The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-02-18
ArRANsM1ssrssrPPI EMPIRE.

at Mound City, Ark, on Monuay morning, ~
1 o,cl ock. Davis will probably die" So
saws that matter-of-fact, unsentimental chron-
icler, the telegraph. We are not told that it
was out of the usual line of militia duty, espe-
cially in time of peace, to assassinate at mid
night, and then rob the bleeding victims of
the assassination. No tear is shed for the
anticipated bereavement and sorrow of John
Davis's wife and children. No cry of indig-
nation comes from the metallic historian
against the atrocious system of which the
instance here mentioned is but one of the
everyday incidents, and under which the
barbarous minions of petty despot roam
through the State, killing, plundering, rayish-
ing without limit except in the safety of
their criminal appetites. And it is well
There is no need of sentimental comment and
gloss. The impassionate announcement of
the facts serves better to set them forth in
their naked horror, and to illustrate the cool,
calculating, INSCRIPTIONS, remorseless and
sanguinary ambition by which the Arkansas
atrocities are inspired.
Clayton, the so-called civil governor of
Arkansas, commenced his political career as
Kansas jayhawker He served as an officer
in the federal cavalry during the late war. and
after that he settled down and tried the game
of conservative politician. But this being
too slow or too unpromising to suit his pur-
pose, he flung it aside and plunged into the
career of Radicalism as better adapted to the
attainment of his ambitious aims. There can
be no question, judging from his deliberate
and systematic acts, that he designs to depop-
ulate the State of the bulk of its present white
inhabitants, and to repeople it with loyal ne
groes and white Adventures devoted to his
service. He is represented to be man of
more than ordinary intellectual capacity,
totally unfeeline, and at once very audacious
and very plausible Finding that the old
population of Arkansas was not pliable to his
views, and that its passive resistance would
defeat his schemes, he determined to get rid
of it. This was the origin of his numbering,
plundering and ravishing militia. Their mis-
sion is to disorganize society," to organize terror,
and to destroy or drive away all who impede
reconstruction under his dictatorship. His
| policy, in short, is determination, and he
feels confident of his ability to prosecute it to
the utterance. And, judging from the fugitive
activity or the fugitive tendency which he has
spread among all the quiet and peace-loving
| people of the State and on the facility with
which he has been able to justify his most
heartless acts in the sight of the governing
power at Washington, he has plenty of reason
| for this confidence
4 d. ~u1ot SC tba ,,f{;poofa obiaat IF thiq no11-
blooded, pitiless, specious usurper and des-
pot Why does he abhor tranquility? Why
does he study how to promote the misery
and desolation of the State? Why is he bent
on clearing the ground of its present social
superstructure Surely he does not devise
all this for the mere purpose of fortifying
himself in the rather paltry Office of civil
governor of q third or fourth rate frontier
State The theory of an Arkansas Repub-
| lican, as communicated to Western
paper. is more reasonable. Clayton dreams,
says that writer, of erecting a trans
Mississippi empire in which he shall be
the sovereign spirit. 1t may be wild
dream. But Burr and Sam Houston did
not conceive it to lie beyond the bounds of
rational speculation. Nothing, in fact is more
natural than that in troublous and dislo-
Gated time. this thought should visit and fas-
cinate bold, fertile and INSCRIPTIONS mind.
Of course, the sovereignty of the new empire
would not be declared at once. The part Of
the supreme conspirator in such design
would be to await opportunities and to take
advantage of events; to study the immediate
| . % ko1-a
forward one, and only when assured
| of holding it and not to disclose the final
object aimed at until Ill the seeming condi-
tons of success were secured. When we re-
member that Arkansas, Texas, the Indian
territory, and New Mexico include wide re-
gions geographically isolated in respect to
other parts of the country, we may imagine
how formidable a stand the populations of
those regions if united under one able and
ambitious head, might make in support of a
new sovereignty west of the Mississippi,
though they might be for the most part mon
grel and semi-savage broods, combining me-
| gro, Indian, Astec, mestizo. But the new
empire would not be confined to the
regions indicated. Northern Mexico, by its
geographical relations and by the character
and temper Of its population, would naturally
come within the same jurisdiction. The
political brigands of that country who are not
content with their own republic, and who yet
abhor the idea of annexation on any terms
with the United States, are admirably adapted
to act as coadjutors with Clayton's militia,
and would undoubtedly relish an overture to
coalesce with him and his Immediate ad-
herents in grand scheme of imperial brig
andism.
This may look like an extravagant fancy.
Well, be it SO. But stranger things have
happened in history than the realization of the
fanciful conjecture. And, most unquestion-
ably, whatever tends to break up the frame
work of society and civilization in the South
west, whatever tends to place this section at
the mercy of barbarous populations swayed
by INSCRIPTIONS leaders, whatever tends to
. | III a.