But may we not yet hope and trust in the dispensation of Divine power to overrule the discordant elements for good, and that, by the counsel of the wisdom, virtue, and patriotism of the land, measures may happily be adopted for the restoration of peace and harmony among the brotherhood of States within the Federal Union.
The relations which the Cherokee people sustain toward their white brethren have been established by subsisting treaties with the United States Government, and by them they have placed themselves under the “protection of the United States and of no other sovereign whatever.” They are bound to hold no treaty with any foreign power, or with any individual State, nor with the citizens of any State. On the other hand, the faith of the United States is solemnly pledged to the Cherokee Nation for the protection of the right and title in the lands, conveyed to them by patent, within their territorial boundaries, as also for the protection of all other of their national and individual rights and interests of persons and property. Thus the Cherokee people are inviolably allied with their white brethren of the United States in war and friends in peace. Their institutions, locality, and natural sympathies are unequivocally with the slave-holding States. And the contiguity of our territory to your State, in connection with the daily, social, and commercial intercourse between our respective citizens, forbids the idea that they should ever be otherwise than steadfast friends.
I am surprised to be informed by Your Excellency that “it is well established that the Indian country west of Arkansas is looked to by the incoming administration of Mr. Lincoln as fruitful fields ripe for the harvest of abolitionism, free-soilers, and Northern mountebanks.” As I am sure that the laborers will be greatly disappointed if they shall expect in the Cherokee country “fruitful fields ripe for the harvest of abolitionism,” &c., you may rest assured that the Cherokee people will never tolerate the propagation of any obnoxious fruit upon their soil.
And in conclusion I have the honor to reciprocate the salutation of friendship.
I am, sir, very respectfully, Your Excellency’s obedient servant,
Jno. Ross, Principal Chief Cherokee Nation.[180]
The Arkansas state convention, sanctioned by popular vote, met, by authority of the governor’s proclamation, March fourth. Its members were inclined to temporize, however; for, as Harrell says, they were coöperationists[181] rather than secessionists and their policy of temporizing they carried out even in the provision made for reassembling after adjournment. David Walker, the president of the convention, was out of sympathy with this; and, at the first news of the attack upon Fort Sumter and while passion and excitement were still at fever heat, called[182] an extra session for the sixth of May. The regular session was not to come until the nineteenth of August. Coincidently Governor Rector again showed where his sympathies lay by refusing[183] President Lincoln’s call for troops.
The Arkansas Ordinance of Secession was passed on the sixth of May. S. R. Cockrell had proved himself a good prophet; for, writing jubilantly to L. P. Walker, on the twenty-first of April, on the progress of secession, he had said,[184] “Arkansas will go out 6th of May before breakfast. The Indians come next.” His closing remark had some foundation for its utterance. Intelligent and prominent Indians were to be found in the very ranks of the Arkansas secessionists. E. C. Boudinot, a Cherokee, an enemy and rival of John Ross, and later Cherokee delegate in the Confederate Congress, was secretary[185] of the convention. M. Kennard, a leading and a principal Creek chief, seems also to have been influential. The alliance of the Indians was yet being sought.[186]
The secession ordinance once safely launched, the Arkansas convention turned its attention without equivocation to Indian concerns. On the tenth of May, for instance, it followed the example set by Texas and passed a resolution,[187] authorizing the president of the convention to appoint three delegates to visit Indian Territory. The men appointed were, S. L. Griffith of Sebastian County (the same man, interestingly enough to whom the United States government had recently offered[188] the Southern Superintendency), J. Murphy of Madison County, and G. W. Laughinghouse of St. Francis County. Two of these counties were on or near the border. Sebastian was on the border and Madison not far inland, so Griffith and Murphy very probably realized the full significance of their mission. On the eleventh of May, the convention tried to pass another resolution,[189] indicative of a community of interests between Arkansas and the Indian country. This resolution failed, but, had it passed, it would have prayed the president of the Confederate States to erect a military department or division out of Arkansas and Indian Territory. As it was, the convention contented itself, on this occasion, with empowering[190] Brigadier-general Pearce[191] to coöperate with Brigadier-general McCulloch.[192] It took this action on the twenty-first of May and on the twenty-eighth it received a communication[193] from Elias Rector concerning the Choctaws and Chickasaws.
Almost simultaneously with this legislative activity, solicitation of the Indians came from yet other directions. On the eighth of May, Brigadier-general B. Burroughs of the Arkansas militia took it upon himself to make an appeal to the Chickasaws, which he did in this wise: