Let Us Have Peace

by Logan H. Roots

It is now, though, nearly four years since the happy moment arrived when he considered the struggle ended. We all proudly felt that henceforth free speech and free men were to be as universal south of Mason and Dixon’s line as they long had been north. It was at that happy period that Mr. Hinds was allured by the genial clime and inviting features of the Southwest to make his home in Arkansas, and engaged in the practice of his profession with an assiduity that received merited success.

Alas! it was not long until the fact was developed that the fierce fires built on human oppression to destroy and keep destroyed the relations of the State to the nation were not extinguished, but only smoldering; compressed and changed, but not abated. When this fact was developed, and the question arose as to whether or not Arkansas should make an effort to regain her lost sisterhood in the great family of States, notwithstanding the odium and dangers with which those who had severed the State from her proper relations cast about such a course, James Hinds became an earnest advocate of her return to the loyal household. Elected to the Constitutional Convention by one of the largest majorities in the State, he soon became recognized as one of the prominent leaders, and to him the humble, toiling citizen of that State owes a debt of gratitude he can never repay; for in the construction of the fundamental law of the State he was most active in the introduction and riveting of those points which are barriers of protection for the many weak against the few strong, and for the securing to the humblest all the rights of citizenship granted to the proudest.

After the adjournment of the convention and the submittal of its work to the people, he was elected by a remarkably large vote to a seat in this body, and even in the brief period of his presence here he exhibited a lively interest in the welfare of the State and indefatigable efforts to promote her good without failing to strive for the greatest weal of the whole nation.

Immediately upon the closing of the summer session he went to his home and entered vigorously into the canvass for freedom, peace, and prosperity against caste, oppression, revolution, and murder. I know, sirs, many of you may think that the party which Mr. Hinds opposed was equally anxious for peace with the party whose principles he espoused. That might have been the case in other places, but in Arkansas, at least, their acts showed that the Republican party advocated peace with a desire that the beloved white-winged spirit of peace might settle and abide in the land. But when the Democracy did for a moment advocate peace, their desire seemed to be for pieces of Radical skulls. To advocate real peace was not entering upon a holiday pleasure excursion, but was to brave death and tread on the very verge of eternity. All this James Hinds knew, yet faltered not. A few days before his death he wrote to a friend:

“We must win the election, stand a fight, or leave the State, and it is sad to think that many of our number, perhaps myself included, must be murdered before seeing the ides of November, to know whether we win, fight, or leave.”

On the day of his murder he was in a county which he considered less dangerous than some through which he had traversed, and he so expressed himself, but added:

“With men all over the country bound by terrible oaths to take Radical lives, we do not know where there is any safety. Oh! it is terrible. But it may be that it is all for the best, for they say the ‘blood of the martyr is the seed of the church,’ and it may be that the loyal blood now drenching this land will arouse those criminally timid men who had the power and withheld the grant of arms to our State authorities, and arouse the patriotic masses to realize it is the nation’s duty to protect the nation’s citizens.”

Oh! little did he think at that moment that ere the sunlight of that beautiful October day should give way to the cold dew of night his own soul would be driven from his body by the cold damp of death. He was traveling with Hon. Joseph Brooks, another tried and valiant soldier in the great cause of freedom and equal rights. They were to speak that day about six miles from the village of Indian Bay. They had been refused passage on a steamboat because they were Radicals, and so were belated. Some hundreds of eager, expectant Republicans were awaiting their arrival. To this meeting the officers of the Democratic club had gone as advocates of the adoption of “joint peace resolutions.” The Republicans said that several Radicals had then recently been killed in the county and no Democrats; and therefore they thought if the Democracy had suddenly acquired a desire for peace no resolutions were necessary; but although some of them thought it merely a cloak for Democratic villany, they were willing to bind themselves in resolutions to do what they intended doing anyhow, and they therefore unanimously adopted the resolutions. One of the principle signers and most apparently earnest advocates was George W. Clark, secretary of the Democratic club. But as soon as he had signed them he returned to his home, arriving there before Messrs Brooks and Hinds had reached that far, and himself gave the fated ones direction as to the road. When they had ridden on he got his gun, saddled his horse, and rode after them. The intended victims were riding along with their greatest solicitude at the moment, being anxious though to reach the waiting crowd. The horses being differently gaited, Mr. Brooks was at the moment some fifty yards ahead. The man with grayish suit on rode up near, but a very little in the rear of Mr. Hinds, smiling as Judas may have smiled when he kissed his Lord and Master, he engaged in pleasant conversation. For a second the three thus rode on, the victims wholly unsuspecting, and the smiling murderer, with cold-blooded calculation, waiting for a better opportunity to make sure of both. An illustration of the meaning of Democratic peace resolutions is about to be made. The same hand which a few hours before signed peace resolutions now grasps the assassin’s weapon, within a very few feet of Mr. Hinds’ back, the gun is suddenly raised. Click, click, hear the triggers! Oh! the terrible instant! bang, bang, goes the gun. Mr. Brooks’s horse, stung with buck-shot, bounds ahead with a wounded rider, while the second horse madly leaps forward riderless, and James Hinds lies on the ground motionless, dying. Another order of the Ku-Klux-Klan has been executed; smiling with a fiend’s smile upon his features stands the Democratic assassin; the soul of another martyr is sent unshriven before the arbitrator of eternity; dying, shot in the back, lies the Radical Congressman. Would to God the curtain of oblivion might drop over the scene forever!

James Hinds’ spirit has passed from earth, but his life, deeds, and death will not soon pass from memory, so well he lived, so hard he toiled, so young was he gathered into the unseen fold, that when we think of him we cannot avoid to lament that:

“The hand of the reaper