Biography of William Meade Fishback, Sebastian Co, AR

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SOURCE: History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford,
Franklin, and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas. Chicago: The Goodspeed 
Publishing Co., 1889.
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page 1313

Col. William Meade Fishback, presidential elector at large for Arkansas in
1888, is a native of Jeffersonton,  Culpeper Co., Va., and was born in
November, 1831. He is a son of Col. Frederick Fishback and Sophia A.  Fishback,
nee Yates. Col. Frederick Fishback was born in the same house as his father,
and on February 14,  1813. The Fishbacks were originally from Germany, and made
their first settlement at Fredericktown, Md. This  town was named after the
owner of the land on which it is situated, who was Frederick Fishback.
Hagerstown,  Md., was named after the father of his wife, Miss Hager, who owned
the land upon which it was built. Sophia  A. Yates was born near Appomattox
Court-house, Va. Her mother was a Miss Stith, a descendant of one of the  first
historians of Virginia. Col. William M. Fishback grew to manhood in
Jeffersonton, Va., was educated at  the University of Virginia, and read law in
Richmond, Va. He came west in 1857; on his way he stopped in  Springfield,
Ill., and made the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, who took a fancy to him and
gave him his first legal business, and after he came to Arkansas, in 1858, Mr.
Lincoln wrote to him suggesting his return to  Illinois, offering to give him
other business. In 1861 he was elected as a Union man to the secession
convention,  and when the State seceded he resigned and went north. He returned
to Little Rock in 1863, and edited the Unconditional Union, at which he made
considerable money. In 1864 he was elected to the United State Senate  by the
Union Government, organized under the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, and under
the assumption that the  State had not seceded. It was the first case of
reorganization of seceded States, and he and his colleague, Elisha  Baxter,
were denied admission, because the negro was not allowed the elective
franchise. He was again elected  to the constitutional convention of 1874, by
the same county of Sebastian, and made his first attempt in that  body to have
the fraudulent bonds of the State repudiated by a constitutional provision, so
that people could  know which bonds the State recognized. The measure failed.
In 1876 he was elected to the Legislature, [p.1313]  and introduced the
“Fishback Amendment” to the Constitution, forbidding the payment of these
bonds; again he  failed. In 1878 he was again elected, and again brought the
matter up. This Legislature adopted and submitted  the amendment to the people.
It was carried by 40,000 majority, but was counted out. It was again submitted
in 1884, and carried by over 100,000 majority. In 1888 he was a candidate for
governor, but although he had more  first and second choices than any of the
four other candidates, he withdrew in the interest of Democratic  harmony, and
the convention in his absence elected him presidential elector for the State at
large. In 1865 he  accepted the office of treasury agent, under Andrew Johnson,
and used his office to protect Southern people in  their prosperty. After he
had succeeded in this he resigned in 1865, and recommended that his office be
abolished as useless. Two regiments were partially raised in his name for the
Union army, although he was  never in the service himself. He was a candidate
for the United States Senate in 1885, against Hon. I. H. Berry  and Poindexter
Dunn. Berry was the successful candidate. He was married April 4, 1867, to
Adelaide Miller,  and has six living children. His wife died in 1882. He has
not married again. He is a Democrat, and his family  are members of the
Episcopal Church. He is not a member of any church himself.