Introducing Fishback the Repudiator
Though he is little known today, Gov. William M. Fishback was one of the most recognized and polarizing political leaders in post-Civil War Arkansas.
Though his gubernatorial administration was lackluster, Fishback successfully led the movement to repudiate the state’s debt in 1884. Known as “the Great Repudiator,” he ruined Arkansas’ already shaky credit worthiness, then promoted an issue which divided the years.
William Meade Fishback was born Nov. 5, 1831, in Culpeper County, Va., the first of nine children born to Frederick and Sophia Yates Fishback. He grew up in a prosperous family and attended the University of Virginia, graduating in 1855. Like many young men of that era, Fishback worked as a teacher while reading law.
Relocating to Springfield, Ill., in 1857, Fishback was admitted to the bar. He was fortunate to make an acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln, a Springfield lawyer who referred work to Fishback. The following year Fishback relocated again, this time to the western frontier town of Fort Smith, soon setting up a law practice in nearby Greenwood.
Arkansas prospered during the 1850s, but that would come to a halt with the outbreak of the Civil War. Fishback was an active unionist and was elected to the state convention called to consider secession. Like most of the delegates, he voted against secession until the firing on Fort Sumter, when he reluctantly voted with the secessionists.
In later years Fishback explained his vote by saying he thought the secession of all the Southern states would force the North to accept a supposed compromise proposed by U.S. Sen. John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. His support for the Crittenden proposals, which would have provided constitutional protection for slavery, demonstrated Fishback’s lack of concern for enslaved human beings.
With pro-war mania then sweeping Arkansas, including Fort Smith, Fishback was forced to flee north to Missouri, where he took the oath of allegiance to the Union. He moved to St. Louis where he edited a newspaper and became involved in unionist politics.
When Little Rock fell to Union troops in September 1863, Fishback accepted the colonelcy of a regiment of Arkansas unionists, though he never served with the unit. He did, however, establish a newspaper in Little Rock, the Unconditional Union.
Fishback worked with unionists Isaac Murphy and Elisha Baxter to create a new and loyal government for Arkansas. The late historian Harry Readnour has noted that “Fishback was instrumental in writing the Loyalist Constitution of 1864, referred to by some as the ‘Fishback Constitution.’” The problem with that constitution was a provision restricting voting to white men.
That provision—along with Fishback’s voting for secession—would come back to haunt him a few months later when he was elected along with Elisha Baxter to serve in the U.S. Senate. Radical Republicans in Congress refused to seat either man, and questioned Fishback’s claims to loyalty. Historian Michael B. Dougan believes that refusing to seat the Arkansas senators “seriously compromised President Abraham Lincoln’s plan for restoring states to the Union.”
After serving briefly as a federal treasury agent, Fishback moved back to Fort Smith. In April 1867 he married Adelaide Miller, the daughter of a prominent Fort Smith merchant. They had six children before Adelaide died in December 1882. Fishback never remarried, and his children were mostly raised by relatives, though they apparently remained close to their father.
Fishback became disenchanted with Reconstruction and eventually switched to the Democratic Party. He was elected a delegate to the 1874 constitutional convention where he became an irritant by his constant lobbying for a provision preventing the state from paying certain debts which Fishback considered corrupt or unjust.
Though this first effort failed, Fishback persevered and was on his way to being known as the Great Repudiator.
Historian Garland E. Bayliss has noted that the bonded indebtedness “had a long and undistinguished career as an irritant to the body politic of Arkansas.” The debt consisted of two parts: bonds sold in the late 1830s to create the state’s first two banks, and bonds authorized during Reconstruction for the construction of railroads and levees.
The banking venture was a dismal failure. While the Panic of 1837 played a role in the rapid failures of both banks, corruption and poor management tarred both. Outraged, in 1844 the citizens of Arkansas adopted a constitutional amendment outlawing banks in the state, the first constitutional amendment in state history.
The Reconstruction era bonds were another matter altogether. At the end of the Civil War Arkansas had only about 80 miles of railroad, consisting of two unconnected sections. During Reconstruction $5 million-plus in railroad bonds were issued, and 662 miles of track were laid, although 249 miles of that total were built without public support. Levee construction, for which some $3 million in bonds had been issued, was a failure.
The Reconstruction Republicans also voted to fully fund the state’s debt, including the old bank bonds, which had been bought by an English speculator named Holford. By the end of Reconstruction, debt amounted to more than $12 million, a vast sum for an impoverished state.
While Fishback’s efforts in the 1874 constitutional convention did not bear fruit, his ensuing service in the state Legislature gave him many opportunities to make the case for repudiation. However, he faced many powerful opponents, including U.S. Sen. Augustus H. Garland and numerous businessmen who worried about the state’s future credit needs.
Fishback, though out of the Legislature, had plenty of allies, and in 1884 the Legislature referred a proposed constitutional amendment to the voters to prohibit paying off the Holford bonds as well as the Reconstruction era railroad and levee bonds.
Responsible state leaders and businessmen mounted a valiant campaign against repudiation, with Senator Garland saying such an act would be a “blunder if not the crowning crime of the age.” Still, the amendment passed overwhelmingly, 104,314 to 30,984.
The success of the repudiation campaign did not translate into lasting political success for Fishback. He was not elected governor until 1892, and his campaign for re-election—during which he was also angling for an appointment to the U.S. Senate—was a failure.
He practiced law in Fort Smith until he had a stroke and died in February 1903. He was buried in Oak Cemetery in Fort Smith.