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The history of slavery in Arkansas began in the 1790s, before the Louisiana Purchase made the land territory of the United States. [1] Arkansas was a slave state from its establishment in 1836 until the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1865. [ 1 ]
The Union-occupied territories of Louisiana [8] and eastern Virginia, [9] which had been exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation, also abolished slavery through state constitutions drafted in 1864. The State of Arkansas, which was not exempt but came partly under Union control by 1864, adopted an anti-slavery constitution in March of that ...
With the statehood of Arkansas in 1836, the number of slave states grew to 13, but the statehood of Michigan in 1837 maintained the balance between slave and free states. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed just before the U.S. Constitution was ratified, had prohibited slavery in the federal Northwest Territory.
On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation—but despite popular cultural opinion, it did not actually end slavery in the United States.
Historian David W. Blight points out that, although the idea of an executive order to act as a second Emancipation Proclamation "has been virtually forgotten," the manifesto that King and his associates produced calling for an executive order showed his "close reading of American politics" and recalled how moral leadership could have an effect ...
As the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln to free all slaves being held in states at war with the Union, the envisioned "Second Emancipation Proclamation" was to use the powers of the executive office to strike a severe blow to segregation.
The Republican Party was dominant in Arkansas, and nearly all African Americans supported the party as it was seen as the party of abolition and emancipation. In 1868, the Arkansas State Constitution was rewritten to give Black people the right to vote and hold office, making Arkansas the first former Confederate state to do so.
Arkansas was a member of the Confederacy during the war, and provided troops, supplies, and military and political leaders. Arkansas became the 25th state of the United States on June 15, 1836, entering as a slave state. Antebellum Arkansas was still a wilderness in most areas, rural and sparsely populated.