“Actually, one of my sources states that Arkansas did not secede by constitutional or secession convention, but by an act of the legislature, which would be legally defective.”
Hey, lentulusgracchus! I always enjoy your informative posts. Will you please share your Arkanasas source w/me? Quick link below is a decent (but not all inclusive) summary of everything I have. Mine was one of the states literally torn apart, from within, over secession. Of course the slave holders wanted to secede from the state itself @ the 3/4/61 convention. I wouldn’t put an illegal legislative move past them. And my fellow statesmen still keep electing Dumocrats!!!!!!
Thanks for the kind words, but my source in this case is a dead-tree almanac from 25 years ago. It's a decent source, but of course I can only quote not link. Produced by the World Almanac people, it's titled (unsurprisingly) The Civil War Almanac. The credits are slender, being John Bowman ed., Ian Hogg and Antony Preston technical consultants. It has an intro by Henry Steele Commager (liberal barf alert) but no discernible PC bias beyond the usual strain of muted Northern triumphalism, and it has back-cover blurbs from Arthur Schlesinger and William Manchester. The main part of the book is a chronology, followed by two modest technical sections and a biographical section arranged alphabetically. It lacks a bibliography and contributor list but has an index.
There are only two entries for Arkansas secession in the chronology. The statment from May 6, 1861, is that "[a]t Little Rock, Arkansas, the state legislature votes 69-1 in favor of secession." Bald statement, no elaboration. An earlier entry from March 18 says that Arkansas did have a state convention, but that the convention voted against secession but agreed to a later statewide referendum on the question during the summer. I have no later references to political events in Arkansas. The action of the state legislature is the last word on the subject.