Powell Clayton
Powell Foulk Clayton was an American politician, diplomat, and businessman who served as the ninth governor of Arkansas from 1868 to 1871, as a Republican United States Senator for Arkansas from 1871 to 1877 and as United States Ambassador to Mexico from 1897 to 1905.
During the American Civil War, he served as a senior officer of United States Volunteers and commanded cavalry in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. After the war, he married a woman from Arkansas, purchased a plantation and settled in Jefferson County. He was active in the Arkansas Republican Party and became governor after military rule was lifted and the Arkansas state constitution was ratified by Congress. He was viewed as a carpetbagger and implemented martial law in Arkansas for four months due to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and violence against African-Americans and Republicans. The Arkansas Republican Party splintered during Clayton's governorship. Clayton and his followers were known as Minstrels and a more conservative faction led by Joseph Brooks were known as Brindletails. The power struggle between the groups resulted in the impeachment of Clayton in 1871 and the Brooks-Baxter War.
Clayton was elected to the U.S. Senate for Arkansas in March 1871. A U.S. Senate Joint Select Committee investigated him for claims made by his political rivals that he issued fraudulent election credentials during his time as governor. He was acquitted of these charges. In 1877, the legislature came under the control of Democrats after Reconstruction, who voted to replace Clayton. He returned to Arkansas from Washington, D.C., where he remained active in the Republican National Committee. He helped William McKinley receive the Republican nomination for president in 1896. After McKinley's victory, Clayton was rewarded for his support with an appointment as Ambassador to Mexico.
In 1882, Clayton established a home in the developing resort town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. He was president of the Eureka Springs Improvement Company and worked to develop commercial and residential properties. In 1883, he became president of the Eureka Springs Railroad, which provided rail service to the developing community. He died in Washington, D.C., in 1914 and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Early life and career
Powell Foulk Clayton was born in Bethel Township, Pennsylvania, to John and Ann Clayton. The Clayton family was descended from early Quaker settlers of Pennsylvania. Clayton's ancestor William Clayton emigrated from Chichester, England, was a personal friend and associate of William Penn, and was appointed as one of nine justices who sat at the Upland Court in 1681.Clayton attended the Forwood School in Wilmington, Delaware and the Pennsylvania Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy in Bristol, Pennsylvania. He later studied civil engineering in Wilmington.
In 1855, he moved to Kansas to work as a surveyor. He speculated in land in Kansas. He entered politics when he successfully ran for the office of city engineer in Leavenworth, Kansas, in either 1859 or 1860.
American Civil War
In May 1861 Clayton was formally mustered into the U.S. Volunteers as a captain of Company E in the 1st Kansas Infantry. During the war he served primarily in Arkansas and Missouri and fought in several battles in those states. In August 1861, Clayton received a commendation for his leadership when his unit saw action in the Battle of Wilson's Creek in Missouri. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 5th Kansas Cavalry in December 1861 and to colonel in March 1862.At the Battle of Helena in Arkansas on July 4, 1863, Clayton was in charge of the cavalry brigade on the right flank of the Union forces. He received commendations for his actions during the battle. In August and September 1863, Clayton's regiment accompanied Major General Frederick Steele's troops in the campaign against Little Rock.
In October 1863, Clayton commanded federal troops occupying Pine Bluff, Arkansas, using the Boone-Murphy House as his headquarters. During the Battle of Pine Bluff, he successfully repulsed a three-pronged Confederate attack of the forces of Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke. During the battle, his troops piled cotton bales around the Jefferson County Courthouse and surrounding streets to make a barricade for the Union defenders. He also made several forays around Little Rock, including to support Steele during the Camden Expedition in the spring of 1864.
Clayton was idolized by his men and respected by his enemies. John Edwards, a Confederate officer in Joseph O. Shelby's command wrote: "Colonel Clayton was an officer of activity and enterprise, clear-headed, quick to conceive, and bold and rapid to execute. His success in the field has caused him...to be considered the ablest Federal commander of Cavalry west of the Mississippi."
Clayton was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers on August 1, 1864. When he was mustered out of the service in August 1865, he commanded the cavalry division of the Seventh Army Corps. While still in command at Pine Bluff, Clayton invested in cotton. He acquired enough funds to purchase a plantation in Jefferson County, Arkansas, where he resided after the war.
After the war, Clayton became a Companion of the First Class of the Missouri Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
Political career
Governor of Arkansas: 1868–1871
In 1867, Clayton participated in the formation of the Arkansas Republican party. He entered Arkansas politics due his belief that Unionists needed additional protection after several confrontations with ex-Rebels on his plantation.In 1866, Democrats took control of the state legislature and nominated two U.S. Senators. However, the Republican-controlled Congress refused to seat them. In March 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 declaring the governments of Arkansas and nine other former Confederate states illegal and requiring those states to adopt new constitutions providing civil rights to freedmen. Military rule was established across the South during Congressional Reconstruction. General Edward Ord was appointed military governor of the Fourth Military District which included Arkansas. The Arkansas legislature was disbanded and Ord called for a constitutional convention.
Most of the delegates to the 1868 constitutional convention were Republican since few Democrats could take the "ironclad oath" that they had not served in the Confederacy, or provided aid or comfort to the enemy. Although Clayton was not a delegate to the constitutional convention, he did participate in the Republican state nominating convention which was meeting at the same time.
Clayton was selected as the Republican gubernatorial nominee and James M. Johnson as the candidate for lieutenant governor.
The ratification of the 1868 constitution, providing civil rights and the vote to freedmen, produced a furor among Democrats, who adhered to white supremacist beliefs. That Spring the Ku Klux Klan arose in Arkansas, and was responsible for more than 200 murders leading up to the 1868 election.
On April 1, 1868, the state board of election commissioners announced ratification of the constitution and Clayton's election as Governor of Arkansas. Congress accepted the Arkansas constitution of 1868 as legal. Democratic President Andrew Johnson vetoed it, but the Republican-dominated Congress overrode his veto. The state was readmitted to representation in Congress when Clayton was inaugurated as Governor on July 2, 1868. The new legislature unanimously accepted the Fourteenth Amendment, and Congress declared Arkansas reconstructed.
As governor, Clayton faced fierce opposition from the state's conservative political leaders and violence against blacks and members of the Republican party led by the Ku Klux Klan. During this time Arkansas Republican Congressman James Hinds was attacked and killed while on his way to a political event, and Clayton survived an attempt on his life. An agent of Clayton was killed by a group of men led by Dandridge McRae and Jacob Frolich, the leaders of the White County, Arkansas chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Clayton responded aggressively to the emergence of the Klan in Arkansas by declaring martial law in fourteen counties for four months in late 1868 and early 1869. Clayton organized the state militia and placed General Daniel Phillips Upham in charge to help suppress violence throughout the state.
During his three-year term as governor, Clayton and the Republicans in the legislature passed many laws. Money was borrowed to fund the construction of several railroads throughout the state. The first ever free public school system in Arkansas was initiated during Clayton's governorship. The Clayton administration also established Arkansas Industrial University, the Arkansas School for the Deaf, and relocated the Arkansas School for the Blind.
Brooks-Baxter War
During Clayton's Reconstruction governorship, the Arkansas Republican party splintered in the face of serious opposition from conservatives. Clayton and his supporters were known locally as "Minstrels", they dominated the Republican party and were able to secure recognition from the National Republican organization and control the federal patronage in the state. This position garnered Clayton few friends at the state Republican party level and he faced repeated challenges to his leadership. The affair has become known as the Brooks-Baxter War.In 1868, Joseph Brooks who had been a partner with Clayton in the formation of the Arkansas Republican party, broke with Clayton and formed a faction known as the "Brindletails". Brooks' opposition to Clayton developed partly due to Clayton's increasingly moderate stance toward ex-Confederates but also due to Clayton's displacement of Brooks as leader of the Arkansas Republican party.
In 1869, Lieutenant Governor James M. Johnson charged Clayton with corruption in the issuance of railroad bonds and misuse of power in his program to suppress violence. The supporters of Johnson, mostly white Republicans from Northwest Arkansas called themselves Liberal Republicans. The Brindletails impeached Clayton in 1871; however, the legislature never heard the case against him and he withstood the challenge.