Many of Clayton's claims are disputed, but let's assume they are all true. There is little question that political violence was widespread. At issue is Clayton's portrayal of the violence as a monolithic conspiracy by the Ku Klux Klan, a clandestine army that Clayton characterizes as virtually synonymous with the Democratic Party. In truth there was little that was monolithic about the Conservatives in 1868. The hardships of war had robbed the pre-war secessionists of much of their legitimacy. Only Thomas Hindman would emerge as any sort of political force in the postwar era and he was soon assassinated. David Walker and the old line Whigs were urging non-cooperation and boycotting the political process entirely.
To the extent the Democrats had clear cut leaders they were Augustus Garland and William Woodruff, Jr., the editor of the Gazette. While the Gazette tended to portray Conservative violence as understandable, the paper seemed more interested in refuting Republican exaggerations and false claims. Woodruff never went so far as to endorse violence as a legitimate or viable policy. For his part Garland clearly considered violence counterproductive. For example, the troubles in Conway County that Clayton alluded to actually began as a quarrel between Radical and Conservative freedmen. The militancy of the Radical blacks in turn drew a violent response from white nightriders. When it appeared that the situation might get totally out of hand, Garland accompanied Clayton to Lewisville (now Morrilton) and together they managed to restore the peace.
In those cases where we can attribute leaders to acts of political terror, they invariably prove to be peripheral figures and not mainstream Democratic leaders. In fact many of the outrages cited by Clayton in southwest Arkansas were committed by the so-called "Shelby men," ex-Confederate guerillas associated with the postwar outlaw Cullen Baker. While Cullen Baker and his gang killed dozens, Baker's actions were more accurately those of a psychotic criminal rather than a political activist.
Clayton was also disingenuous when he complained that the Klan was preventing "fair registration." Thirty-eight of Arkansas's fifty-nine counties voted against the Reconstruction constitution even with the disenfranchisments initially imposed by the Radical registrars. This meant that the local governments of nearly two-thirds of the state would be in Conservative hands unless further restrictions were imposed. Registrars did this by barring anyone who had voted against the constitution from voting in future elections. In some counties this amounted to disfranchising nearly 100% of the opposition. Presumably this was the "fair registration" the nightriders opposed.
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