Editing Arkansas (section)

===Civil War and Reconstruction===
{{Main|Ordinance of Secession|Confederate States of America|Arkansas in the American Civil War}}
[[File:Lakeport Plantation, Lake Village, Chicot County, Arkansas.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.3| [[Lakeport Plantation]], built {{circa|1859}}]]
In early antebellum Arkansas, the southeast Arkansas slave-based economy developed rapidly. On the eve of the American Civil War in 1860, enslaved African Americans numbered 111,115 people, just over 25% of the state's population.<ref>[http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php Historical Census Browser, 1860 US Census, University of Virginia] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070823030234/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |date=August 23, 2007 }}. Retrieved March 21, 2008.</ref> A plantation system based largely on cotton agriculture developed that, after the war, kept the state and region behind the nation for decades.<ref>Arnold et al. 2002, p. 135.</ref> The wealth developed among planters of southeast Arkansas caused a political rift between the northwest and southeast.<ref name="bol">Bolton 1999, p. 22.</ref>

Many politicians were elected to office from [[The Family (Arkansas politics)|the Family]], the Southern rights political force in antebellum Arkansas. Residents generally wanted to avoid a civil war. When the Gulf states seceded in early 1861, delegates to a convention called to determine whether Arkansas should secede referred the question back to the voters for a referendum to be held in August.<ref name="bol" /> Arkansas did not secede until [[Abraham Lincoln]] demanded Arkansas troops be sent to [[Fort Sumter]] to quell [[Battle of Fort Sumter|the rebellion there]]. On May 6, the members of the state convention, having been recalled by the convention president, voted to terminate Arkansas's membership in the Union and join the [[Confederate States of America]].<ref name="bol" />

[[File:Cannons from Battle of Pea Ridge, 2016.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Cannons at [[Battle of Pea Ridge]] site]]

Arkansas held a very important position for the Rebels, maintaining control of the [[Mississippi River]] and surrounding Southern states. The bloody [[Battle of Wilson's Creek]] just across the border in Missouri shocked many Arkansans who thought the war would be a quick and decisive Southern victory. Battles early in the war took place in northwest Arkansas, including the [[Battle of Cane Hill]], [[Battle of Pea Ridge]], and [[Battle of Prairie Grove]]. Union general [[Samuel Ryan Curtis|Samuel Curtis]] swept across the state to [[Helena-West Helena, Arkansas|Helena]] in the Delta in 1862. Little Rock was captured the following year. The government shifted the state Confederate capital to [[Hot Springs, Arkansas|Hot Springs]], and then again to [[Washington, Arkansas|Washington]] from 1863 to 1865, for the remainder of the war. Throughout the state, [[guerrilla]] warfare ravaged the countryside and destroyed cities.<ref>Arnold et al. 2002, p. 200.</ref> Passion for the Confederate cause waned after implementation of programs such as the draft, high taxes, and martial law.

Under the [[Reconstruction era#Military Reconstruction|Military Reconstruction Act]], Congress declared Arkansas restored to the Union in June 1868, after the Legislature accepted the 14th Amendment. The Republican-controlled reconstruction legislature established universal male suffrage (though temporarily disfranchising former Confederate Army officers, who were all Democrats), a public education system for blacks and whites, and passed general issues to improve the state and help more of the population. The State soon came under control of the [[Radical Republicans]] and Unionists, and led by Governor [[Powell Clayton]], they presided over a time of great upheaval as Confederate sympathizers and the [[Ku Klux Klan]] fought the new developments, particularly voting rights for African Americans.