Editing Albert Pike (section)

===Mexican–American War===
When the [[Mexican–American War]] started, Pike joined the Arkansas Mounted Infantry Regiment and was commissioned as a company commander with the rank of captain in June 1846. With his regiment, he fought in the [[Battle of Buena Vista]]. Pike was discharged in June 1847. He and his commander, Colonel [[John Selden Roane]], had several differences of opinion. This situation led finally to an "inconclusive" [[duel]] between Pike and Roane on July 29, 1847, near Fort Smith, Arkansas.<ref name="Eicher429">Eicher, John H., aer (2001) ''Civil War High Commands''. Stanford: Stanford University Press. {{ISBN|0-8047-3641-3}}. p. 429</ref> Although several shots were fired in the duel, nobody was injured, and the two were persuaded by their seconds to discontinue it.<ref name="allsopp">{{cite web| url = https://archive.org/details/lifestoryofalber00allsrich| title = <!-- quote=albert pike. --> Allsopp, Frederick William. ''A Life of Albert Pike'', Parke-Harper news service, 1920| year = 1920| publisher = Little Rock, Ark., Parke-Harper news service}}</ref>

After the war, Pike returned to the practice of law, moving to [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]] for a time beginning in 1853.<ref name=EncycArkansas/> He wrote another book, ''Maxims of the Roman Law and Some of the Ancient French Law, as Expounded and Applied in Doctrine and Jurisprudence''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Walter Lee |title=A life of Albert Pike |publisher=University of Arkansas Press |year=1997 |isbn=1557284695 |location=Fayetteville |pages=61, 240, 302, 408}}</ref> Although unpublished, this book increased his reputation among his associates in law. He returned to Arkansas in 1857, gaining some amount of prominence in the legal field.

At the Southern Commercial Convention of 1854, Pike said the South should remain in the Union and seek equality with the North, but if the South "were forced into an inferior status, she would be better out of the Union than in it."<ref>Potter, David Morris and Edward, Don (1976) ''The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861''. HarperCollins. p. 467</ref> His stand was that state's rights superseded national law and he supported the idea of a Southern secession. This stand is made clear in his pamphlet of 1861, "State or Province, Bond or Free?"<ref name=EncycArkansas/>