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

[5] planting interest for their own profit, or destroy it through the liberation of the slaves. The planters had been worked up to a white heat by the utterances of Mr. Lincoln in his debate with Douglas, and the unprovoked descent of Osawatamie Brown, backed, as they believed, clandestinely by a very powerful element of ethicopolit-ical leaders at the seats of influence in the North. The legislative representatives of the cotton counties looked with suspicion upon the unusual removal of a battery of artillery to the State capital while they were engaged in deliberations which they wished to be far removed from every semblance of coercion.

Governor Rector was inaugurated on November 15, 1860. In his inaugural address he counseled moderation in the action of the State government. He hoped for the display of a more conciliatory disposition on the part of the successful candidates in the late Federal election than could be discerned in the unauthorized publication of the press, and in sectional agitation going on in all parts of the common country. But, should the new officers yield to such influences and manifest the same spirit which had caused many powerful States to deliberately violate the compact of the Union, and should the general government take any step to encroach upon the constitutional rights of the Southern States, then the State of Arkansas should place herself in the column with her sister States of the South, and share their destiny.

Governor Rector was a native of St. Louis, Mo., where his father, Col. Elias Rector, had been formerly surveyor-general of the Territory of Missouri, which then included Arkansas. He removed to Arkansas before he arrived at maturity, for the care of landed interests which he had inherited from his father. He was descended, in part, from the Seviers, of Tennessee, and was a relative of Senator, and one time United States Minister, A. H. Sevier, of Arkansas. He resided at Little Rock, after holding several positions, as member of the general