REMEMBERING ARKANSAS : Political campaigns in 1860, 1888 were down and dirty
Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008
May is Arkansas Heritage Month. The Department of Arkansas Heritage, which sponsors the celebration, has chosen the theme “Arkansas’s Political Heritage: The People Rule” for the 2008 event. The department’s Old State House Museum in downtown Little Rock kicked off the month-long celebration on April 25 by opening an exhibit titled “A Circus Hitched to a Tornado: Arkansas Politics in the 20 th Century.” A Saturday Evening Post reporter used the “Circus” phrase to describe the 1932 campaign in which Hattie Caraway became the first woman to win election to the U. S. Senate. That campaign, which involved Louisiana political boss and populist Sen. Huey Long making a whirlwind campaign through Arkansas on behalf of his “little widder woman” friend Hattie Caraway, was indeed a shining example of the colorful nature of Arkansas political history.
My goal is to summarize the handful of classic political contests in 19 thcentury Arkansas — the clash of the partisan titans. In these contests only one winner could walk or limp away.
I have already written about some of these great campaigns, such as the classic contest for Congress in 1844 between the incorruptible if formidable Whig David Walker of Fayetteville and his crosstown foe, the gregarious Democrat Archibald Yell. This campaign demonstrated early on in Arkansas history that moral rectitude and knowledge in the law will never carry the day when opposed by a back-slapping populist such as Yell, who was not above drinking and wagering on Saturday night only to show up in the amen corner at church the next morning.
Arkansas politics before the Civil War were dominated by a group of men from the Johnson-Conway-Sevier families. Related either by blood or marriage, the “Family” usually controlled the governorship and the congressional delegation.
In 1860, that momentous year in which Lincoln and Douglas were vying for the presidency, the Democratic state convention nominated one of the bestknown members of the Family, Richard H. Johnson, for governor. Suddenly and unexpectedly, a renegade from the edges of the Family, Henry Massie Rector of Saline County, announced as an independent Democrat.
Rector had benefited previously from his association with the Family, having served with Family support in both houses of the Legislature as well as a brief stint on the state Supreme Court. But he was ambitious and joined the fledgling anti-Family forces.
Rector was effective in shaping public perception. He portrayed himself as “a poor, honest farmer of Saline County,” though he mostly lived in Little Rock, where he was a successful lawyer.
This was a dramatic contest between two experienced politicians of great ambition. Johnson was tied to the failed Arkansas state banking system, which had left the new state heavily in debt. Rector, a lawyer, farmer and speculator, was an effective speaker — though he could wander into flights such as this: “I stand on my pedestal, shorn of the abominations and malpractices whereon they relied to cast the nomination upon the present nominee of the Democratic party.” Johnson, by contrast, was described by one editor as “slow, dry and prosy.” The 1860 gubernatorial campaign might be the first in which political cartoons were published. William “Cush” Quesenbury of Fayetteville published wood block cartoons depicting Rector as a grasshopper.
Historian Michael B. Dougan of Jonesboro has written that the 1860 gubernatorial election “resembled some of the territorial contests in its vulgarity and dirty politics.” This was made worse by the fratricidal nature of the conflict.
When the votes were counted, Rector emerged with 31, 948 votes to 28, 487 for Johnson.
Probably the most corrupt election in Arkansas history occurred in 1888, when the conservative Democratic Party resorted to intimidation, violence and ballot theft to hold off a surging farmer-labor-Republican coalition. This unlikely coalition chose a one-legged Confederate veteran and state senator from Nevada County as its gubernatorial nominee, C. M. Norwood. The Democrats knew they were in trouble and took 126 ballots before nominating James P. Eagle over incumbent Gov. Simon P. Hughes, who was seeking a third term. The nomination of Eagle, a prominent Baptist lay leader from Lonoke County, allowed the Democrats to present a new and untainted leader.
Historians now believe that Norwood won the governorship in 1888, but the election was stolen for Eagle. In Pulaski County alone, 6, 000 bogus ballots disappeared after being counted. Violence occurred in Crittenden and other counties. One result of the 1888 election was a movement to eliminate threats to the Democratic Party, resulting in the disfranchisement of most blacks and a large number of poor whites within five years.
Next week I will discuss some of the great political contests of the 20 th century. Tom W. Dillard is the founding editor of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture (www. encyclopediaofarkansas. net ) and head of the Special Collections Department at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. E-mail him at tdillar@uark. edu.
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