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By Root 1362 0

to Jacob that the convention was reconvening at Little Rock. This time he told Sarah what the other men’s suits had looked like, and she stayed up all night making him one that was fairly like theirs, and the next day he put it on and rode off to Little Rock again. There, Governor Rector gave another fancy one-hour speech, talking about the bombing of a fort called Sumter, and Lincoln’s call for seventy-five thousand volunteers. “I have told him,” Rector said, “that no troops from Arkansas will be furnished. His demand is only adding insult to injury. The people of this commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity our honor, lives, and property against Northern mendacity and usurpation!” The hall and the gallery up above were packed with spectators, almost all of them hollering “SECEDE!” every time the governor paused for breath. Jacob’s former chum the old gent from Ashley County passed a note to him which said, “You have a nerve to show your head here. I doubt you will leave alive.”

After the governor’s speech, almost all the other speeches were strongly in favor of secession. The only one speaking against it was the head delegate, David Walker of Fayetteville, and his speech was apologetic and half-hearted. When he finished he said, “Well, are we ready to vote, or would the delegate from Newton County care to express his views this time?” Jacob coughed and bobbed his Adam’s apple, and then discovered that he was standing up. He tried to sit back down, but couldn’t. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, then took them out and stuffed them back in. Everybody was staring at him. Then he heard himself asking a question: “How many of you fellers has ever been to Newton County?” Only four or five of them raised their hands. “Wal, you know Newton County is so fur off in the mountains we have to wipe the owl shit off the clock to tell what time it is.” All of the delegates laughed, and Jacob heard some tittering up in the gallery; looking up, he noticed there were women there, and he got very red in the face and mumbled, “Sorry, ladies.” Then he went on. “But the folks up yonder have picked me out to represent ’em at this here convention. I reckon they picked me on account of I feel the same way about most things that they do. And here is what I feel. If you fellers that owns slaves wants to secede, that’s yore right and yore privilege, but I could count all the slaves of Newton County on one hand and still have maybe a couple of fingers still standin, and Newton County is stayin in the Union!” There was applause from a small few of the delegates and from somebody up in the gallery. Jacob tried to go on, but the words wouldn’t come, so he sat down.

The governor stood up and said, “May I comment upon that? If Newton County stays in the Union after Arkansas secedes, there will be worse than owl droppings on your clocks!” The delegates laughed, and the governor said, “Let us vote!”

The vote was taken, and there were only four men besides Jacob who stood up to vote “No,” and those four were also from the Ozarks. One of them, David Walker of Fayetteville, said, “If it is inevitable that Arkansas secede, let the wires carry the news to all the world that Arkansas stands as a unit! May we request that you gentlemen withdraw your votes, to make the result unanimous? I will withdraw mine. All right, we shall take the vote again. All in favor of secession, please stand.” Everybody stood up…except Jacob. “All opposed?” Jacob stood, and stood there alone, in awkward silence, while delegates around him cursed him, and a woman up in the gallery flung a bouquet of flowers which fell at Jacob’s feet, and he looked up and smiled at her, and she blew a kiss to him. The head delegate said to him, “For the last time, sir, will you not withdraw your vote, to make the result unanimous?” “I will not,” Jacob said, still standing, and the head delegate said, “Very well. The final tabulation is sixty-nine in favor, one opposed. The convention is adjourned until tomorrow, at which time we will begin the drafting of a