"I think that this was an indirect way of making a statement from the bench without addressing those pieces of legislation and the general conduct of Congress in an overt manner."

I agree, except I would say that it was a direct way of making a statement from teh bench without naming specific legislation. Taney was not indirect about the issue at all.

"In any case all of this tinkering with States admissions and other legislation passed by congress during the 1850's did not go unnoticed by the public. And certainly in the South it was viewed as attempts to circumvent the Constitution and due process."

Again, I agree. You say this created a distrust of the government. I do not agree with that. The distrust was in the northern hold OF the government. When Southerners (or Southern interests) dominated the Senate, held the presidency, and were protected by the Supreme Court, the South had no problem with "the government." The real issue was who or what was in control of that government.

"In 1860 only 20% of Arkansas' population were Black, not all of these were slaves. That means that less than 10% of the Whites in Arkansas owned Slaves because many of the slave owners had 30 or more slaves. Hence, it would be hard to have a slave owner population larger than the percentage of the slaves. If there was a state that became a part of the Confederacy which would have probably outlawed slavery if it had been given the chance it was probably Arkansas."

I do not agree with this assessment. I found an excellent synopsis of slavery in Arkansas by Carl H. Moneyhon of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He writes:

"The development of this area and its creation as Arkansas Territory in 1819 spurred a rapid growth in the slave population. By 1820, it had almost doubled to 1,617. These trends continued through the territorial period and up to the Civil War. By 1830, the slave population reached 4,576; then 19,935 in 1840; 47,100 in 1850; and 111,115 in 1860. As the slave population grew, it also constituted a larger and larger portion of the total population, growing from eleven percent in 1820 to twenty-five percent by 1860."
http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1275

Instead of decreasing, slavery was on the rise. Furthermore, Moneyhon explains that the institution was quite important across the state:

"Slaves lived in almost every county and in both rural and urban settings in antebellum Arkansas. Historian Orville Taylor estimated that roughly one in four white Arkansans either owned slaves or lived in families that did. Many more probably benefited from slavery, however, as leasing slaves was not an uncommon practice. Although slavery clearly touched the lives of many white Arkansans, most slave owners possessed only a few slaves."

Now, Moneyhon argues that most slaves in Arkansas were on large plantations. But the argument that one in four white Arkansans either owned slaves or were in a slaveowning family contradicts your 10% statistic.

Yet, beyond simple numbers, other evidence shows the importance of slavery to Arkansas and to its general population. Here is a newspaper account of the resolutions passed by a "Convention of the People of Arkansas" in March 1861. Every single plank (both grievances and recommendations) deals specifically with slavery:

http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/media-detail.aspx?mediaID=7352

The fact that Arkansas' leaders were worried about the future of slavery and specifically outlined measures to protect it...AND that this was put together by a convention of the "people" or their representatives acting on their behalf...shows that issues directly related to slavery were dominant during the secession crisis. Even common white Arkansans were involved in the slavery dispute.