Read in ARKANSAS, A NARRATIVE HISTORY.   Chapter 6  pp. 109-134.

Map of Arkansas in 1824

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The Crittenden-Conway Dispute 

Michael Dougan, Arkansas Odyssey. Rose Publishing Com. Little Rock, 1994,684pp.

  On April 10 1827, Henry Conway announced that he would stand for reelection as  delegate to the United States Congress.  One week later Robert Oden entered the race against Conway with Crittenden's support.  Oden had served as Pulaski County clerk, a lieutenant in the militia and attorney for the third judicial circuit.  His public notoriety came for the killing of William Allen in the 1820 duel.  Oden's chief charge against Conway, supported by incriminating evidence, was that the delegate had borrowed $600 in government money for his private use out of funds intended for the Quapaw.  Crittenden was the source of this information, and Conway's rejoinder was that the secretary  had given his permission for the action.  The charges and countercharges about the $600 grew heated as the public and private acts of many of the leading men of the territory were questioned.  Conway escaped official reprimand but Gov. Izard aided the Conway side by bringing suit against Crittenden supporter, Thomas Newton, guilty of the same indiscretion.  For the first time the Arkansas Gazette took a stand in favor of Conway.  Reportedly Crittenden threatened to cut Woodruff's throat and  "the nose of every printer in the place and pull down the printing office".  With no access to the press, Oden was forced to go to Memphis to get his circulars printed,  It was to no avail.  Conway won reelection 2427-856.  Crittenden was considered to be the real loser, for his place at the center of power was broken.  The emotions unleashed by this election did not stop with voting.  On Sept. 4, 1827 Ambrose Sevier and Thomas Newton  journeyed to Indian Territory where they fought a bloodless duel.    That was but a preliminary for the confrontation between Crittenden and Conway.  On July 24, 1827 Conway wrote in the Gazette that Crittenden's charges against were "wilfully and intentionally...false" and that Crittenden  was "so destitute of principle, that he will resort to any measure, however base and grovelling in its  nature, to accomplish his object"  Crittenden's reply to this insult was challenge to duel.  The two men met on the east side of the Mississippi River opposite the White River cutoff on Oct.  29,1827.  Conway was wounded seriously in the encounter and died on Nov. 9 1827, probably from an infection caused when Crittenden's bullet drove fragments of Conway's toothbrush into the wound.   Although Arkansas was saddened by Conway's death, the violent nature of territorial politics continued.  On Jan. 17,1828 a drunken friend of Crittenden supporter, John Garrett, transformed his hatred of Chester Ashley, Crittenden's former law partner, into action by invading the Gazette   office and opening fire.  In the resulting foray, Ashley fired at Garrett but hit Woodruff and Garret apparently was shot with his own pistol.  An inquest lasting for three days failed to issue an indictment but Woodruff thought that Crittenden in whose company Garrett had earlier been seen had instigated the assault.

   On Dec. 17,1827 a special election was held to fill Conway's seat.  His cousin, Ambrose Sevier rode into Congress  on his dead cousin's popularity.  even so it was a hard ride as his   two    opponents polled 883 and 116 votes denying Sevier a majority of the votes cast..  On Nov. 22,1828 Gov. Izard died in Little Rock.  During his term of office the line of    factionalism formed around the breakup  of the Crittenden clique.  Many leading men, including Robert Oden and Thomas Newton, still supported Crittenden, but the Conway faction aided by the ever scheming and crafty Chester Ashley, emerged dominant.  The Conway group had the additional fortification of bringing into the system a string of nephew, cousins, in-laws and other assorted relative.  Having the only press in the territory gave them a news monopoly.

Jacksonian Democracy

   Izard's death coincided with the national rise to power of Andrew Jackson (Age of Jackson) whose "new broom to sweep clean" now threatened to overturn the patronage system in Arkansas.  The outgoing President John Q. Adams nominated Hutchins G. Burton, a former governor and congressman from North Carolina, for the vacant Arkansas   governorship. The Senate refused confirmation, leaving Crittenden as acting governor and giving Andrew Jackson a free hand to make his own choice.  Given the inveterate opposition Jackson had faced from Senator John J. Crittenden, it was hardly likely that his brother Robert Crittenden would achieve his long-desired goal of becoming governor or that he would keep the office of territorial secretary.

    The Jacksonian revolution had little other impact in Arkansas.  In the 1829 election Ambrose Hundley Sevier stood for reelection and was opposed by the veteran Crittenden supporter, Richard Searcy.  In a dull contest Sevier  won 2,064 to 1,756.  Part of Sevier's success in solidifying his position came from, his record of accomplishment.  An additional superior court judge had been added, the salaries of the legislators    now were paid by the federal government and the appointive powers of the governor had been so greatly trimmed that the legislature now chose all officials except the auditor, treasurer and     justices of the peace.  In addition Sevier claimed credit for various land laws that benefited Arkansas.

      The feeling that progress was underway continued in the opening ceremonies of the Pope  administration.  Addressing the legislature, Pope urged a number of reforms.  The militia needed strengthening, the territorial finances were not strong and better laws against gamblers and public violence were needed.  But the validity of these  suggestions was undone by Pope's personal character.  Vainglorious, politically naive and an egoist, he compared Arkansas to a plantation and himself to the overseer.  In a public speech he crowed" While many other appointments of the President are condemned, all parties concur in conceding the office of Governor of Arkansas is well filled."  Such a man was hardly prepared to cope with the tangled web of subtle plots and schemes that constituted territorial politics.

    The first victim of the governor's folly was his own nephew and secretary, William Fontaine Pope, who undertook to correct a slur on his uncle's honor by challenging the author of the criticism, the young Charles Fenton Mercer Noland of Batesville, to a duel.  The two men met on the Texas side of the Red River, where young Pope fell mortally wounded.  Fortunately the governor was well supplied with nephews  and he soon returned from   Kentucky with another nephew-secretary also named William F. Pope.  This Pope managed to avoid the antagonism of politics and eventually left  a memoir of the period.

  The election of 1831 marked a change in territorial politics.  Personality, the dominant mode to date, was being replaced factional organization.  Crittenden supported his friend Benjamin Desha  in an unsuccessful race against Delegate Sevier, but at the same time made a successful effort to win control of the territorial legislature.  The Arkansas Gazette monopoly had been broken by the establishment   of Crittenden's   Arkansas Advocate (see below) and Crittenden now wanted his paper rather than Woodruff's to get the lucrative public printing business.  Woodruff faced a hostile legislature and lost his contract, the mainstay of his income.  The little "harrow-hearted Yankee"  took the loss in bad grace, blasting the legislators for accepting "canvas hams" from Crittenden in return for votes.  The confrontation grew violent when Woodruff busily copying the House journal was set upon by Dr. Nimrod Menefee, "the dueling surgeon", who knocked him senseless.

    The legislators were asked to prop up Crittenden's sagging fortunes in another way.  He had erected Little Rock's first mansion, which he now found himself unable to afford.  The federal government had granted to Arkansas ten sections of  public land, as yet unlocated, the sale of which was to finance the erection of a capitol building( General Information » Old State House). All the speculators wanted to take the land off the territory's hand, including Chester Ashley, who offered to swap   his house, and Willliam McK. Ball, who offered $10,000 for the land.  Crittenden offered his house and agreed to locate the sections on unimproved acreage.

    When the legislature accepted Crittenden's proposition, Woodruff successfully urged the governor to veto the bill and the veto was sustained by only one vote in the Senate.  Pope's veto of the Crittenden house exchange raised the level of political animosity, putting new pressure on Charles Bertrand, the editor of the Arkansas Advocate .  Fortunately, Crittenden had discovered  Albert Pike, a Massachusetts native and former Harvard Student.  who was teaching at a school in western Arkansas.  Crittenden set him to a higher task, that of fracturing the political relations between Pope, Sevier, Woodruff, Fulton and President Jackson.

  All the skills of the Advocate possessed were utilized in 1831 when Crittenden himself challenged Sevier  .  This race should have been the culmination of all the old feuds in an exciting battle to the death.  But it was not to be.  A decade of criticism and a complete lack of popularity in the western counties doomed Crittenden's effort.  In Washington County one Crittenden rally was broken up by the Sevier camp's distribution of free whiskey.  The usual election violence resulted, including a collision in Little Rock between the Pulaski County sheriff and candidate Sevier, who had drawn a knife during an election-day fight with some Crittenden men.  The polls gave Sevier 4,476 votes to Crittenden's 2,520.

   More successful was the Advocate's sniping attack on the coalition.  The first crack came when Pope accused the Gazette of not being sufficiently warm in his defense and overcharging for printing.  Pope financed a new editor, John Steele, to found the Political Intelligencer, a pro-Pope paper and gave the the "good fat job" of printing the  digest of laws (see below).  That Pope would dispense major patronage without consultation with Sevier and give it to a newcomer indebted only to Pope led to major tension between Sevier and Pope.  Then Secretary Fulton, who had suggested the swap for Crittenden's house in the first place, disagreed with the governor on the Ten Section Bill and used the Gazette to explain his position.

   All the parties turned to Washington for support and Pope was in the worst position.  Fulton, in his correspondence to  Jackson, had made Pope out to be Clay-lover and a critic of Jackson's bank policy.  After his betrayal of Adams, Pope was of no further use to Jackson and early in 1835, the President nominated Fulton to succeed him.  After Pope retired to Kentucky, Steele, now no longer an editor, was reported associating with an outlaw gang

One man who did not benefit from Pope's fall was Robert Crittenden.  In debt and unable to make political headway in Arkansas, Crittenden wrote of moving to Mississippi.  Ironically, he suddenly died in Vicksburg on Dec. 18, 1834 after a seizure in court.  Although only 37 years old at the time of his death, his best political days were well behind him.  The first politician in Arkansas, he was the guiding force for the early period.  His faction, which after his death became the Whig party continued in Arkansas, providing an alternative to the Democratic Party for nearly twenty years.  Its leader, Albert Pike had been hand-picked by Crittenden.

  A Little of What Arkansas Was Like A Hundred Years Ago,

STATEHOOD MOVEMENT

    Before the mid-1830s national politicians saw Arkansas only as an insignificant Territory and a possible dumping ground for dispossessed Indians.  But as the the implications of the Missouri Compromise became apparent, it was inevitable that Arkansas must enter the Union as a slave state and be paired with a Northern territory to preserve the tenuous sectional balance. The publication of Walker's Appeal in 1829 , the founding of the Liberator by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831 and Nat Turner's Rebellion in the same year heightened the national consciousness.  Arkansas was close to the 40,000 population figure then required for statehood and Michigan Territory was eager to join the Union.

    Because only two Southern territories existed, Florida and Arkansas, it was Delegate Sevier's opinion that if Arkansas did not come in with Michigan, it might have to wait twenty-five years for another chance.  Sensing a sectional rather than a local need, Sevier and Woodruff brought the Southern version of the slavery issue into play and began the statehood campaign.

  The question of statehood occasionally had been mentioned in the press before, but usually with a realistic appraisal of the difficulties Arkansas would face from the loss of federal funds for roads, rivers and government expenses.  The general sentiment had been to wait.  When Sevier changed his mind on the subject, he caught the public unaware.  Fairly soon, both Woodruff of the Arkansas Gazette and Pike of the Arkansas Advocate  were on the statehood bandwagon, together with other politically minded men.  The new governor, William S. Fulton, was not.  He was opposed less to statehood per se than to the way it would be brought about.  Michigan had taken the lead by holding a convention, drafting a constitution and sending it to Washington, all without formal congressional approval.  The pro-state party in Arkansas proposed to proceed by the same possibly illegal route.

   Despite Fulton's scruples, the legislature debated summoning a convention.  All was harmonious until the question of apportioning seats arose.  Then the legislature forgot all factionalism and split sectionally, with the north and west demanding a formula based on  the principle of of white manhood suffrage and the east and south insisting on upon counting slaves as in the federal three-fifths rule.  After parliamentary maneuvering, a bill emerged giving the north and west 27 delegates and the south and east 25.  With this compromise the convention bill became law without the governor's signature.

On Jan. 4, 1836 the delegates to the constitutional convention assemble in the Baptist Meeting House, moving to the Presbyterian Church two days later. The question of the sectional battle was settled with compromise.  The lower house would be based on white population thus giving the north and west a majority, but in the Senate both sides were to be equal and a center district of Pulaski, White and Saline counties would hold the balance of power.  The convention adjourned on Jan. 30, 1836.

   The new constitution was an unexceptional product of the early 19ty century march to democracy. Voters chose a governor for  four-year term who not serve more than eight years in twelve; elected the legislature, with two year terms in the lower house and four years in the upper house and elected the justices of the peace on the county level.  Almost all state offices were chosen by the legislature, including the secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, the supreme court, the circuit judges, and circuit attorneys.  Although the governor possessed veto power, a simple majority in each house was sufficient for an override.

    Other important features of the constitution included authorizing banks, encouraging internal improvement, banning lotteries, requiring officeholders to acknowledge the existence of God, encouragement of "intellectual, scientific and agricultural improvement" and creating a state militia.  The legislature was forbidden to emancipate slaves without the consent of owners.  The slave trade within the state could be prohibited, slaveholders were obliged to treat their chattels "with humanity" and slaves accused of crimes were to be given trials with impartial juries and receive the same punishments as white. The Arkansas constitution showed an advance of democracy on the Southern frontier.  Gone were property qualifications for voting and the number of elected offices was increased.  The legislature wielded the most power.  No popular referendum was held on the constitution because the convention's approval was considered sufficient.

   To present the constitution to the Congress, the convention chose C.F.M. Noland.  One delegate from Carroll County nominated "U.S. mail" to do the job and supported this nominee through all seven ballots.  The vote proved ironic, for Noland, fearing winter storms, chose a safe southern route to Washington and arrived a month later because of it.  The mail containing an Arkansas Gazette "extra" publishing the constitution beat Noland by eight days and was used by the congressional committee in arranging Arkansas' admission to the Union.

     Persisting sectional tensions made every statehood debate a potentially explosive political issue.  The joint Michigan-Arkansas entry was no exception.  Missouri's Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a Southerner, managed Michigan's case, while  Pennsylvanian James Buchanan presided over Arkansas' destiny.  Despite the pairing, objections surfaced.  Some found the new constitutions illegally drawn because of a lack of congressional authorization.  Anti-slavery men objected to the slavery clauses in the Arkansas document.  Above all, the anti-Jackson men saw in the statehood move a Democratic way to gain additional electoral votes for Martin Van Buren.  The road to final approval was strewn with parliamentary maneuvering, a twenty five hour session of the House and much bickering.

  But the Jackson men were in control, and the Congress statehood for Arkansas passed on June 16, 1836.  As editor Woodruff, now a firm supporter of Van Buren's presidency noted: It was due    "solely...to the friends of the Administrations and of Messrs. Van Buren and Jackson." The Whigs "left no effort untried to prevent the passage of the bill" and thus deserved no political support in Arkansas.  National politics would now enhance the local politics of personality, one reason being that the Van Buren vice-presidential nominee was Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, whose brother Benjamin became the first federal district judge and who nephew was Ambrose H. Sevier.  With Pope gone and Crittenden dead there could be not doubt that the Democratic faction would control the state.

Territorial Assembly Votes to Ask for Statehood » The Arkansas News

Arkansas Advocate  Robert Crittenden established the Arkansas Advocate, a rival to the Arkansas Gazette.  Crittenden wanted his paper to have the lucrative public printing contract. Woodruff lost the printing contract because the Legislature did not care for him. The editor of the Advocate was Charles P. Bertrand.  In 1831 Crittenden challenged Sevier for his place in Washington D.C.  Albert Pike was also an editor of the Advocate.

 Digest of Laws  was the publication of the Laws of the Territory of Arkansas.  This was a valuable printing contract which the Arkansas Gazette held first.

Statehood  Missouri had entered the Union i 1820 under the Missouri Compromise. (this Compromise provided that a free state and slave state should exist in the Union in equal numbers--so that the Senate would not be dominated by either Free State senators or Slave State senators)  Statehood was an issue in Arkansas but the territory benefited from territorial status in terms of federal monies which would not be available once Arkansas was a state. So some people opposed the rush to statehood.  In 1836 Michigan began to make noises about statehood.  Sevier, Woodruff and Pike all began to promote statehood.   It was reasoned that if Arkansas did not come into the union at this time with Michigan, a Free state, then Arkansas' entry might be delayed  more than 10 or 20 years.