Part Eight: The Brooks-Baxter War. Welcome to Clayton County is a limited weekly column exploring the life of General Powell Clayton, the original namesake of our county, our early history, and why we are not called Clayton County today.

In the 1872 election for his successor, Senator Clayton and his loyal followers supported Republican Judge Elisha Baxter over the talented anti-Clayton Republican candidate Joseph Brooks. The platform of the two candidates did not greatly differ and the contest was mostly based on personal loyalties and sectionalism. The first contested election for Arkansas Governor since the end of the Civil War was horribly bitter and divisive with widespread allegations of voter fraud. Baxter emerged victorious but the matter was immediately appealed to the courts by Brooks and his supporters. These motions were denied, but with such a sharp split in the Republican party, Baxter felt the need to reach across the aisle to Democrats to shore up his support. Governor Baxter promised in his inaugural address that his election would “mark the commencement of a new era of peace and good feeling in the history of Arkansas” and that he would end voting restrictions for former Confederates and sympathizers. Baxter placed before voters an amendment to the Arkansas constitution to end disenfranchisement in March of 1873 and it passed handily. He also used his vast power of appointments to begin appointing conservatives and democrats to positions across the state. In April, due to appointments and resignations, 40 seats in the Arkansas legislature were up for special election and Democrats won almost all of the contests, giving them the majority.

Senator Clayton was appalled by the actions of Baxter and lost confidence in him. He thought Baxter’s reforms were giving over the government to the enemy, and he decided to bring his influence to bear. In April 1874 he pressed a Pulaski County judge to bring up the old Brooks v. Baxter election case and in a new decision Brooks was declared to have won the 1872 election. Brooks was then sworn in as Governor, and with a posse in tow, threw Baxter out of the Governor’s Mansion, who then set up a government- in-exile. The result of this upheaval was the Brooks-Baxter War, a miniature civil war between both factions claiming the governorship. Both sides scrambled to secure arms and ammunition as well as artillery. The conflict had at once the air of an intense standoff and a carnival atmosphere. Bands played night and day outside of each headquarters, street vendors hawked wares to the crowds of onlookers and city saloons made a killing. In skirmishes between the belligerents and assaults on steamboats carrying reinforcements, an estimated 200 people died in the farcical conflict. Most Arkansans cared less about which Republican was governor but more concerned that stability and order could be returned to the state. In May, President Ulysses S. Grant signaled his support for Baxter and the conflict was settled. In the aftermath a new Constitutional Convention was called that established the 1874 Constitution which diluted the powerful governor’s office, made most state offices elected instead of appointed, and gave civil and political rights to all men regardless of race. Senator Clayton tried to reverse this new constitution by introducing a resolution to create the Poland Committee, a U.S. House committee to investigate the circumstances of Baxter’s election and the new constitution, however the commission decided against Clayton and declined to intervene, settling the issue. Clayton’s prominent role in the conflict gained him infamy but he saw it as the only way to save the Republican Party. In 1914 he bitterly wrote that “from the moment that Elisha Baxter surrendered the state government to the Democrats that party became and has remained supreme in the state.” Sources cited: “The Honorable Powell Clayton” by William H. Burnside, pages 53-56. “With Fire and Sword” by Thomas A. DeBlack, pages 216-226.