With such conclusions I resolved to come, and confine
myself to the pursuit of my profession and give politics a "terrible
letting alone." Oh, if abandoned resolutions were a marketable
commodity, what emporium sufficiently capacious and who competent to
classify!

The organization of the Republican party of Arkansas was on the eve of
disruption. Its headquarters were in the building and over the law
office of Benjamin & Barnes, with whom I was reading. Violent disputes
as to party policy, leadership, and the distribution of the plums of
office were of frequent occurrence. I very distinctly remember the day
when the climax was reached and "the parting of the ways" determined.
The adherents of Senator Clayton and the State administration on the one
part, and Joseph Brooks and his followers on the other, coming down the
stairs--some with compressed lip and flashing eye, others as petulant as
the children who say: "I don't want to play in your yard; I don't like
you any more." It was the beginning of the overt act that extinguished
Republican rule in Arkansas. The factions led by Powell Clayton and
Joseph Brooks, respectively, were known as the "Minstrels" and "Brindle
Tails."

Incongruity, being the prevailing force, possibly accounted for the
contrary character of the names, for there was little euphony in the
minstrelsy of the one or a monopoly of brindle appearance in the other,
for each faction's contingent, were about equally spotted with the sons
of Ham. My friends, Benjamin & Barnes, were prominent as Brindles, and
I, being to an extent a novice in the politics of the State, in a
position to hear much of the wickedness of the Minstrels and but little
of the "piper's lay" in his own behalf, fidelity to my friends, appalled
at the alleged infamy of the other fellows, susceptible to encomiums
which flattered ambition, I became a Brindle, and an active politician
minus a lawyer.

In 1873 I was appointed County Attorney for Pulaski, and after a few
months' service resigned to assume the office of Municipal Judge of the
City of Little Rock, to which I had been elected. I highly appreciated
this, as exceedingly complimentary from a population of 16,000, a large
majority of which were not of my race. I entered upon and performed the
duties of the office until some time after the culmination of the
Brooks and Baxter war in the State. It having been announced that I was
the first of my race elected to such an office in th