Arkansas's ex-Confederate legislature adjourned on March 23, 1867. That same day Congress was passing the second of two Reconstruction Acts over the veto of Andrew Johnson. The acts excluded Tennessee, which had ratified the 14th Amendment. It placed the other Confederate states under martial law, dividing them into five military districts. The army was to conduct a registration of eligible voters that was to include African Americans. The military authorities were also given wide latitude to exclude those who had participated in the Confederacy or who interfered with the registration process. Each state was required to draft a new constitution and to ratify the 14th Amendment in order to apply for readmission to the Union.
General E. O. C. Ord was placed over Arkansas and Mississippi. While he barred the legislature from meeting, he barred only 14 of 342 civil office holders in Arkansas and whenever feasible administered through local authorities.
One of those removed from office was David Walker, whom the ex-Confederate legislature had appointed Associate Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. For his part Walker urged Arkansans to refuse to cooperate with Reconstruction by refusing to register and thereby boycotting the election to ratify the new constitution. Walker's strategy was based on an apparent loophole in the Reconstruction Acts which required the participation in the election to ratify the new constitution to be at least two-thirds the number voting in 1866. This held out the possibility of defeating the Reconstruction constitution simply by boycotting the election. Congress realized its mistake, however, and removed the provision.
Thanks to the Conservative boycott, the vote to convene the constitutional convention was 27,576 to 13,538, with almost no Conservatives elected as delegates. Once the loophole was removed, most Conservative leaders called for an all out effort to defeat the new constitution. Walker and his followers maintained their commitment to non-participation, fearing that a head-to-head confrontation with the Republicans would lead to violence. Even with this boycott the Constitution passed with a margin of only 27,913 to 26,597.
Adding insult to injury, the Republican registrars counted votes against the constitution as grounds for disenfranchisement under the Reconstruction Acts. Arkansas historian Michael Dougan has noted that a higher percentage of conservative whites were disenfranchised in Arkansas than in any other Reconstruction state.
Though Powell Clayton was elected governor in March of 1868, he chose not to assume the office until Arkansas was officially readmitted to the Union and control was transferred to civilian hands. During this time the lame duck Isaac Murphy continued in office as provisional governor while the legislature methodically brought up bills to the verge of passage. Occasionally Murphy would chide his fellow Republicans for what he considered profligate spending, but for the most part he was ignored. In his memoirs Clayton recalled the meeting of the two men at Clayton's inauguration in July. Murphy, "clad in the homespun garb of a mountaineer," joked about Clayton's gloves, remarking: "Only dudes wear gloves in the summertime." Clayton removed the gloves and the two shook hands. "I appreciate the magnitude of the work you are about to undertake," Murphy told his successor. "May God help you."
The sixty-nine-year-old Murphy returned to the home in Madison County he had fled six years earlier. He would subsequently be elected judge. Murphy died on September 8, 1882. His gravestone in the Huntsville Cemetery bears this modest epitaph: "His Administration was wise and economical. His trust was in God."
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