Arkansas Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

An English common-law system

Arkansas law came from England. Before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 the land was French and then Spanish, and the civil law — the system built on written codes descended from Roman law — governed there. The American territory and then the state took the English common law: judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature. A statute made the choice. The common law of England, together with the acts of the British Parliament passed before 1607 that supported it, governed in Arkansas unless the General Assembly changed it¹. Property between husband and wife followed the common law of coverture — the rule that a wife's legal identity merged into her husband's during the marriage.

Three dates frame every Arkansas record: the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the organization of Arkansas Territory in 1819, and statehood on 15 June 1836.

Which court kept the estate records

Wills, estates, and guardianships stayed with county government throughout the period, but the court that handled them changed its name and its place in the system four times. A researcher who looks only under "probate" will miss six years of records.

• Territorial years, 1819 to 1836. Guardianships, dower, and the proof of wills went to the circuit court, and then to the county court as counties were organized. The territorial compilation prints both names, with "county" bracketed after "circuit," because the transfer was still under way when it was published².
• 1836 to 1868. The Constitution of 1836 made the presiding judge of the county court also the judge of a separate Court of Probate, with jurisdiction over the estates of deceased persons, executors, administrators, and guardians. Appeals ran to the circuit court³.
• 1868 to 1874. The Reconstruction Constitution created no probate court at all. Judicial power went to the Supreme Court, the circuit courts, and such inferior courts as the legislature might set up, so probate business fell to the circuit courts⁴. Estate papers from these six years are often filed with circuit court records.
• 1874 onward. The present Constitution made the county judge the judge of the probate court and gave that court the jurisdiction the circuit court had been holding⁵.

A common law rewritten by statute

The General Assembly replaced common-law rules with statutes over time. A handful of dates anchor the changes a researcher will see in the records:

• 1815 — a Missouri Territory act, carried into Arkansas, fixed the widow's and children's shares and the ages for making a will.
• 1819 — the Organic Law of the territory set the qualifications for jury service.
• 1838 — the Revised Statutes, the state's first general code, reset the ages for marriage, wills, guardianship, and the poll tax.
• 1866 and 1867 — two acts made lawful marriages of couples freed from slavery and legitimated their children.
• 1868 — the Reconstruction Constitution gave married women property of their own and made Black men qualified electors, and so eligible jurors.
• 1873 — women reached full age at 18, and a married woman gained control of her own property.
• 1874 — the present Constitution confirmed the married woman's separate property.
• 1875 — first cousins were added to the marriages barred as incestuous.
• 1891 — a childless widow's share of her husband's land was rewritten.
• 1911 — the first juvenile court act moved children's cases out of the criminal courts.
• 1949 — a new Probate Code restated the law of wills and of the administration of estates, and set a single age of 18 for making a will⁶.

For any given year, the rule in force is the statute where one had been passed by then, and the common law otherwise.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Majority at twenty-one — and eighteen for women

Full legal age in Arkansas was 21, a rule drawn from the common law. Anyone under full age was an "infant" in legal language. The Revised Statutes of 1838 said the same thing from the other direction: a guardianship ran until the child turned 21, whether the child was male or female⁷.

An act of 1873 lowered the age for women. From that year a female was of full age at 18 and a male at 21, and until those ages they were minors⁸. A woman of 18 could therefore do anything an adult could do. She could own and sell her land freely, make a will of land, and sue in her own name. This is a useful fact in Arkansas research, because it moves a woman out of minority three years sooner than a man.

Both sexes reached majority at 18 from 1975.

A minor's legal capacity

A minor could own property. What the law limited was the minor's power to dispose of it. A deed or contract made by a minor was voidable, meaning it stood unless the minor rejected it within a reasonable time after coming of age⁹. In practice a minor's land was managed by a guardian, and any sale went through a court proceeding. From 1891 a guardian's sale could be undone where the court proceedings had not followed the statute closely, so a later suit to set such a sale aside is a common sequel¹⁰.

A court could also lift the disabilities of minority — a proceeding that declared a particular minor free to act as an adult in business matters. From the end of the period a male over 18 or a female over 16 could apply for it. The order is a county court record and it names the minor and the parent or guardian¹¹.

Marriage did not make a minor an adult

The minimum marrying age was lower than the age of majority, and lower for girls than for boys. A married 16-year-old was still a minor. The Supreme Court held early that marriage gave an under-age wife no power to deal with her property, and that a wife who was still a minor could not effectively give up her dower in her husband's land¹². A deed signed by a young wife may therefore have been open to challenge years later.

Marriage

Who could marry

In the territorial years, 1819 to 1836, the common-law ages governed: a boy could marry at 14, a girl at 12, and they held until the statute of 1838. The territorial marriage title fixed no age of its own. What it required was consent and a record. It began by validating every marriage already performed by a minister, magistrate, or clergyman. From 1829 a man about to marry a female under 18 had to get a certificate from her parents or guardian saying they were willing, and hand it to the person performing the ceremony. That officiant then had ninety days to file a certificate of the marriage with the clerk of the circuit court, who entered it on record, on a penalty of twenty dollars for failing to do so¹³.

From 1838 a statute set the ages, and they held for more than a century. Every male who had reached the full age of 17 and every female who had reached the full age of 14 was capable in law of contracting marriage. The rule was carried forward word for word through the digests of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth-century codes¹⁴.

The statute called an under-age marriage "void," but a second section made it void only from the day a court declared it so. Until then the couple were married¹⁵, and almost no one went to court. The children of a marriage later declared null were legitimate all the same¹⁶.

Kinship barred some marriages outright, and the list grew. From 1838 marriages between parents and children, including grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, between brothers and sisters of the half blood as well as the whole blood, between uncles and nieces, and between aunts and nephews were incestuous and absolutely void, and the rule reached relations born outside marriage as well. First cousins were not on that list until 1875, when an amending act added them. A first-cousin marriage in Arkansas between 1838 and 1875 was lawful¹⁷.

An act approved 6 February 1941 raised the ages to 18 for a male and 16 for a female. It carried an emergency clause and so took effect the day it was approved, which makes that date the dividing line: a marriage before it is measured against 17 and 14, and a marriage after it against 18 and 16¹⁸. An act of 1964 made such a marriage plainly voidable and validated many earlier under-age marriages, so a marriage that looked doubtful when made was often good by the time an estate was settled.

Parental consent

Consent of a parent or guardian, given in person or in writing to the clerk who issued the license, was required from 1838. It was needed for a male over 17 and under 21, and for a female over 14 and under 18¹⁹. A consent paper in the license file therefore tells you the applicant fell inside one of those ranges.

The act of 1941 tightened how consent was proved. A male under 21 or a female under 18 had to furnish the clerk satisfactory evidence that a parent or guardian consented before the license could issue, and the consent of both parents of each party was required. One parent's consent was enough only where the parents had divorced and that parent had exclusive custody, or where the other had given up custody by abandonment or desertion. A single signature in a 1940s license file therefore points to a divorce, a custody order, or a desertion. Where consent was not given, or where a party had lied about their age, the marriage could be annulled on the parent's or guardian's application to the chancery court, the court of equity¹⁸. From 1941, then, a contested under-age marriage leaves an annulment suit in the chancery records rather than nothing at all.

A valid marriage required a license and a ceremony

A valid Arkansas marriage required a license and a ceremony before an authorized official. The statutes prescribing how a marriage was licensed and performed were mandatory, so a couple who lived together as husband and wife without a ceremony were not married²⁰. Arkansas did not recognize common-law marriage made within the state. The core record is the marriage license and the officiant's return, filed with the county clerk.

A minister was supposed to have his credentials recorded with the county before he officiated. In 1891 the General Assembly declared every marriage already solemnized by a regularly ordained minister or priest legal and valid whether his credentials had been recorded or not²¹, so a gap in the ministers' register does not put a marriage in doubt.

One qualification helps with migrating families. From 1838 a statute provided that a marriage made outside Arkansas, valid where it was made and where the parties then lived, was valid in every Arkansas court. That covers a common-law marriage — one created by agreement and living together, with no ceremony, in a state that allowed it. The Supreme Court applied the rule to age in 1880: a girl married at twelve in a state that followed the common law was validly married, and stayed married in the eyes of Arkansas law when the couple moved here, even though the Arkansas statute set fourteen²².

Enslaved people and people of color

Enslaved people could not marry. Marriage was a civil contract requiring the consent of parties capable in law of contracting, and an enslaved person had no such capacity, so no civil marriage record was made. The Supreme Court said so plainly as late as 1950, in a case that turned on exactly this point²³.

Two Reconstruction acts fixed that, and they are among the most valuable records in Arkansas research for African American families. An act of 20 December 1866 declared the marriages of all persons of color then living together as husband and wife to be legal and their children legitimate, and directed ministers and magistrates to certify later marriages to the county clerk for recording. It was quickly found to be incomplete, because it reached only couples still together on that date. An act of 6 February 1867 replaced it. Couples then living together and recognizing each other as husband and wife were deemed lawfully married from the passage of the act. The crucial words come next: children of couples who "now are, or have heretofore been" cohabiting were legitimate as fully as if born in wedlock. The Supreme Court held that this reached children whose parents were already dead. The same act ordered the clerk of each county to keep a separate book for the record of these marriages²⁴. That separate book is often the earliest surviving civil record of a formerly enslaved family.

Because no ceremony had been possible, the courts allowed these unions to be proved by family hearsay and by community reputation, and Arkansas has been more willing than most states to admit such evidence. That is worth knowing before you conclude a marriage cannot be documented²³.

Marriage across the color line was barred from 1837 through 1950. The marriage chapter of the Revised Statutes, adopted at the October 1837 session, declared all marriages of white people with people of color illegal and void, with no punishment attached and no definition of who counted²⁵. The 1867 act that gave freedpeople the rights of contract, property, and evidence expressly did not touch this prohibition. The later digests carried the section forward, but there is a real gap: it is absent from the marriage chapter of Gantt's Digest of 1874, it reappears in the compilation of 1876, and interracial couples did marry in Arkansas during Reconstruction. Whether the omission was a repeal or a compiler's choice has been argued both ways, and at least one marriage from that window was later declared invalid²⁶.

A separate act of 1911 went after living together rather than marrying. It made concubinage — an unmarried couple living together as though married — between a white person and a Black person a felony punishable by one month to a year at hard labor. It treated living together as proof of the offense, and it defined who was covered by the "one-drop" rule, reaching anyone with any Black ancestry at all. Where a woman had borne a mixed-race child, a magistrate could issue a warrant against the man charged as the father, so the act leaves a criminal file naming both parents²⁷. A further revision in 1947 added graduated penalties running from a small fine for a first conviction to a prison term for a third. These laws became unenforceable with Loving v. Virginia (1967) and were taken out of the code shortly afterward²⁸.

One act of 1921 matters for the record it creates rather than for any prohibition. From that year the clerk of the county court had to write the race of the parties on the record of every marriage where their race was other than Caucasian or white, on a penalty of twenty-five dollars for each omission²⁹. An Arkansas marriage record from 1921 onward therefore states the race of a couple who were not white.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

Every free man could buy, hold, and sell land outright, whatever his means. A foreign-born man could own land as well. An alien — a person born abroad who had not become a citizen — could under the common law take land by buying it or by will. He could hold it against everyone but the state, and the state could claim it only after a formal inquiry. What he could not do was take land by inheritance. Arkansas softened that early. The Revised Statutes let an alien pass an inheritance on, and an act approved in December 1874 removed the disabilities of alienage outright, so that aliens could take land by inheritance, will, or deed and pass it on the same way. The Constitution of 1874 put resident aliens on the same footing as citizens for owning property, enjoying it, and passing it to their heirs, and a widow took dower in her alien husband's land just as in any other³⁰.

Enslaved men had no legal capacity to own property of any kind. Land they lived on or worked belonged in law to the enslaver. A free person of color could hold property, but on terms that tightened decade by decade. From 1838 a free person of color settling in the state had to obtain a certificate of freedom and post a bond. In February 1859 the General Assembly ordered them out: no free person of color was to live in Arkansas after 1 January 1860, and one found in the state after that date was to be arrested, hired out for a year and told to leave, or sold at auction if he stayed. The same act made it unlawful to free an enslaved person in Arkansas at all³¹.

That changed on 6 February 1867. The General Assembly gave everyone formerly held as a slave or as a free person of color the same rights as anyone else: to make and enforce contracts, to sue and be sued, to give evidence, and to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, convey, and assign real and personal property. The same act let them make wills. The Constitution of 1868 confirmed it the following year³².

Women and land ownership

For a woman, everything turned on whether she was married. A single woman or widow — a feme sole, "woman alone" — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could. A woman transacting freely in the deed books is almost always unmarried or widowed.

A married woman was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture. Her husband controlled her property. He took the rents and profits of her land and owned her personal property, and her contracts had no force on their own. The reach of the rule shows in the territorial law of wills, which let any person of 21 dispose of an estate by will but excluded a married woman entirely, unless a marriage settlement or her husband's prior written authority allowed it³³.

The reforms came in stages. An act of 8 December 1846 let a married woman take property in her own name by bequest, gift, or distribution, and let a woman marrying after the act keep as her own the enslaved people she brought with her, free of her husband's debts. He kept their management and their earnings, and it took a joint deed of husband and wife to sell them. An act of 11 January 1851 added that property given to her by a deed or will saying in terms that it was to be held free of her husband's liabilities belonged to her alone, and was safe from his creditors whether the debt came before or after her title³⁴.

The protection came at a price in paperwork. Before she could claim it she had to file a sworn schedule of the property that came through her in the recorder's office. Under the 1846 act she filed in the county where the property lay as well as the county where the couple lived; under the 1851 act, in the county where she lived³⁴. That schedule is a county land record, and it names the wife, the husband, and the source of her property.

The Constitution of 1868 then promised her a separate estate — property that stayed hers inside the marriage, which she could leave by will, and which was beyond her husband's creditors once it had been registered³⁵. An act of 1873 gave her control of it, and the Constitution of 1874 confirmed the rule that governed through 1950. A married woman's property, owned before marriage or acquired after, remained hers. It could not be taken for her husband's debts, and she could leave it by will or sell it as if she were unmarried³⁶.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

A wife's signature on a deed tells you the seller was married; its absence points to a single man or a widower.

The driver is dower: a widow's right to the use of one-third of her husband's land for the rest of her life. Arkansas dower reached every parcel the husband had owned at any time during the marriage, not merely the land he held when he died. That was already the rule in the territorial period and the Revised Statutes kept it³⁷. Because the claim hung over all his land from the day of the wedding, a buyer needed the wife to give it up, and she gave it up by joining in her husband's deed.

The procedure is older than statehood. Territorial law already required the wife to join the deed and to appear before a judge or justice of the peace. That officer had to tell her what the deed contained, then examine her apart from her husband on whether she signed freely and without his undue influence. He endorsed a certificate of that examination on the deed itself. The Revised Statutes of 1838 carried the same requirement forward³⁸. That separate interview is the privy examination, and its certificate is often the only place a wife's own words appear in the land records. A husband's deed signed by him with his wife joining to give up dower is the normal Arkansas form throughout the period.

Dower was a life interest, not ownership: the widow had the use of her third for life, while the land itself passed to the heirs. Its male counterpart, curtesy — the widower's right to use his late wife's land for his life — required that a living child had been born of the marriage³⁹.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase just as an adult did. Selling it was the constraint: a minor's deed stood unless the minor rejected it within a reasonable time after coming of age⁹. Own at any age; sell freely at full age.

Witnessing a deed

From 1838 a deed had to be signed in front of two disinterested witnesses — people with nothing to gain by it. Failing that, the grantor, the person making the deed, acknowledged it before an authorized officer in the presence of two such witnesses, who then signed it themselves⁴⁰. Competency, not age, was the test for a witness. Any person who understood an oath and could relate what they saw could serve, and in practice deed witnesses were adults, since a witness might have to appear years later to prove the deed. Recording the deed with the county recorder is what made it good against later buyers.

Inheritance

Land and personal property

Arkansas divided an intestate estate — one left by a person who died without a will — along two tracks, as the common law did. Land descended to the heirs. Personal property, meaning money, livestock, furniture, and debts owed to the deceased, was distributed after the debts were paid. A single chapter of the Revised Statutes governed both⁴¹.

Land descended to all the children equally. Sons and daughters took alike, and younger children with older, subject to advancements — a child already given land or goods during the parent's lifetime had that gift counted against their share. Where there were no children, the land went to the father, then to the mother. If she was dead as well, it went to the brothers and sisters or their descendants in equal parts, and after them outward to grandparents, uncles and aunts and their descendants, without end⁴¹.

The widow's and children's shares

The widow's share turns on whether there were children, and it works differently for land and for personal property. It also changed twice, and the childless widow's position swung back and forth:

The children took the land subject to the widow's dower, and the rest of the personal property in equal shares⁴². Three details are worth noting:

• Where there were children, the widow owned her share of the goods but held only the use of her third of the land for life. That is why you so often find a widow living on the homeplace while the children hold the title.
• The one-third dower reached every parcel the husband had held during the marriage, while the childless widow's one-half reached only what he owned when he died.
• The childless widow's half was an outright fee in the territorial period, was cut down to a life interest by the Revised Statutes of 1838, and was restored in part in 1891⁴³. From 1891 what she got turned on how her husband had come by the land: land he had bought she took outright, land that had come down to him from his own family — an ancestral estate — she held for life only, and against his creditors either half dropped to a third⁴⁴.

Minors, guardians, and the age of fourteen

A minor inherited immediately, because title passed to the heirs the moment the ancestor died. Managing that inheritance fell to a guardian, who gave bond, invested the estate, accounted for it, and handed it over when the child came of age⁴⁵. That final settlement is one of the most valuable documents in Arkansas genealogy. It dates the child's coming of age — 21 for a young man, and 18 for a young woman after 1873 — which approximates a birth year, and it frequently reveals a young woman's married surname.

A guardian was appointed chiefly because a minor owned property, especially property that came from someone other than a living parent. At 14 a child could choose their own guardian, and the court appointed the person chosen unless there was good reason not to. This was already the rule in the territorial period, and it survives today⁴⁶. A guardianship record in which the child chooses is therefore evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.

One rule generates a record that often puzzles researchers. From 1873 a married woman could not be guardian of a minor's estate, and a woman guardian's own marriage ended her appointment, though she could still be guardian of the child's person⁴⁷. A new guardian appearing in the middle of a minority, with the mother still living, usually means the mother remarried.

Children born outside marriage

At common law a child born outside marriage could inherit from no one. Arkansas extended inheritance first on the mother's side: such a child was the mother's heir and inherited her estate, and the mother inherited from the child⁴⁸.

Inheritance from the father followed legitimation — the act that made the child the father's lawful child in law. From 1838 a child was legitimated if the parents married afterward and the father acknowledged the child as his. A private act of the legislature or a court proceeding would also do it⁴⁹. Where paternity was contested, it was settled in a bastardy proceeding in the county court, begun by the mother's complaint on oath naming the father. The affidavit, the warrant, and the rest of the papers were filed with the county clerk, so the proceeding leaves a county file naming both parents and the child⁵⁰.

The 1867 act described under Marriage above legitimated the children of couples freed from slavery, whether or not the parents were still living when it passed²⁴.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

The age to make a will was 21 for land and 18 for goods, and those two ages held for well over a century. Territorial law let a person of 21 devise land and a person over 18 dispose of goods and chattels; the Revised Statutes of 1838 repeated both⁵¹. Because a woman was of full age at 18 from 1873, a woman of 18 could from that year make a will of either land or goods. The Probate Code of 1949 unified the age at 18 for everyone⁶.

The age to serve as executor or executrix — the person named in a will to carry it out — was 21, and for most of the period the office was closed to married women. Letters testamentary or of administration, the court's written authority to act, could not be granted to a person of unsound mind, to anyone under 21, or to a married woman. The bar on married women lifted in the twentieth century⁵². Where a named executor was under 21, the court put the estate in other hands until he came of age.

A witness to a will could be of any age. What mattered was that the witness had nothing to gain under it. From 1838 a will had to be signed by the maker, or by someone else in the maker's presence and at his direction, and signed at the end by at least two witnesses at the maker's request. A gift to one of those witnesses was cut back to what the witness would have taken had there been no will, unless other disinterested witnesses also proved the will. A will written entirely in the maker's own hand needed no witnesses at all, and was proved instead by people who knew the handwriting⁵³. These handwritten wills are common in the Arkansas record. Territorial law had been stricter: it required two witnesses signing in each other's presence and made no allowance for a handwritten will, though it did permit an oral will made in a last illness⁵¹.

Taxation

What was taxed

Two taxes on individuals leave usable records for most of the period. The poll tax, also called a head tax or capitation, was a flat tax on a person rather than on property. The property tax fell on land and personal property. In the twentieth century the state added an income tax in 1929 and a general sales tax in 1935.

For genealogy the poll tax is the prize, because it lists men who owned nothing, which makes tax lists into census substitutes.

The poll tax

The tax is older than the state. Territorial law levied a county poll tax of twenty-five cents on all free white males over 21. An act approved 16 November 1833 exempted everyone over 55 from it, and a widow who owned no land, no enslaved person, and no more than one horse and ten head of cattle paid no tax at all⁵⁴.

The Constitution of 1836 allowed a poll tax for county purposes only, and the Revised Statutes of 1838 put it into effect. The county court could lay a poll tax of up to one dollar a year on every free male over 21 and under 60⁵⁵. Two things changed from the territorial rule: the word "white" was dropped, and the exemption moved from 55 to 60. So under the state statute a man appears as a poll at 21 and drops off at 60, and the amount varies by county and year because the county court set it. A county could excuse a man for poverty or infirmity, which is one reason a living man can vanish from a poll list.

After the Civil War the poll tax became a school tax. The Constitution of 1868 barred the General Assembly from levying a poll tax except for school purposes, and the Constitution of 1874 fixed the figure at one dollar a year on every male inhabitant of the state over 21, for the common schools. There was no upper age now, so a man stayed on the list as long as he lived in the state. The revenue acts carried the rule through 1950⁵⁶.

From 1895 the assessor had to mark on the tax list whether the person assessed was white or colored, the clerk had to carry that mark into the tax books, and the collector had to show it on the receipt and report the numbers by race at his annual settlement⁵⁷. An Arkansas poll tax record from 1895 onward therefore states a man's race as well as his name.

The poll tax receipt and the vote

The receipt itself became worth keeping, and the reason is worth setting out in full, because published accounts often stop halfway.

• In 1891 the General Assembly proposed a constitutional amendment requiring a man to show a poll tax receipt, or other evidence that he had paid, before he could vote. There was an exception for a man who had turned 21 since the last assessment.
• It went to the voters in September 1892 and was declared adopted as Amendment No. 2, and the collector's machinery grew up around it. A man who paid received a separate poll tax receipt on a printed blank supplied by the state auditor, and had his name entered on the collector's official list of those who had paid.
• In 1906 the Supreme Court held in Rice v. Palmer that the amendment had never been validly adopted, because it had not received a majority of the votes cast at the election.
• The legislature submitted a second poll tax amendment, which the voters approved in 1908 as Amendment No. 9. Only men holding poll tax receipts could vote in that election. This second amendment carried the requirement through 1950⁵⁸.

That is why poll tax receipts and the collector's lists survive in quantity from the 1890s onward, and why a receipt is evidence a man intended to vote. The voting requirement was finally replaced by ordinary voter registration in 1964.

The income and sales taxes

Arkansas taxed income from 1929. The tax arrived inside a broad act that declared various businesses, employments, and professions to be privileges and levied license fees and taxes on them, with the net income tax as one part of it⁵⁹. A retail sales tax followed in 1935, at two per cent of the gross proceeds of retail sales⁶⁰. Both fall on transactions rather than on a person of a given age, so neither builds an age-based list the way the poll tax does, though income-tax and estate-tax papers can turn up in a settled estate.

Courts

Jury service

The qualification was set before statehood. The Organic Law that created Arkansas Territory in 1819 made all free white males of 21 who had lived a year in the territory, and were not disqualified by any legal proceeding, eligible to serve as grand or petit jurors⁶¹.

Under the state, a juror had to be a qualified elector — a voter — which kept the working age at 21, and a resident of the county. Before the Civil War a grand juror had also to be a free white male citizen of the State and either a freeholder or a householder: a man who owned land, or who headed a house of his own⁶². By 1884 the property test was gone, and jury commissioners chose both grand and petit jurors from the electors of the county, taking men of good character, approved integrity, and sound judgment⁶³.

An act of 1891 reshaped how a panel was filled. Petit jury service was limited to four weeks, with a fresh panel for each four weeks of a long term. Instead of summoning bystanders to complete a short jury, a court could have the commissioners return an extra list of at least twenty-five names, sealed in a box and drawn in open court as needed. The act also excused several trades and professions from compulsory service, and let the court excuse anyone over 60⁶⁴. After 1891, then, the men who fill out a panel come from a drawn list rather than from the courtroom.

Black men reached the jury box through the electorate rather than by any jury act of their own, and the sequence is precise. The act of 6 February 1867 that gave freedpeople the rights of contract, property, and evidence expressly kept in force the existing law on voting and on service on juries, so it did not open the jury box. The Constitution of 1868 then made every male citizen of 21 who met the residence requirement a qualified elector, with no racial qualification, and the General Assembly followed in July 1868 with a one-sentence act: all qualified electors of the state, and none other, were competent jurors⁶⁵.

Because jurors were drawn from the electors, anything that shrank the electorate shrank the jury pool. The poll tax receipt requirement described above did exactly that from the 1890s onward, and it is the legal mechanism behind the disappearance of Black jurors from Arkansas panels in that period⁵⁸.

Women came within reach of jury service once they could vote, since jurors were drawn from the electors. An act of 1921 confirmed that a woman could serve if she wished and could otherwise qualify, while exempting her from compulsion. No woman was to be compelled to serve against her will, and a refusal had to be made to the officer who summoned her and not afterwards⁶⁶. Because the exemption was granted on request, women appear on Arkansas panels from 1921 but not in numbers.

Criminal responsibility

The Revised Statutes of 1838 set the ages, and they lasted into the twentieth century⁶⁷:

• Under 12 — a child could not be found guilty of any crime or misdemeanor.
• 12 to 14 — a child could be convicted only if the State proved the child knew the difference between good and evil.
• 14 and over — full criminal responsibility, tried as an adult.

Arkansas's first Juvenile Court Act, in 1911, changed this for younger children. Any boy under 17 or girl under 18 who broke a law of the State, or was incorrigible, or was growing up in idleness, became a "delinquent child." The act gave the county courts original jurisdiction over these cases and directed that they be tried by the court without a jury⁶⁸. After 1911, then, a younger child's case moves out of the ordinary criminal record and into a separate book the act calls the "Juvenile Record," kept by the county court. Two provisions limit what a researcher will find: the disposition could not be used as evidence against the child in any other case, and the child's name could not be published in a newspaper without a written order of the court.

An amending act of 1921 pushed the jurisdiction much further up the age range. It extended the categories of dependent, neglected, and delinquent children for both sexes to anyone under twenty-one, married or single⁶⁹. From 1921, then, a young married man of nineteen could be before the juvenile court, and his case will sit in the juvenile record rather than the criminal docket.

Witnesses

Before Reconstruction there was no fixed minimum age. The common-law test governed: a witness of any age could testify if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could relate facts, and the trial judge examined a child personally before allowing testimony⁷⁰.

The Civil Code of 1868 introduced a hard minimum age for civil cases, and it stayed. A child under ten was incompetent to testify, and a child over ten was incompetent as well if incapable of understanding the obligation of an oath. The same section made husband and wife incompetent for or against each other, and incompetent as to anything said between them during the marriage, whether they were still married at the time of the testimony or not. An amendment of 12 February 1883 opened one door, letting either spouse testify for the other about business one had transacted for the other as agent⁷¹. So a wife's absence from the witness list in her husband's case is a rule of law, not a silence in the record.

Before Reconstruction, people of color could give evidence only in cases involving other people of color, and were barred from testifying against a white party⁷². That bar fell on 6 February 1867, when the General Assembly gave everyone formerly held as a slave or as a free person of color the right to swear out written statements and to give evidence, a change confirmed the following year by the Constitution of 1868³².

Sources & Where to Verify

Constitutions

• Arkansas. Constitution of the State of Arkansas, 1836. Printed in the front matter of the Revised Statutes of the State of Arkansas (1838), 21–39. Art. 6, § 10 (the county judge as judge of the Court of Probate), 35; art. 7, § 3 (no poll tax except for county purposes), 39. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/35/mode/1up.
• Arkansas. The Constitution of the State of Arkansas: Framed and Adopted by the Convention Which Assembled at Little Rock, January 7th, 1868. With marginal notes and index. Little Rock, 1870. Art. VII, § 1 (judicial power, with no probate court); art. VIII, §§ 1–2 (elections by ballot; qualifications of electors); art. X, § 1 (no poll tax except for school purposes); art. XII, § 6 (separate property of a married woman, with registration). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cu31924032658506.
• Arkansas. Constitution of the State of Arkansas, 1874. Art. 2, § 20 (resident aliens and citizens on the same footing as to property); art. 7, § 34 (the county judge as judge of the probate court); art. 9, § 7 (married woman's separate property); art. 14, §§ 1, 3 (the school poll tax). Text printed in Mansfield's Digest (1884), 20–45. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/20/mode/1up.

Codes and Digests

• Arkansas Code (current). Each section printed with its full derivation chain, which is the roadmap back to the nineteenth-century text. Justia. https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/.
• Ball, William McK., and Sam. C. Roane, revisers. Revised Statutes of the State of Arkansas, Adopted at the October Session of the General Assembly of Said State, A.D. 1837. Notes and index by Albert Pike. Boston: Weeks, Jordan and Company, 1838. The foundation volume for this guide: common and statute law of England (182), conveyances and relinquishment of dower (189–92), revenue and the poll tax (213), crimes and capacity (236), descents and distributions (328–30), dower (335–41), guardians and wards (428–29), juries (482–83), marriage (535–38), free people of color (584–86), administration (ch. 4), wills (764–65). Digital images, with a full text layer that can be searched, from the Library of Congress Early State Records Project. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451. Also. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=ohxEAAAAYAAJ.
• Castle, John T., comp. Supplement to Crawford and Moses' Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing the General Statutes Enacted at the Legislative Sessions of 1921, 1923, 1925, 1927, and the Special Sessions of 1923 and 1924. St. Louis, Mo.: Thomas Law Book Company, 1927. Women on juries, §§ 6336a–6336c (503); race to be designated on marriage records, §§ 7058a–7058b, both from the acts of 1921. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=F81HAQAAIAAJ.
• English, E. H., comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1846. Little Rock: Reardon & Garritt, 1848. Married women and their separate property, with the sworn schedule filed in the recorder's office (711–13). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=a4c0AQAAMAAJ.
• Gantt, Edward W., comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1873. Little Rock: Little Rock Print. and Pub. Co., 1874. Marriage, §§ 4171–76 (752). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=WtRHAQAAIAAJ.
• Gould, Josiah, comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1856. Little Rock: Johnson & Yerkes, State Printers, 1858. The essential antebellum volume: conveyances (ch. 37, 264–66), criminal capacity and the competency of free people of color as witnesses (ch. 51, 324, 384), dower (ch. 60, 454), guardians and wards (ch. 81, 571), jurors (ch. 98), marriages (ch. 109, 760), married women (ch. 111, 765–67), and the county poll tax (916). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=r9NHAQAAIAAJ.
• Mansfield, William W., comp. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, Embracing All Laws of a General and Permanent Character in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighty-Three. Little Rock, Ark.: Mitchell & Bettis, 1884. Constitution of 1874 (20–45), administration and who may take letters (ch. 1, § 6, 176), bastardy (ch. 13, 243–45), criminal capacity (§§ 1497–98, 425), descents and distributions (ch. 49, §§ 2522–27, 575–76), dower of a childless widow (§§ 2591–92, 585–86), competency of witnesses (§§ 2858–59, 625), full age of males and females (§ 3464, 724), jury selection (§§ 3982, 3984, 811), marriage and the prohibited degrees (ch. 103, §§ 4591–95, 911), the state poll tax (1084), the constitutional school poll tax (§ 6120, 1174). Digital images, with a full text layer that can be searched. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest. Also. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=c9VHAQAAIAAJ.
• Moore, Avery E., comp. A Digest of the Revenue Laws of the State of Arkansas. Compiled in the Auditor's Office. Little Rock: Thompson Lithograph and Printing Co., 1903. Closes the gap between the antebellum county poll tax and the twentieth century: the state per capita tax of one dollar on every male inhabitant over 21 for common schools (§ 27, 25); the marking of race on assessments, tax books, receipts, and the collector's return (§ 97, 47–48); and the poll tax receipt and the collector's official list of those who paid (§§ 346–347, 117–18). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/digestofrevenuel1903arka.
• Sandels, L. P., and Joseph M. Hill, comps. A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas Embracing All Laws of a General Nature in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1893. Columbia, Mo.: Press of E. W. Stephens, 1894. Marriage across the color line, § 4909 (1125). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=o5A0AQAAMAAJ.
• Steele, J., and J. M'Campbell, comps. Laws of Arkansas Territory. Compiled under the direction of John Pope, Governor. Little Rock, Ark. Ter.: Printed by J. Steele, 1835. The territorial compilation, certified by the governor, and the source for every rule in this guide that predates 1838. Titles used here: Descents and Distribution (the widow's and children's shares); Dower (the widow's third, and the privy examination); Marriages (parental consent and the return to the circuit clerk); Minors, Orphans, and Guardians (choice of guardian at 14); Revenue (the county poll tax and the exemption at 55); Wills and Testaments (21 for land, 18 for goods, and the bar on a married woman's will); and the Organic Law of 1819 (jury qualifications). Digital images, with a full text layer that can be searched, from the Library of Congress Early State Records Project. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712. Also. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=rPlHAQAAIAAJ.

Four later compilations are cited in genealogical writing and in the derivation chains printed in the current code, and a researcher tracing a statute forward will meet them: Kirby's Digest (1904), Crawford and Moses' Digest (1921), Pope's Digest (1937), and Arkansas Statutes 1947. Where this guide follows a rule to the end of the period it cites the section numbers in those compilations as reported by the U.S. Women's Bureau bulletin listed below, or by the derivation lines in the current Arkansas Code. Pope's Digest has not been digitized; the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System, holds a print set at ARK KFA3630 .A214.

Session Laws

• Acts of the ... General Assembly of the State of Arkansas. The Library of Congress Early State Records Project run of the Arkansas session laws, 1818 to 1871, scanned from microfilm with a full text layer that can be searched, each session a separate file within one item. Used here: the Act of 8 December 1846 on the rights and property of married women, Sixth Session volume (Little Rock: Printed by B. J. Borden, Printer to the State, 1846), 38–39, file 1846.012; the Act of 11 January 1851 amending it, 1850–51 volume (Little Rock: Arkansas Banner Office, Lambert & Whiteley, State Printer, 1851), 122–23, file 1850.110; Act 151 of 12 February 1859, removing free people of color from the state, Twelfth Session volume (Little Rock: Johnson & Yerkes, Public Printers, 1859), 175–78, file 1858.110; and Act 13 of 20 December 1866 and Act 35 of 6 February 1867, file 1866.012. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp586037841.
• Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Session Held at the Capitol, in the City of Little Rock, Which Begun on Monday, the Fifth Day of November, A.D. Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Six, and Adjourned, on the Twenty-Third Day of March, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Seven. Little Rock: Gazette Office, Woodruff & Blocher, Public Printers, 1867. Act 13, legalizing the marriages of persons of color, approved 20 December 1866 (52); Act 35, "An Act to declare the rights of persons of African descent," approved 6 February 1867 (98–100). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=r_dHAQAAMAAJ.
• Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Session Held at the Capitol, in the City of Little Rock, Which Begun on Thursday, the Second Day of April, A.D. Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight, and Adjourned on the Twenty-third Day of July Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight. Little Rock, Ark.: John G. Price, State Printer, 1868. Act No. XI, "An Act Defining the Qualification of Jurors," approved 13 July 1868 (35). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=CsY3AAAAIAAJ.
• Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas. Little Rock: Little Rock Printing and Publishing Company, 1873. Full age of males at 21 and females at 18 (187); married women as guardians (191); protection of married women (382). Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=1xI0AQAAMAAJ.
• Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Session ... which Began on Monday, January 12th, and Adjourned on Saturday, April 4th, 1891. Morrilton, Ark.: Pilot Printing Company, State Printers, 1891. Act 37, marriages solemnized by an ordained minister legalized (59); Act 63, regulating the jury system (111–13); Act 65, rewriting the childless widow's share (116–17); Act 106, protecting the estates of minors (189); Proposed Amendment No. 2, the poll tax receipt as a qualification to vote (314). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/actsjointresolu01arkagoog.
• Public Acts of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Regular Session ... 1911. Little Rock: Democrat Printing & Lithographing Co., 1911. Act 215, creating the juvenile court and defining a delinquent child (168–74); Act 320, making concubinage between the races a felony (296–97). Digital images. HathiTrust. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076609.
• Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas. By session, on HathiTrust. Used here: Acts 402 and 404 of 1921 (418–21), https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076724; Act 63 of 1929, the privilege, license, and net income tax act (153–241), https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682771; and Act 233 of 1935, the Arkansas Emergency Retail Sales Tax Law (591–605), https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682776.
• Acts, Concurrent Resolutions and Proposed Constitutional Amendments of the Fifty-Third General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Regular Session Held at the Capitol in the City of Little Rock, Arkansas, Convening on the 13th Day of January, 1941, and Adjourning on the 13th Day of March, 1941. Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas Printing & Lithographing Company, 1941. Act 32, raising the marrying ages to 18 and 16 and adding the parental-consent proviso (66–67). Digital images. HathiTrust. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682778.

Court Cases

• Barnett v. State. 35 Ark. 501 (1880). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/35/html/0501-01.html.
• Brissett v. Sykes. 313 Ark. 515, 855 S.W.2d 330 (1993). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/313/html/0515-01.html.
• Brown v. Collins. 14 Ark. 421 (1854). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/14/html/0421-01.html.
• Daniels v. Johnson. 216 Ark. 374, 226 S.W.2d 571 (1950). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/216/html/0374-01.html.
• Drake v. Sides. 95 Ark. 74 (1910). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/95/html/0074-01.html.
• Furth v. Furth. 97 Ark. 272, 133 S.W. 1037 (1911). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/97/html/0272-01.html.
• Gregley v. Jackson. 38 Ark. 487 (1882). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/38/html/0487-01.html.
• Hardy v. Ross. 237 Ark. 76, 371 S.W.2d 522 (1963). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/237/html/0076-01.html.
• Harrod v. Myers. 21 Ark. 592 (1860). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/21/html/0592-01.html.
• Hill's Adm'rs v. Mitchell. 5 Ark. (5 Pike) 608 (1844). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/5/html/0608-01.html.
• Jones v. Minogue. 29 Ark. 637 (1874). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/29/html/0637-01.html.
• Pace v. Richardson. 133 Ark. 422, 202 S.W. 852 (1918). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/133/html/0422-01.html.
• Rice v. Palmer. 78 Ark. 432 (1906). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/78/html/0432-01.html.
• Watson v. Billings. 38 Ark. 278 (1881). Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/38/html/0278-01.html.

Secondary and Reference Works

• The Advancing Genealogist. "Historic Arkansas Statutory Law." A curated, linked list of every historic Arkansas digest and many session-law volumes. https://advancinggenealogist.com/historic-arkansas-statutory-law/.
• Arkansas Judiciary. "Arkansas Historical Compilations — Statutes." The imprints of every Arkansas territorial and state compilation from 1835 to the present, with the compilers named. PDF. https://www.arcourts.gov/sites/default/files/2024May31.pdf.
• Arkansas State Archives. "Research FAQs and Tips." What the archives holds for each of the seventy-five counties — microfilmed marriage, probate, tax, land, and court records — and how the county-records listing is searched. https://www.arkansasheritage.com/arkansas-state-archives/collections-and-research/research-faqs-and-tips.
• Arkansas Reports. Full text of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opinions, volume by volume, with the printed page numbers marked. Digital images. Caselaw Access Project. https://static.case.law/ark/.
• Association of Arkansas Counties. "Juvenile Justice: History to Reform." https://www.arcounties.org/media/articles/juvenile-justice-history-to-reform/.
• FamilySearch. "Arkansas, Probate Records." What the probate files contain — petitions, inventories, accounts, decrees, oaths of executors, and guardianship papers — and their coverage from 1817. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Arkansas,_Probate_Records_-_FamilySearch_Historical_Records.
• McKinney, J. Cliff. "With All My Worldly Goods I Thee Endow: The Law and Statistics of Dower and Curtesy in Arkansas." 38 University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review 353 (2016). https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/lawreview/vol38/iss3/8/.
• Robinson, Charles F., II. "Anti-miscegenation Laws." Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Central Arkansas Library System. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/anti-miscegenation-laws-3508/.
• "Poll Tax." Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Central Arkansas Library System. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/poll-tax-5045/.
• University of Arkansas Libraries, Special Collections. "Land of (Unequal) Opportunity: Civil Rights Timeline." https://libraries.uark.edu/specialcollections/research/civilrightstimeline.php.
• U.S. Women's Bureau. "The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Arkansas." Bulletin 157-3. Law stated as of 1 January 1938, rev. 1948. PDF. FRASER. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-03-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf.
• "The Woman Juror." Women Lawyers' Journal 15, no. 2 (January 1927). Lists Arkansas among the states qualifying women for jury service by specific enactment in 1921. PDF. Women's Legal History, Stanford Law School. http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/the-woman-juror-15wlj151927.pdf.

Citations

1. Revised Statutes of the State of Arkansas, Adopted at the October Session of the General Assembly of Said State, A.D. 1837 (Boston: Weeks, Jordan and Company, 1838), 182, ch. 28, § 1: the common law of England, so far as applicable and of a general nature, and all statutes of the British parliament in aid of or to supply the defects of the common law made prior to the fourth year of James the First, that is 1607, shall be the rule of decision unless altered by the General Assembly; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/182/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). Carried through Gould's Digest (1858) and Mansfield's Digest (1884) to C. & M. Dig. (1921), § 1432, Pope's Dig. (1937), § 1679, and A.S.A. 1947, § 1-101, now Ark. Code § 1-2-119. ↩
2. J. Steele and J. M'Campbell, comps., Laws of Arkansas Territory (Little Rock, Ark. Ter.: Printed by J. Steele, 1835), titles "Minors, Orphans, and Guardians," §§ 1–2, "Dower," §§ 3–5, and "Wills and Testaments," in each of which the compilers print "circuit" with "county" bracketed after it, the county courts having taken over the business as counties were organized; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712 : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
3. Ark. Const. of 1836, art. 6, § 10: the presiding Judge of the County Court "shall, in addition to the duties that may be required of him by law, as a presiding Judge of the County Court, be a Judge of the Court of Probate, and have such jurisdiction in matters relative to the estates of deceased persons, executors, administrators and guardians, as may be prescribed by law"; printed in Revised Statutes (1838), 35; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/35/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). For the courts in operation, Revised Statutes (1838), ch. 4 (Administration), § 1 (the Courts of Probate in the several counties to grant letters testamentary and of administration) and §§ 177–84 (appeals to the circuit court). ↩
4. Ark. Const. of 1868, art. VII, § 1: the judicial power of the State vested in the Senate sitting as a Court of Impeachment, a Supreme Court, Circuit Courts, and such other courts inferior to the Supreme Court as the General Assembly may establish. No probate court is named. The Constitution of the State of Arkansas ... January 7th, 1868 (Little Rock, 1870), 22–23; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/cu31924032658506 : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
5. Ark. Const. of 1874, art. 7, § 34: "The judge of the county court shall be the judge of the court of probate, and have such exclusive original jurisdiction in matters relative to the probate of wills, the estates of deceased persons, executors, administrators, guardians and persons of unsound mind and their estates as is now vested in the circuit court, or may be hereafter prescribed by law"; printed in Mansfield's Digest (1884), 38; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/38/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The phrase "as is now vested in the circuit court" is the evidence that the circuit courts had been holding the jurisdiction since 1868. ↩
6. Acts 1949, No. 140, the Probate Code, § 17: "Any person of sound mind eighteen (18) years of age or older may make a will." The section survives verbatim in the current code with its derivation printed beside it — Ark. Code § 28-25-101, "Acts 1949, No. 140, § 17; A.S.A. 1947, § 60-401"; Justia (https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/ : accessed 6 August 2026). Confirmed from the other direction by Hardy v. Ross, 237 Ark. 76, 371 S.W.2d 522 (1963); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/237/html/0076-01.html : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩ ↩
7. Revised Statutes (1838), 428 (a guardianship continues until the ward reaches 21, whether male or female); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/428/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The same rule at A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas ... in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of 1856, comp. Josiah Gould (Little Rock: Johnson & Yerkes, State Printers, 1858), ch. 81, 571; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=r9NHAQAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
8. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Little Rock Printing and Publishing Company, 1873), 187: males of 21 and females of 18 are of full age for all purposes, and are minors until those ages; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=1xI0AQAAMAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). Carried into Mansfield's Digest (1884), § 3464, 724, and cited in later chains as Acts 1873, No. 78; and see Drake v. Sides, 95 Ark. 74 (1910); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/95/html/0074-01.html : accessed 6 August 2026). Majority of 18 for both sexes came with Acts 1975, No. 892. ↩
9. Harrod v. Myers, 21 Ark. 592 (1860), digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/21/html/0592-01.html : accessed 6 August 2026); Watson v. Billings, 38 Ark. 278 (1881), (https://static.case.law/ark/38/html/0278-01.html); Pace v. Richardson, 133 Ark. 422, 202 S.W. 852 (1918), (https://static.case.law/ark/133/html/0422-01.html). ↩ ↩
10. Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, Passed at the Session ... which Began on Monday, January 12th, and Adjourned on Saturday, April 4th, 1891 (Morrilton, Ark.: Pilot Printing Company, State Printers, 1891), 189, Act 106, "An Act to Protect Estates of Minors From Loss," approved 8 April 1891; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsjointresolu01arkagoog : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
11. U.S. Women's Bureau, "The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Arkansas," Bulletin 157-3 (law stated as of 1 January 1938, rev. 1948), item 5, reporting Pope's Dig. §§ 7451–7453, the removal of the disabilities of a minor over 18 if male or 16 if female; PDF, FRASER (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-03-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
12. Harrod v. Myers, 21 Ark. 592 (1860): marriage does not give a female infant capacity to dispose of her property; Watson v. Billings, 38 Ark. 278 (1881): an infant married woman cannot relinquish dower; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/38/html/0278-01.html : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
13. Steele and M'Campbell, Laws of Arkansas Territory (1835), title "Marriages," § 1 (marriages heretofore solemnized by any preacher of the gospel, magistrate, or regularly ordained clergyman declared good and valid, from an act of 5 July 1806) and §§ 3–6 (the parental certificate for a female under eighteen; the certificate of marriage to be filed with the clerk of the circuit court within ninety days, on a forfeit of twenty dollars; the clerk to make a record of it), from the territorial act approved 14 November 1829; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712 : accessed 6 August 2026). The title fixes no age of capacity, so the common-law ages received under the reception statute governed. ↩
14. Revised Statutes (1838), 535, ch. 94, § 2: "Every male who shall have arrived at the full age of seventeen years, and every female who shall have arrived at the full age of fourteen years, shall be capable in law of contracting marriage"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/535/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The same text at Mansfield's Digest (1884), ch. 103, § 4591, 911, printing its source as Rev. Stat., ch. 94, §§ 1–2 (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/911/mode/1up); carried through Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 109, § 2, 760, C. & M. Dig., § 7037, and Pope's Dig., § 9017, per the history line to Ark. Code § 9-11-102. ↩
15. Revised Statutes (1838), 536, ch. 94, § 5: where either party is incapable, from want of age or understanding, of consenting to a marriage, "the marriage shall be void, from the time its nullity shall be declared by a court of competent jurisdiction"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/536/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The same at Mansfield's Digest (1884), § 4594, 911. ↩
16. Mansfield's Digest (1884), § 2526, 576 (the issue of all marriages deemed null in law, or dissolved by divorce, are legitimate), from Rev. Stat., ch. 49; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/576/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
17. Revised Statutes (1838), 535, ch. 94, § 3, which lists parents and children including grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, uncles and nieces, and aunts and nephews, and extends to illegitimate children and relations. First cousins do not appear. They were added by the act of 5 March 1875, as Mansfield's Digest (1884), § 4592, 911, records in printing its source as "Ib., sec. 3, as amended by act March 5, 1875"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/911/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
18. Acts, Concurrent Resolutions and Proposed Constitutional Amendments of the Fifty-Third General Assembly of the State of Arkansas ... 1941 (Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas Printing & Lithographing Company, 1941), 66–67, Act 32, "An Act to Amend Section 9017 of Pope's Digest and for Other Purposes," approved 6 February 1941, §§ 1 (ages, the consent proviso, and annulment in chancery) and 3 (emergency clause); digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682778 : accessed 23 July 2026). Made voidable, with validation of earlier under-age marriages, by Acts 1964 (1st Ex. Sess.), No. 5, § 1. ↩ ↩
19. Revised Statutes (1838), 538 (no license for a male over seventeen and under twenty-one, nor for a female over fourteen and under eighteen, without the consent in person or in writing of the parent or guardian); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/538/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). Still the rule at Pope's Dig. (1937), § 9044, per U.S. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-3, item 18. ↩
20. Furth v. Furth, 97 Ark. 272, 133 S.W. 1037 (1911); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/97/html/0272-01.html : accessed 6 August 2026). The modern statement of the rule is Brissett v. Sykes, 313 Ark. 515, 855 S.W.2d 330 (1993), (https://static.case.law/ark/313/html/0515-01.html), now Ark. Code § 9-11-107. ↩
21. Acts of 1891, 59, Act 37, "An Act to Legalize Marriages in Certain Cases," approved 10 March 1891, reaching marriages already solemnized by a regularly ordained minister or priest whether or not he had recorded his credentials as required by Mansfield's Digest, § 4600; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsjointresolu01arkagoog : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
22. Revised Statutes (1838), 536, ch. 94, § 7: "All marriages contracted without this State, which would be valid by the laws of the State or country in which the same were consummated, and the parties then actually resided, shall be valid in all the courts in this State"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/536/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). Applied to age in Barnett v. State, 35 Ark. 501, 503 (1880), holding that the marriage of a female at twelve in a state where the common-law rule prevailed would be recognized as valid here; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/35/html/0501-01.html : accessed 27 July 2026). ↩
23. Daniels v. Johnson, 216 Ark. 374, 226 S.W.2d 571 (1950), holding that legal marriage "was impossible in any event for slaves," that the general legitimation statute of 1838 had no reference to the marriages of enslaved people, and that family hearsay and community reputation are admissible to prove such a union and the recognition of children; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/216/html/0374-01.html : accessed 6 August 2026). For the capacity rule the case rests on, Revised Statutes (1838), 535, ch. 94, § 1: "Marriage is considered in law a civil contract, to which the consent of the parties capable in law of contracting is necessary." ↩ ↩
24. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Gazette Office, Woodruff & Blocher, Public Printers, 1867), 52, Act 13, "An Act to legalize marriages of persons of color," approved 20 December 1866, §§ 1–2 (the marriages of all persons of color then living together as husband and wife declared legal and their children legitimate; ministers and magistrates to certify later marriages to the county clerk for record); and 98–100, Act 35, "An Act to declare the rights of persons of African descent," approved 6 February 1867, § 3 (couples then cohabiting deemed lawfully married from the passage of the act, and the offspring of couples who "now are, or have heretofore been so cohabiting" deemed legitimate) and § 4 (the clerks of each county to keep a separate book for the record of these marriages); digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=r_dHAQAAMAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026), and, with a full text layer that can be searched, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp586037841 : accessed 6 August 2026), file 1866.012. That § 3 reaches children whose parents were already dead was settled in Gregley v. Jackson, 38 Ark. 487 (1882); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/38/html/0487-01.html : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩ ↩
25. Revised Statutes (1838), 536, ch. 94, § 4: "All marriages of white persons with negroes or mulattoes are declared to be illegal and void"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/536/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The Revised Statutes were adopted at the October 1837 session, which is why later writers date the ban to an act of 1837. ↩
26. Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 109, § 4, 760; Mansfield's Digest (1884), § 4593, 911, printing its source as Rev. Stat., ch. 94, § 4; and Sandels & Hill's Digest (1894), § 4909, 1125. The section is absent from the marriage chapter of A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, comp. Edward W. Gantt (Little Rock: Little Rock Print. and Pub. Co., 1874), §§ 4171–76, 752; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=WtRHAQAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). For the view that the state omitted the statute in 1874, that it reappeared in the compilation of 1876, and that interracial couples married in Arkansas during Reconstruction, one of them having the marriage declared invalid in Dodson v. State (1894), see Charles F. Robinson II, "Anti-miscegenation Laws," Encyclopedia of Arkansas (https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/anti-miscegenation-laws-3508/ : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
27. Public Acts of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Democrat Printing & Lithographing Co., 1911), 296–97, Act 320, "An Act to Prohibit the Amalgamation of the Caucasian Race and Persons of the Negro Race by Concubinage," approved 30 May 1911, §§ 1–6, effective twelve months after passage; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076609 : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
28. Robinson, "Anti-miscegenation Laws," Encyclopedia of Arkansas, for the 1947 revision adding graduated penalties and for the removal of the laws from the code following Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) (https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/anti-miscegenation-laws-3508/ : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
29. Acts of 1921, 246, Act 179, §§ 1, 3; printed at John T. Castle, comp., Supplement to Crawford and Moses' Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas (St. Louis, Mo.: Thomas Law Book Company, 1927), §§ 7058a–7058b; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=F81HAQAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). Section 2 of the act, at § 3505a, imposes the same duty in divorce proceedings. ↩
30. Ark. Const. of 1874, art. 2, § 20, printed in Mansfield's Digest (1884), 45. For the common-law rule and the statutes, Jones v. Minogue, 29 Ark. 637, 644–45 (1874), holding that under the Arkansas statute aliens may take and transmit land by inheritance or otherwise and could at common law take by devise, and noting the act approved 15 December 1874 removing all disabilities of alienage; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/29/html/0637-01.html : accessed 27 July 2026). For dower in an alien husband's land, Hill's Adm'rs v. Mitchell, 5 Ark. (5 Pike) 608, 612 (1844), (https://static.case.law/ark/5/html/0608-01.html). ↩
31. Revised Statutes (1838), 584–86, ch. 103 (certificate of freedom and bond required of a free person of color settling in the state); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/584/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The removal act is Acts Passed at the Twelfth Session of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Johnson & Yerkes, Public Printers, 1859), No. 151, 175–78, approved 12 February 1859, §§ 1–4, 6, 8, 10; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp586037841 : accessed 27 July 2026), file 1858.110. ↩
32. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Gazette Office, Woodruff & Blocher, Public Printers, 1867), 99, Act 35, § 1: all persons hitherto known in law as slaves or as free persons of color may make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, be affiants, give evidence, inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, convey and assign real and personal property, make wills, and have the full and equal benefit of the rights of personal security, personal liberty, and property; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=r_dHAQAAMAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩ ↩
33. Steele and M'Campbell, Laws of Arkansas Territory (1835), title "Wills and Testaments," § 1 (every person aged twenty-one years or upwards, of sound and disposing mind, "and not a married woman (unless by marriage settlement or special authority of the husband power is given to make a will) which power shall be in writing, and executed before the marriage entered into"), from an act of the Territory of Missouri passed 21 January 1815; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712 : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
34. Acts Passed at the Sixth Session of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Printed by B. J. Borden, Printer to the State, 1846), 38–39, "An act for the preservation and protection of the rights and property of married women," approved 8 December 1846, §§ 1–5 (what she may take and hold) and 7 (the sworn schedule, filed in the county where the property lies as well as the county where they live); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp586037841 : accessed 27 July 2026), file 1846.012. The amending act of 11 January 1851, moving the schedule to the county where she lives, is in the 1850–51 volume (Little Rock: Arkansas Banner Office, Lambert & Whiteley, State Printer, 1851), 122–23, same digital images, file 1850.110. Digested at English's Digest (1848), 711–13, and Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 111, §§ 1–8, 765–67. ↩ ↩
35. Ark. Const. of 1868, art. XII, § 6, headed "Separate property of female": her real and personal property, acquired before or after marriage, remains her separate estate so long as she may choose, and may be devised or bequeathed by her as if she were a femme sole; laws to be passed for its registration, after which it is not liable for her husband's debts so long as it is not entrusted to his management otherwise than as an agent. The Constitution of the State of Arkansas ... January 7th, 1868 (Little Rock, 1870), 38–39; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/cu31924032658506 : accessed 4 August 2026). The power to convey enters with the constitution of 1874. ↩
36. Ark. Const. of 1874, art. 9, § 7, which adds to the 1868 language that the property may be "devised, bequeathed or conveyed by her the same as if she were a femme sole"; Acts of 1873, 382, "an act for the protection of married women," cited in later chains as No. 126 and carried through C. & M. Dig. (1921), § 5580, Pope's Dig. (1937), § 7230, and A.S.A. 1947, § 55-404; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=1xI0AQAAMAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). And see U.S. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-3, items 5, 9. ↩
37. Steele and M'Campbell, Laws of Arkansas Territory (1835), title "Descents and Distribution," § 1 (the widow endowed of one third part of such lands and tenements "of which the husband was seized and possessed during coverture ... and to which she had not relinquished her right of dower"); Revised Statutes (1838), 336, ch. 52, § 1 (a widow endowed of the third part of all the lands whereof her husband was seized of an estate of inheritance at any time during the marriage); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/336/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
38. Steele and M'Campbell, Laws of Arkansas Territory (1835), title "Dower," § 6 (a married woman may release her right of dower by joining her husband in the deed and appearing before a judge or justice of the peace, who shall acquaint her with the contents of the deed and "examine her apart from her husband, whether she executed such deed or conveyance voluntarily and without compulsion or undue influence of her husband," and endorse a certificate of that examination on the deed); Revised Statutes (1838), 190–91 (the same requirement, the officer granting a certificate to be endorsed on the deed); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/190/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
39. J. Cliff McKinney, "With All My Worldly Goods I Thee Endow: The Law and Statistics of Dower and Curtesy in Arkansas," 38 University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review 353 (2016); PDF, UA Little Rock Law Repository (https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/lawreview/vol38/iss3/8/ : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
40. Revised Statutes (1838), 189 (a conveyance executed in the presence of two disinterested witnesses, or in default thereof acknowledged by the grantor in the presence of two such witnesses, who then subscribe it); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/189/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The same rule at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 37, §§ 11–12, 265, and Mansfield's Digest (1884), 277. ↩
41. Revised Statutes (1838), 328–30, ch. 49; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/328/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). Carried to Mansfield's Digest (1884), ch. 49, § 2522, 575–76: the estate descends in parcenary to the intestate's kindred, male and female, subject to his debts and the widow's dower — first to children or their descendants in equal parts; if no children, to the father, then the mother, and if no mother to the brothers and sisters or their descendants in equal parts; and failing those, to the grandfather, grandmother, uncles and aunts and their descendants, "and so on in other cases, without end" (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/575/mode/1up). ↩ ↩
42. Revised Statutes (1838), 336–39, ch. 52, §§ 1, 20–21, as digested at Mansfield's Digest (1884), §§ 2591–92, 585–86; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/585/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). That the childless widow's half of the land was a life interest only is settled by the annotation printed under § 2592, citing Brown v. Collins, 14 Ark. 421 (1854); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/14/html/0421-01.html : accessed 6 August 2026). The same sections at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 60, §§ 21–22, 454, and, at the end of the period, Pope's Dig. §§ 4396, 4420–4421, per U.S. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-3, item 15. ↩
43. Steele and M'Campbell, Laws of Arkansas Territory (1835), title "Descents and Distribution," § 1 (a widow with lawful issue entitled as her dower to one third part of the lands of which the husband was seized during coverture, one third of the slaves for her natural life, "and also to one third part of the personal estate absolutely," the remaining two thirds descending immediately to the children as tenants in common in equal parts) and § 3 (a widow with no lawful issue to have "in fee simple to her, her heirs and assigns forever, the one half of all such lands and tenements of which her husband was seized and possessed during coverture," half the slaves, and the whole of the other personal estate after just debts), from an act of the Territory of Missouri passed 21 January 1815; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712 : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
44. Acts of 1891, 116–17, Act 65, "An Act to Amend Section Twenty-five Hundred and Ninety-two (2592) of Mansfield's Digest," approved 24 March 1891 and in force from its passage; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsjointresolu01arkagoog : accessed 23 July 2026). As amended, § 2592 endows a childless widow in fee simple of one-half of the real estate of which the husband died seized where that estate is a new acquisition and not ancestral, and of one-third against creditors; by the proviso, where the real estate is ancestral she takes a life estate of one-half against collateral heirs and one-third against creditors. Carried to C. & M. Dig., § 3536, and Pope's Dig., § 4421, per the history line to Ark. Code § 28-11-307. ↩
45. Revised Statutes (1838), 429 (guardian's bond and accounting); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/429/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). At the end of the period, Pope's Dig. §§ 6203, 6220, 6234–6235, per U.S. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-3, items 25–26. ↩
46. Steele and M'Campbell, Laws of Arkansas Territory (1835), title "Minors, Orphans, and Guardians," §§ 1–2 (the court to admit orphans or minors above the age of fourteen years to make choice of guardians and tutors, and to appoint guardians and next friends for those under fourteen; a minor above fourteen who neglects to choose to be notified to appear and choose); Revised Statutes (1838), 428–29 (a minor of the age of fourteen years or upwards may choose a guardian, and the court, if there be no just cause to the contrary, shall appoint the person chosen); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/428/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The same at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 81, § 7, 571, with § 8 for a ward under fourteen or out of the State. The age of fourteen survives at Ark. Code §§ 28-65-204, 28-65-219. ↩
47. Acts of 1873, 191 (no married woman shall be guardian or curator of the estate of a minor, and a woman guardian's marriage revokes her appointment; she may be guardian of the person); digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=1xI0AQAAMAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
48. Revised Statutes (1838), 328, ch. 49, as digested at Mansfield's Digest (1884), § 2524, 576 (illegitimate children capable of inheriting and transmitting an inheritance on the part of their mother, as if legitimate of her); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/576/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). At the end of the period, Pope's Dig. § 4340, per U.S. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-3, item 29. ↩
49. Revised Statutes (1838), 328, ch. 49, as digested at Mansfield's Digest (1884), § 2525, 576 (where the parents afterwards intermarry and the father recognizes the children as his, they are deemed legitimate); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/576/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
50. Mansfield's Digest (1884), ch. 13 (Bastardy), §§ 445–447, 243, from the Act of 29 November 1875 as amended by the Act of 17 March 1879: exclusive original jurisdiction in the county court; a warrant on the mother's complaint on oath; the affidavit, warrant, and all papers filed with the county clerk; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/243/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The corresponding sections at the end of the period are Pope's Dig. §§ 933–940, per U.S. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-3. ↩
51. Steele and M'Campbell, Laws of Arkansas Territory (1835), title "Wills and Testaments," § 1 (a person aged twenty-one years or upwards, of sound and disposing mind, may devise lands, tenements, hereditaments, and slaves and bequeath personal estate, the will to be attested by two or more competent witnesses subscribing in the presence of each other and of the testator), § 2 (any person above the age of eighteen years may dispose of goods and chattels by will), and § 5 (nuncupative wills made in a last sickness); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712 : accessed 6 August 2026). The same ages at Revised Statutes (1838), 764, §§ 1–2 (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/764/mode/1up), and still in force at Pope's Dig. §§ 14510, 14511, per U.S. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-3, item 14. ↩ ↩
52. Revised Statutes (1838), ch. 4, § 3, as digested at Mansfield's Digest (1884), ch. 1 (Administration), § 6, 176: "Letters testamentary or of administration shall in no case be granted to a clerk of the court of probate or his deputy; to a person of unsound mind, under the age of twenty-one years, or to a married woman"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/176/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The bar on married women had gone by the end of the period: U.S. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-3, items 2 and 5, reporting Pope's Dig. § 6224 (age 21) and § 7227 (a married woman may serve as executrix or administratrix). ↩
53. Revised Statutes (1838), 765 (a will signed by the testator or by another in his presence and at his direction, with at least two attesting witnesses signing at the end at his request; a will written entirely in the testator's own hand valid without attesting witnesses, proved by witnesses to the handwriting), and 768 (proof of handwriting where the subscribing witnesses are dead, insane, or absent); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/765/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
54. Steele and M'Campbell, Laws of Arkansas Territory (1835), title "Revenue," § 92 ("There shall be levied and collected, as a county tax on all free white males within this territory, above the age of twenty-one years, a tax of twenty-five cents"), § 54 (from and after the taking effect of this act, all persons over the age of fifty-five years exempted from paying a poll tax, from an act approved 16 November 1833), and § 93 (a widow owning no land, no slave, and no more than one horse and ten head of neat cattle exempt from taxes); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712 : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
55. Ark. Const. of 1836, art. 7, § 3 ("No poll tax shall be assessed for other than county purposes"), printed in Revised Statutes (1838), 39; and Revised Statutes (1838), 213: there shall be levied and collected a county tax "on each free male over the age of twentyone years and under sixty, a poll tax, not exceeding one dollar, at the discretion of the county court"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/213/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). Unchanged at Gould's Digest (1858), 916. ↩
56. Ark. Const. of 1868, art. X, § 1 (the levying of taxes by the poll is grievous and oppressive, therefore the general assembly shall never levy a poll tax excepting for school purposes); Ark. Const. of 1874, art. XIV, §§ 1, 3, printed at Mansfield's Digest (1884), § 6120, 1174: the General Assembly shall provide for the support of common schools by taxes "and by an annual per capita tax of one dollar, to be assessed on every male inhabitant of this state over the age of twenty-one years"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/1174/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). Restated from the Act of 8 April 1891 at Avery E. Moore, comp., A Digest of the Revenue Laws of the State of Arkansas (Little Rock: Thompson Lithograph and Printing Co., 1903), § 27, 25; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/digestofrevenuel1903arka/page/25/mode/1up : accessed 27 July 2026). ↩
57. Moore, A Digest of the Revenue Laws of the State of Arkansas (1903), § 97, 47–48 (the assessor to mark whether the person assessed is white or colored, the clerk to carry the mark into the tax books, the collector to show it on the receipt and report the numbers by race at his annual settlement), from an act of April 1895; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/digestofrevenuel1903arka/page/47/mode/1up : accessed 27 July 2026). ↩
58. Acts of 1891, 314, Proposed Amendment to the Constitution No. 2, excepting a man who reached twenty-one since the assessment next preceding the election; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsjointresolu01arkagoog : accessed 23 July 2026). For the collector's machinery, Moore, Digest of the Revenue Laws (1903), §§ 346–347, 117–18 (https://archive.org/details/digestofrevenuel1903arka/page/117/mode/1up). The amendment was submitted at the general election of September 1892 and declared adopted, and was afterwards held never to have been validly adopted in Rice v. Palmer, 78 Ark. 432 (1906); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/ark/78/html/0432-01.html : accessed 27 July 2026). For the replacement measure approved by the voters in 1908 as Amendment No. 9, and for the effect of both on the electorate, see "Poll Tax," Encyclopedia of Arkansas (https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/poll-tax-5045/ : accessed 6 August 2026), and University of Arkansas Libraries, Special Collections, "Land of (Unequal) Opportunity: Civil Rights Timeline" (https://libraries.uark.edu/specialcollections/research/civilrightstimeline.php : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩ ↩
59. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1929), vol. 1, 153–241, Act 63, "An Act To Declare the Carrying on of Certain Businesses, Employments and Professions to be Privileges, Levying Certain License Fees and Taxes Thereon, Imposing a Net Income Tax ... and for Other Purposes," approved 27 February 1929; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682771 : accessed 27 July 2026). Now Ark. Code § 26-51-101 et seq. ↩
60. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1935), 591–605, Act 233, approved 28 March 1935, § 1 (short title, the Arkansas Emergency Retail Sales Tax Law) and the levying section at 594 (two per centum of the gross proceeds derived from retail sales); digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3682776 : accessed 27 July 2026). ↩
61. Steele and M'Campbell, Laws of Arkansas Territory (1835), "Organic Law," ch. 1, § 11, from the act of Congress of 2 March 1819 establishing the Territory of Arkansas: "all free male white persons of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have resided one year in the said territory, and are not disqualified by any legal proceeding, shall be qualified to serve as grand or petit jurors in the courts of the said territory"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp642658712 : accessed 6 August 2026). ↩
62. Revised Statutes (1838), 482–83; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/482/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). Stated in full at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 98 (Jurors), § 5: "Every grand juror shall be a free white male citizen of this State, over the age of twenty-one years, resident of the county, a householder or a freeholder, and otherwise qualified according to law"; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=r9NHAQAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
63. Mansfield's Digest (1884), §§ 3982, 3984, 811 (the jury commissioners select grand and petit jurors from the electors of the county, persons of good character, approved integrity, sound judgment and reasonable information); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/811/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). No property qualification appears in this digest. ↩
64. Acts of 1891, 111–13, Act 63, "An Act to Regulate the Jury System," approved 23 March 1891, §§ 1–6; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsjointresolu01arkagoog : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
65. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1867), 99, Act 35, § 2, repealing acts specially relating to people of color contrary to that act, "Provided, That nothing herein contained, shall be construed to repeal or modify any statute, common law or usage of this state, respecting marriage of white persons with negroes or mulattoes, voting at elections, service on juries or militia duties"; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=r_dHAQAAMAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). For the electorate, Ark. Const. of 1868, art. VIII, § 2, as originally framed — every male person born in the United States, or naturalized, or having legally declared his intention, twenty-one or upwards, resident in the State six months next preceding the election and an actual resident of the county where he offers to vote, with no racial qualification; Constitution of the State of Arkansas (1870 printing), 30–31; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/cu31924032658506 : accessed 4 August 2026). For the jury act, Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas ... Which Begun on Thursday, the Second Day of April, A.D. Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight (Little Rock, Ark.: John G. Price, State Printer, 1868), No. XI, 35, "An Act Defining the Qualification of Jurors," approved 13 July 1868: all qualified electors of this State, and none other, shall be competent jurors; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=CsY3AAAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). The article printed in Mansfield's Digest (1884), 138, is the substituted Article VIII of 1873, which adds a ten-day county residence. ↩
66. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1921), 418–19, Act 402, "An Act for the Exemption of Women from Compulsory Jury Service," approved 25 March 1921, §§ 1–3; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076724 : accessed 23 July 2026). Carried into Castle, Supplement to Crawford and Moses' Digest (1927), §§ 6336a–6336c, 503. "The Woman Juror," Women Lawyers' Journal 15, no. 2 (January 1927), lists Arkansas among the states qualifying women for the jury by specific enactment in 1921; PDF, Women's Legal History, Stanford Law School (http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/the-woman-juror-15wlj151927.pdf : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
67. Revised Statutes (1838), 236, ch. 44, §§ 3–4 (a person shall be considered of sound mind who is neither an idiot or lunatic, nor affected with insanity, and who hath arrived at the age of fourteen years, or before that age if such person know the distinction between good and evil; an infant under twelve years of age shall not be found guilty of any crime or misdemeanor); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529451/page/236/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The same rule at Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 51, §§ 3–4, 324, and Mansfield's Digest (1884), §§ 1497–98, 425 (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/425/mode/1up). ↩
68. Public Acts of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1911), 168–74, Act 215, "An Act Creating and Establishing a Juvenile Court in the Several Counties of This State," §§ 1 (the delinquent child defined; the disposition barred as evidence in any other cause and the child's name from publication without a written order), 2 (original jurisdiction in the county courts, all trials without a jury), and 3 (the findings entered in a book known as the "Juvenile Record"); digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076609 : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
69. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas (1921), 419–21, Act 404, approved 25 March 1921, §§ 1–2; digital images, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433009076724 : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩
70. The common-law competency test for witnesses, received under the reception statute at Revised Statutes (1838), 182, ch. 28, § 1: competency turned on understanding the oath and the ability to relate facts, not on age. ↩
71. Mansfield's Digest (1884), §§ 2858–59, 625, from Civil Code §§ 662–663 as amended by the act of 12 February 1883. Section 2858 makes all persons except those enumerated in the next section competent to testify in a civil action; § 2859 lists as incompetent, "Second. Infants under the age of ten years, and over that age if incapable of understanding the obligation of an oath," and "Fourth. Husband and wife, for or against each other, or concerning any communication made by one to the other during the marriage, whether called as a witness while that relation subsists or afterward, but either shall be allowed to testify for the other in regard to any business transacted by the one for the other in the capacity of agent." Digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/mansfieldsdigest/page/625/mode/1up : accessed 6 August 2026). The Civil Code was passed in 1868, as Mansfield notes in his preface. ↩
72. Gould's Digest (1858), ch. 51, pt. XI, § 1, 384: free people of color are liable for trespasses and felonies as white persons are and tried in like manner, "except, that persons of their own color shall be competent witnesses to testify for or against such free negro or mulatto," citing Rev. Stat., ch. 44, div. 8, art. 3, § 7; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=r9NHAQAAIAAJ : accessed 23 July 2026). ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.