with the 
 travail of the forest, un uniformed and unarmed, yet orderly and 
 attentive, I thought of the dark days of the Revolution, of Long 
 Island, and Yalley Forge, and I silently admired that firmness 
 of purpose, that devotion to yonder flag, which, in spite of the 
 relentless persecution of misguided men, was so firm and so 
 hopeful. 
 
 We were assigned to a position in the right wing of the bri- 
 gade, near the head of the line, and I felt a strange pride in 
 marching those undisciplined men to the field, where many of 
 the heroes of the old army of the Southwest stood ready to receive 
 them. 
 
 There were the strong and the weak, the young and the 
 old, the sick and the well, yet on they tramped, not altogether 
 
14 
 
 in time witli the inspiring tones of drum' and fife, but with 
 hearts attuned to that nobler music, which in war and peace, 
 in thrift and adversity, animates the loyal men of the nation, 
 and throws around the Ark of our Country's Covenant, the in- 
 spiring presence of a Divine sanction. 
 
 •To Brig.-Gen. E. B. Brown, then commanding the District 
 of Southwestern Missouri, let all honor be accorded for the en- 
 couragement he gave to those struggling loyalists from a rebellious 
 State. Unhke some others, he did not regard their entrance 
 within the Federal lines with distrust. The burning of a man's 
 house, by an enemy of the Government, is very poor proof of 
 the disloyalty of its owner. Walking hundreds of miles through 
 woods and ravines, never touching a highway but to cross it, 
 lying concealed by day, and following the north star by night 
 to avoid capture by rebels, will never convict a man of treason ; 
 and General Brown had the good sense and discernment to see 
 that the patience, zeal, and endurance of North westei*n Arkansas 
 deserved encouragement. 
 
 And now, fellow-citizens, beai* with me wliUe I allude 
 briefly to the various regiments the State has sent into the 
 service. 
 
 The First Cavaliy was organized, as the most of you are 
 aware, in the spring and summer of 1862, and I shall take occa- 
 sion to say now and here, that great credit is due to Col. Har- 
 rison for his indefatigable exertions in its behalf, and to the 
 Hon. John S. Phelps, of Missouri, for his labors at Washington, 
 resulting in the issuance, by the War Department, of a special 
 order for the raising of this regiment. 
 
 Following the battle of Prairie Grove, and the occupation of 
 Fayetteville by the Union forces, the First Infantry and First Bat- 
 tery were raised, and in the autumn and winter of 1863, the Second 
 and Thu-d Cavalry, and the Second Infantry. Recruiting for the 
 
15 
 
 Fourth Cavalry began in 1864, but its organization was not com- 
 pleted until early in the present year. The raising of other 
 regiments has been undertaken, but the men enlisted were sub- 
 sequently consolidated with existing commands or have left the 
 service. 
 
 Into greater detail, historically, I will not enter, save to say, 
 that the gentlemen — some from the State, others from the 
 N^ortli — entrusted with the organization of these various com- 
 mands, are entitled to great credit for their zeal and suc- 
 cess in so materially giving form and effectiveness to the loyalty 
 of the State. My relation to its troops has been, and still is, 
 such, that I would hardly be expected to speak of their conduct 
 in those terms of praise that would more properly come from 
 some other person, and yet neither inclination nor duty should 
 allow me, in this hour of National joy to pass entirely, without 
 comment, their bearing under circumstances of trial and suffer- 
 ing that the soldiers from the Northern States have not been 
 compelled to undergo. 
 
 They were the neighbors, the relatives of rebels. They 
 saw the wealth, the talent, the industry of the State go 
 to a great extent into the rebellion. While civilians they 
 had no leaders, and of consequence no organization. Like 
 the Earth when God spake it into existence, they were polit- 
 ically " without form, and void," and darkness was indeed 
 upon the face of the Deep ; but the spirit of the Lord moved 
 at length upon the waters, and the dawn of a bright and 
 hopeful day now broke in upon their sufferings and trials. 
 They found men willing to take them by the hand, and, 
 making common cause, go forth into a scene of strife, 
 which, from the very nature of the case, was one of peculiar 
 peril. Loyal Arkansians were the especial aversion of the dis- 
 loyal citizens of the State, and they were subjected to every 
 
16 
 
 indignity that the most bitter hate could devise. The oppro- 
 brious epithet " tory " was sounded in their ears. They were 
 the victims of the most relentless persecution in every form, 
 and when at last, to defend their altars and their fires, they 
 entered the service of their Government, it was the last hope of 
 a fearfully harassed but not a despondent people. They had 
 discerned a glimmer of light in the troubled present, and 
 through it caught the glimpse of a glorious future, the 
 shadowy temple of a new nation, and they struggled toward it 
 with all the eagerness and enthusiasm of the pilgrim in that 
 beautiful allegorical representation of the voyage of life, when 
 lookin<r forward from the frail bark that bears him on, he sees 
 the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem and almost hears the 
 angelic music of its eternal inhabitants. 
 
 Nor were their longings vain. They soon became intensely 
 practical, and before the frosts of autumn had mellowed the 
 forests, which they had left in the fullness of their early ver- 
 dure, the First Cavalry were demonstrating southward from 
 Springfield, and returning with an interest twice compounded, 
 those blows that had severed them from home and happiness, 
 fireside and family. As time rolled on, the remarkable events 
 of this extraordinary war kept even pace with it, and the pro- 
 gress of the Nation's arms. East and West, gave added stimu- 
 lus to this accession to national strength. The Union men of 
 Arkansas, in increasing numbers, thronged into Missouri and 
 gathered about military posts. The organization of one regi- 
 ment followed another ; Prairie Grove gave in its contribution. 
 The occupation of Little Rock, and Fort Smith theirs, and soon 
 the high hopes of the people took form and shape in the re- 
 construction of a State Government. 
 
 To the origin and growth of this movement, fellow-citizens, 
 I now desii'e to call yom* attention. On the re-occupation of 
 
lY 
 
 Northwestern Arkansas by the Army of the Frontier, in De- 
 cember, 1862, large and very encouraging mass meetings were 
 held here and at Hnntsville, as many of yon will remember, 
 the people showing a most earnest desire for a restoration ot 
 their old relations to the Union. Not long afterwards, similar 
 meetings were held at Helena, and to go back a moment to the 
 summer of 18G2, the march of General Curtis's army from Pea 
 Ridge to the Mississippi, was the occasion for enthusiastic 
 demonstrations of loyalty, especially at Batesville, in the 
 northern central portion of the State, where hundreds of her 
 citizens tiled into the TTnion ranks. 
 
 October 30th, 1863, the people moved again at Fort Smith, 
 and in a manner well known in this community. At the meet- 
 ing then held the vigorous prosecution of the war was urged ; 
 the course of the Administration in their eiforts to suppress the 
 late rebellion approved ; the repeal of all laws sanctioning 
 Slavery proposed, and a convention for the purpose of re-organ- 
 izing the State Government recommended. Col. James M. 
 Johnson, First Arkansas Infantry, was nominated to represent 
 Western Arkansas in Congress, and shorth^ afterwards elected. 
 The validity of this election was subsequently recognized in 
 the schedule forming part of the new Constitution of the State, 
 yet to obviate any objections that might possibly be urged 
 thereto, it was deemed ad\dsable that a second election should 
 take place when the new Constitution of tlie State was to be 
 voted upon by the people. This was accordingly done, and 
 Col. Johnson was again elected. 
 
 All these, and many other manifestations in fact, of the 
 popular will took place, it will be observed, prior to the issuance 
 of the President's Proclamation, providing for the re-organiza- 
 tion of loyal governments in the rebellious States, and when tlie 
 2 
 
18 
 
 people had no intimation of the course he afterwards saw fit to 
 pursue. 
 
 On the 20th day of January, 1864, President Lincoln ad- 
 dressed Major-General Steele, then commanding the depart- 
 ment of Arkansas, upon the subject of State organization, 
 directing him, in response to sundry citizens of Arkansas, to 
 order an election for the 28th t)f March then next ensuing, to be 
 held at the usual places in the State, or all such as voters might 
 attend for that purpose, at which (the election), and thencefor- 
 ward, it was to be assumed that the Constitution and Laws of 
 the State, as before the rebellion, were in fiill force, except 
 that the fonwer should be so modified, as to declare that there 
 should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except in 
 the punishment of crime, whereof the party should have been 
 convicted ; that all persons qualified by said Constitution and 
 Laws, and taking the oath presented in the President's procla- 
 mation of December 8th, 1863, either before or at the election, 
 and none others, should be voters ; that judges and clerks shoukl 
 make returns to the Secretary of State; tliat in all other re- 
 spects this election should be conducted according to the said 
 Constitution and Laws, and that when, on the receipt of said 
 returns, it sliould appear that 5,406 votes had been cast (one- 
 tenth of the electoral vote of I860), these votes were to be re- 
 ceived, and on the appearing at Little Rock, of the persons 
 ascertained to be elected thereby, and taking an oatli to sup- 
 port the Constitution of the United States, and the said modi- 
 fied Constitution of the State of Arkansas, they w^ere to be 
 dechired (jualified and empowered to enter immediately upon 
 tlio dis<;harge of the duties of thuir respective ofiices. The 
 time for holding this election was subsequently changed to the 
 14tli, ir)tli, and 16th days of ^Farcli, Avlion it was lield as gener- 
 
19 
 
 ally throughout the State, as the condition of the country 
 would allow. 
 
 The policy of the " ten per cent, system " as it has been in- 
 vidiously called, in the re-construction of State Governments, 
 has been severely attacked, but whether premature or not, it is 
 now too late to enquire. It was obviously important as early as 
 the issuance of the President's proclamation of December 8th, 
 1863, bearing in part upon this subject, that all the encourage- 
 ment possible should be given to the struggling loyalists of the 
 rebellious States, and the progress of the national arms was 
 in fact such as to warrant an attempt to restore civil law. 
 
 Especially was this true in Arkansas, and when the an- 
 nouncement came that an election was to be held||it was re- 
 ceived with general joy. On the days of March last alluded 
 to, the election was held, and 12,177 votes were cast for the 
 present free Constitution of the State, and only 226 against it. 
 Members of a Legislatm-e were elected from 46 of the 54 
 counties of the State, and in many instances, county organiza- 
 tions were perfected. Though military forces were stationed 
 here and there throughout the State, the action of the people 
 was free and unrestrained, especially in Northwestern Arkansas, 
 where, in many precincts, the people assembled together as in 
 time of peace. An occasional constituency was composed of 
 citizens of a county, temporarily out of it for the simple reason 
 that their loyalty had rendered it impossible for them to remain 
 at home, but their intention was honest, their right to act un- 
 doubted, and it were better thus by far, than that there should 
 have been no re-construction at all. The loyal citizens of the 
 State participated almost universally in this election, and no 
 sane man will insist that those in arms against the Government, 
 or in any manner giving aid and comfort to the rebellion, 
 should also have been permitted to vote. The hostility of the bal- 
 
20 
 
 lot-box was not to be added to that of the field or the council 
 chamber, and the doubtful patriotism of non-combatants within 
 the rebel lines, who had been temporizing more or less for three 
 years, the loyal citizens of the State were under no obligations 
 to consult. They, nevertheless, threw wide the polls to all who 
 availed themselves of the President's amnesty, and evinced no 
 malicious disposition to enquire into the antecedents of those 
 Avho did so. The Legislature shortly assembled at Little Kock, 
 and on the 18th of April, 1S()4, the Hon. Isaac Murphy, of 
 Madison County, Gcjvernor elect, Avas inaugurated. And thus 
 the new State organism began the exercise of its functions. 
 It was indeed the Government of a fractional part of the people 
 of ArkanSis — one-fourth of tlie electors of 1860 — but this re- 
 bellion has played sad havoc with whole numbers, and the great 
 fjuestion of re-construction cannot l)e settled upon the basis of 
 the census of five years gone. The loyal people of a rebellious 
 State, be their number great or small, are the appropriate custo- 
 dians of political poAver, 
 
 They are the State, and around them should gather the ele- 
 ments of social and material growth, as one by one they spring 
 up from battle-fields and crop out of confusion. Nor should 
 these States be retained in a condition of pupilage until their 
 old citizens, who followed the false fires of secession, shall re- 
 turn and submit to the new order of things. The sacrifices, the 
 constancy, the heroism of the Union men of the South are en- 
 titled to encouragement not only, but reward. They are the 
 germ of a new development — a new power, and one which to 
 grow well must grow by accretion. 
 
 In our own State, fellow-citizens, 12,000 of these men have 
 ordained and established an Anti-Slavery Constitution, and they 
 will be abundantly able, Avith the additional strength that time 
 and circumstance are giving them, to maintain it. It would be 
 
21 
 
 idle, nevertheless, to say that they have met with no discourage 
 ments. 
 
 Why Congress has failed to recognize our organization, it 
 would be tedious to explain, and therefore I will simply say, 
 that while recognition lias not taken place, no adverse action 
 has been had, and we have strong reasons for believing tlia 
 the 39th Congress will do us that justice which we failed to 
 obtain from the 38th. 
 
 But whether recognized or not, we do not propose to fold 
 our arms and await the issue of events at Washington, David 
 Crockett's mantle fell sufRciently near Arkansas to enable us to 
 catch it up, and knowing we are right, throw it about us' and 
 " go ahead." The problem of capacity for self-government does not 
 necessarily require for its solution the interposition of Congres- 
 sional aid, but of course all are anxious for the tim^when rep- 
 resentation in Congress will be permitted. But tlie future 
 aside," there is work to be done now, and the State authorities 
 and the people are doing it. In April last, for the third time 
 since the new Government was set in motion, the Legislature met 
 entirely at their own expense, and ratified imanimously the pro- 
 posed amendment to the Constitution of the United States. A short 
 time prior to this event, such a militia system as the condition 
 of the State seemed to require, and of which its circumstances 
 would admit, was created by Major-General Reynolds, com- 
 manding the Department of Arkansas, and Governor Murj)hy, 
 acting in concert, the latter having been for some months en- 
 couraging the plan of colonization, and directing the attention 
 of different neighborhoods to this method of self-protection. 
 
 In character, it was two-fold — agricultural and military — 
 those who adopted it being expected to engage principally in 
 farming and other industrial pursuits, and to fight only when 
 necessary for the defense of their inmiediate neighborhoods. 
 
95 
 
 The plan was substantially colonization, and in this section of 
 the State, let me say, that nnder the wise management of Col- 
 onel Harrison, you, to some extent, anticipated the joint action 
 at Little Rock, and prior to the issuance of regular Commissions, 
 were making flattering progress in restoring peace and quiet to 
 Northwestern Arkansas. Fortunately the same spirit now pre- 
 vails very generally throughout the State, and men are awaking 
 from four yeai-s of rebellion, anarchy and bloodshed, to hold 
 the plough and swing the scythe. 
 
 Citizens who have been exiles from their homes for the last 
 three years, are moving southward from " the line of the Ar- 
 kansas," and counties that have never yet seen a Federal soldier 
 in uniform, will only see him now as a State militiaman. The 
 system is spreading, and like the banyan tree, di'opping its 
 branches to the ground, is binding the extremities of the State 
 to the centi'e, and taking root in a soil from which it is fondly 
 hoped the last trace of secession will speedily be withcb'awn. 
 
 Nearly every county in the State has its organization, and 
 civil law, as if eager to atone for the disastrous silence of the 
 last four years, is keeping even pace with the militia movement. 
 Sherifis and constables are resuming their functions. Courts and 
 juries are emerging from social disorder, and that trade which 
 is born of hazard, and thrives on the calamities of a people, is 
 being succeeded by a wider diffusion and reduced prices. 
 
 Arkansas, fellow-citizens, is in the travail of a new birth. 
 Four years of war and outrage, rapine and murder, have just 
 passed into history. That peculiar form of civilization which 
 results from the ownership of labor by capital, is now a dead 
 type. The negro is no longer a chattel. The inexorable logic 
 of events has decreed his freedom. The proclamation of eman- 
 cipation, fulminated as a war measure, will be adhered to as 
 one of the strong bulwarks of peace. The year of jubilee has 
 
23 
 
 indeed come, but there is no millennium of listless ease in store 
 for the colored race. They must learn to work for themselves, 
 and learn at once. The commissariat will very soon cease its 
 stomachic charities. The purlieus of camps will no longer 
 afford them shelter and raiment. Under the wise and benefi- 
 cent management of the Freedman's Bureau, thousands are 
 already self-snstaining, and the great problem " what shall be 
 done with the negroes ? " is rapidly solving itself. Of the araiy 
 they are an honorable and important part. Their discipline is 
 superior, their valor unquestionable, and by their general con- 
 duct under arms, they have fairly earned the nation's respect. 
 Still the course to be pursued towards tliem in matters civil and 
 political, is not free from perplexity. Their freedom — a price- 
 less boon — has already been secured, but to follow this with 
 hasty and indiscriminate legislation, would be neither politic 
 nor wise. 
 
 Rights of person and property should be guaranteed, but 
 the question of suffrage, the treatment of which each State re- 
 serves to itself, should be approached with caution. Revolu- 
 tions beget great changes, and not infrequently the movers in 
 them, by intemperate action, defeat tlie cause they labor to 
 subserve. The fruits of victory cannot all be gathered in a day< 
 Passions must be allowed to cool, prejudices to vanish, and in 
 this great transition period of American life, civil, social and 
 political, the sure advances must be made one by one. Errors 
 in existing laws are no excuse for their repetition, and suffrage 
 to the negro, whatever it may have been, or now is, to the 
 white man, should be made to depend upon his conduct and in- 
 telligence, conferring it first upon the soldier. But I drop a 
 question not of paramomit importance, at least, in this section of 
 the State. In Northwestern Arkansas there are other interests 
 to consider, and other persons to care for. War, in its deso- 
 
latiiig march, has swept again and again tlu'ougli Fayette^alle ; 
 tlie torch and the axe have scarred the country for miles 
 around ; a hii-ge proportion of those before me have, at one 
 time or another during this most iniquitous rebellion, been com- 
 pelled to leave their homes, and now, when it has been crushed, 
 and the glad songs of peace are echoing over the hills, it is 
 eminently proper that those who are or are to become citizens 
 of the State, should survey well the field of their future opera- 
 tions. 
 
 A new era of light, of joy, of hope, is dawning upon the 
 Commonwealth. The old order of tilings is dead. The inspir- 
 injr agencies of a more eidia-litened civilization have begun their 
 work. The depressing influence of chattel Slavery upon the in- 
 dustry of the State — apologize for it as men Avill^ias been 
 swept away by the shock of armies. The ploAv, the loom, and 
 the spindle will have an added dignity. The mechanic and the 
 laborer will, to no trifling extent, leave New England, great as 
 she has become in the arts of peace, for the more genial clime 
 and tlie higher wages of the South. Factories will foll(»w tlie 
 denumd for their worknumship. Your streams will be bridged 
 where fords have been thouglit sufficient. The extraordinary 
 mineral wealth of the State will be developed ; the great pro- 
 ductiveness of its vsdley lands will invite a population hitherto 
 unknown ; the hot springs southwest of Little Rock, the Ameri- 
 can pool of Bethesda, will attract that attention which their 
 marvelous properties so eminently deserve, and tlie pear, the 
 peach and the grape will vie Avith each other in the variety of 
 their richness, and tlie luxurianci' of their growth. 
 
 This, fellow-citizens, is no fancy sketch. The dawn of the 
 reality is even now breaking. The colonization system so suc- 
 cessfully prosecuted in this section of the State, is imparting a 
 new energy to the people, and the apprehension of starvation 
 
25 
 
 having been removed, the ravages of war will soon disappear. 
 The same cheering indications are seen in other portions of the 
 State. Law and order are superseding anarchy and confusion 
 and soon within every county, justice will sit enthroned, and the 
 majesty of her presence will secure the obedience of the people. 
 Those retm-ning inhabitants who have been in rebellion 
 and now desire to become good citizens of the United States 
 Government, should be received fraternally. "With malice 
 towards none, with charity for all," let us prosecute the great 
 work of re-construction, yet remembering always, that the 
 sufferings, the trials, and the claims of those who have been 
 thoroughly and persistently loyal, entitle them to a precedence 
 in this behalf that should not be overlooked. 
 
 President Johnson's proclamation of amnesty and pardon is 
 acceptable to the nation. While it is severe it is just, while re- 
 stricted, generous, and even those within the excepted classes 
 cannot complain of its terms. They staked their all upon the 
 success of the rebellion, lives, fortunes and sacred honor, and if 
 they do not ultimately go down as it has gone, they must attrib- 
 ute their safety to the clemency of the Executive of the United 
 States. 
 
 But let the dead bury the dead. The American nation 
 must now be especially intent upon the future. The war is 
 over. The Armies of the Potomac, the Tennessee, and of 
 Georgia, have marched northward through Kichmond. " lo 
 Triumphe " has been sung, and the vine and the fig-tree are 
 now dancing before the grim-visaged warriors, who but yester- 
 day tramped through the streets of Washington, 
 
 But, oh ! the sacrifice. The slain in battle ; the sick and 
 wounded in hospital ; the starved and dying at Salisbury and 
 Anderson ville, and the nameless graves that followed them ; the 
 dead heroes who strew the ground from the Potomac to New 
 
26 
 
 Orleans, and above all, that overwhelming calamity, a mur- 
 dered President, tell in saddest tones the great tribulation 
 through which we have passed. Nearly the last act of rebel- 
 lion, it overshadows them all in atrocity, and was most fearfully 
 ill-timed. Had it taken place even six months earlier there 
 would not have been wanting in the vaunted Confederacy apol- 
 ogists for its enormity, but occm*ing when it did, it shocked the 
 sensibilities of men of honor the world over, and has covered 
 the name of John Wilkes Booth with everlasting infamy and 
 disgrace. 
 
 Yet the body alone is dead. The spirit that informed it 
 can never die, and while men have memories, and the earth is 
 habitable, the " Illinois Lawyer " will be remembered as the 
 controlling mind in an unparalleled crisis; a great Nation's 
 hope in her severest trial, and the world's exemplar in all that 
 is patient, self-sacrificing and patriotic ; 
 
 " From fame-leaf and angel-leaf, 
 From monument and urn, 
 The sad of Earth, the glad of Heaven, 
 His tragic fate shall learn ; 
 And on fame-leaf and angel-leaf 
 His name shall ever burn. " 
 
 A moment now with the living and I have done. That 
 arch-traitor, Jefterson Davis, has at last been caught in the 
 meshes of his own folly, and if justice still dwells in her 
 chosen habitation, he will expiate his crimes with his hfe. The 
 head and front of a gigantic rebellion, whose astounding 
 rashness stands out unequaled in the history of wars, he should 
 be made an abiding example of punitive law. Clemency to 
 some is only commendable in the light of punishment to others. 
 The same Heavens that drop the " gentle dew " of mercy, 
 thunder forth the wrath of an avenging God, and the adminis- 
 
27 
 
 tration of hnraan aflfairs would be worse than senseless, if the 
 force of a law is to be measured by the scope of a pardon. 
 
 The world differ in the views held of this rebellion. Eussia 
 has been true to us from the beginning, and the instincts of the 
 continental masses generally have led them to the warm 
 espousal of the cause of the Government. But not so the 
 crowned heads of France and England, who, with all their 
 neutrality, fed the baleful fires of treason, and turned a com- 
 paratively deaf ear to the protestations of our representatives 
 abroad, at least until the fortunes of the " Confederacy " were 
 past recuperation. Good faith is public as well as private, and 
 the time may come when the royal author of the " History 
 of Juhus Csesar," and " Victana Begnans " will regret the 
 hollowness of their fraternity, and their poor estimate of our 
 resources. 
 
 The strength of the American Nation has indeed been 
 sorely tried. It has passed through the " ordeal of fire," and 
 the " baptism of blood," but to-day is informed with a more 
 vigorous life than the past was able to secure. The enormous 
 debt even, incurred by the war, is by no means destructive of 
 national credit. We owe ourselves mainly, and it is for the people 
 to say when the obligation shall be canceled. Science and art, 
 trade and industry, will gather additional strength. The waste 
 places of the South will be made glad with intelligent labor. 
 The passions and the prejudices of the time will pass away, 
 and of the Nation will be spoken the olden prophecy : " The 
 glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee ; the fii- tree, the pine 
 tree and the box together to beautify the place of my sanc- 
 tuary ; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. The 
 sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto 
 thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves 
 down at the soles of thy feet, and they shall call thee the city 
 of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel." 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 002 555 025 
 
LIE 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 002 555 025 \