Statehood and Antebellum Arkansas
See also: The Family (Arkansas politics)The question of statehood was first raised by National Republican Benjamin Desha in 1831 in the Little Rock Arkansas Advocate. This position was contrary to the Democrats' (and The Family) who feared that the taxation required to maintain state government would be too high on the sparse population. Ambrose Sevier shared this concern about high taxes, however his inability to vote with Andrew Jackson against the Whigs to defeat the National Bank and various economic policies eventually made him more amenable to statehood. When it was announced that Michigan would be applying for statehood as a free state, Sevier knew the abolitionists would have an advantage in the U.S. Senate unless Arkansas also entered as a slave state. Both states applied for statehood, and both were initially denied by congressional Whigs because they were Democratic strongholds. Arkansas and Michigan both began to draw up state constitutions despite the ruling.
The issue of representation again brought up the topic of slavery when southeast Arkansas proposed a three-fifths rule in order to count the scores of slaves held in the region. Northwest Arkansas wanted to proportion the congressional districts based on only free white men, which would give them a political advantage. Eventually a geographic compromise was struck, with eight representatives from the northwest, eight representatives from the southeast, and one from a central district. After this compromise was approved, the Arkansas Constitution was sent to Washington for approval. After lengthy debate in the House over the slavery issue, the Arkansas Constitution passed after a 25 hour session. President Andrew Jackson approved the bill creating the State of Arkansas on June 15, 1836.
Read more about this topic: History Of Arkansas
Famous quotes containing the words statehood, antebellum and/or arkansas:
“We’re for statehood. We want statehood because statehood means the protection of our farms and our fences; and it means schools for our children; and it means progress for the future.”
—Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
“The man who would change the name of Arkansas is the original, iron-jawed, brass-mouthed, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of the Ozarks! He is the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the smallpox on his mother’s side!”
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)