Col. John M. Harrell, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 10.2, Arkansas
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

The president of the adjourned convention, Judge David Walker, by authority given him by the convention at its former sitting, called the body by proclamation, April 20th, to convene on May 6, 1861. It met, and on that day an ordinance of secession offered by Porter Grace, of Jefferson county, was adopted by a vote of 65 to 5, of which latter 5 votes, 4 were changed to the affirmative, so that the vote, as footed up, finally stood 69 to 1. That one vote in the negative was persisted in by the delegate from Madison county, Isaac Murphy, who explained that he had pledged his constituents to oppose secession, which he did not believe was the remedy, as he preferred to fight under the old flag as a ‘rebel.’ He was a ‘rebel,’ he said, and would be found fighting to the last in resisting the usurpation of the government. Mr. Murphy, not long before, had come to Arkansas from Indiana, and found an abiding place in the mountainous county of Madison, on the Missouri border. He immediately introduced a resolution authorizing the State to seize the money of the United States in the hands of receivers, and use it for the purchase of arms to put the State on a war footing. But he subsequently went over to the Federals, and was appointed, in 1864, the first governor, practically, under the Lincoln administration, for the reconstruction of the State. John S. Phelps was first appointed provisional governor, but did not qualify or serve.

This action of the convention was an occasion of intense feeling. Citizens seemed to understand the momentous nature of the proceedings. A mighty power had thrown down the gauntlet of war to a State, young in the years of its admission into the Union, only twenty-five, and feeble in population and resources. It owned but few slaves, and did not feel the jealousy of unlawful encroachments