The Selection of Hiram Revels to the U. S. Senate

This post is number fifty in a historical series discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the War Between the States and continues with the results of the fall 1869 victory of the Republican ticket headed by Alcorn and the Radical party. This post falls prior to the inauguration of the new governor, but subsequent to calling to order the new legislature by the interim military governor, Adelbert Ames.

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As discussed in my last post, the ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments was (at the time) the last hurdle placed in front of Mississippi before she would be accepted back into the loving arms of the hate-filled Union. Until that blessing occurred, Mississippi could not participate in the legislative process, but there was one last duty she could and should perform prior to soliciting Congress for readmission. That was the selection of her U.S. Senators.

To quickly recap, Alcorn was elected to fill the full session beginning 4 March 1871, roughly one year in the future, and Adelbert Ames was elected to fill an unfinished term of four years, the seat vacant since the late winter of 1861. Still to be chosen was the individual who would fill the second seat vacant since that same secession winter. That term had less than 14 months left on it and was the seat Alcorn anticipated filling the following March. In the meantime, an interim Senator was needed to fill the chair. The story passed down is that the Negro legislators, whose people had been instrumental in the election of the majority Carpetbaggers and Scalawags now holding power in Mississippi, insisted a black man fill that seat. How many white “allies” they had among the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags (and their strongest allies would have been among the Carpetbaggers) is not known. Negro legislator John Roy Lynch representing Adams County in the house, states that the Republicans were in agreement on the selection of a black Senator, but the house journal casts doubt on that, because when the voting started there were a number of Carpetbag hopefuls. Moreover, the record implies that the black legislators weren’t even in agreement on who their choice for U. S. Senator would be. According to James Garner in Reconstruction in Mississippi the battle was between B.B. Eggleston and Hiram Revels, and for a brief blip on the radar screen in the middle of the voting, that was indeed the case, but that was as much fluke as fact.

Ignorant of Mississippi’s values, reckless of the burden placed on her taxpayer, and heedless of the long-term welfare of her people, neither Revels nor Eggleston were representative of a devastated state vying against a Congress that had anything but Mississippi’s interest at heart. I, myself, find poetic justice in Revels’ victory occurring over the likes of Eggleston (and a number of other Radicals). Self-serving righteousness aside (not Revels’, but the Radicals’), Senator Revels was well educated and capable even if neither representative of the state nor appreciative of the role of a U.S. Senator—a failing permeating many Republican Senators at the time, not counting those hell-bent to knowingly alter the republic overall.

Revels had joined Federal service in Baltimore at the outbreak of the war, and he had assisted in the organization of Negro troops. He came with the U. S. Army to Jackson in 1863 and aided in the formation there of the Freedman’s Bureau. In time he would become the first president of Alcorn College for Negroes, and he has the distinction of being the first Negro seated in the U.S. Senate.

The Mississippi senate’s selection of Alcorn and Ames for the U.S. Senate occurred on the 18th of January, 1870. The Mississippi senate, however, failed to make a selection for the short-term seat, nor did the house and as of the following day when senate and house went into joint session to elect the Mississippi Senators, Hiram Revels had not even been mentioned as a possible candidate (at least, in the official record). He, himself, voted for the Carpetbagger Alston Mygatt on the first ballot and on the second, the Scalawag Abel Alderson, an 1850 transplant from Maryland, who did not take part in the war and was not serving in the legislature at the time of his nomination.

The 19 January joint session readily confirmed J. L. Alcorn for the new term beginning in March 1871 (119 to 2, the lone votes against him going to W. L. Sharkey, the old-line Whig who had served as Mississippi’s provisional governor during the earliest days of Presidential Reconstruction and Adelbert Ames, the then provisional governor). On cue, Ames was confirmed for the longer unfinished term, 94 votes to Robert Lowry’s 24. Alcorn also got a vote here as did Horace Greeley, a facetious jab, no doubt, at the hostile editor of the New York Tribune’s having as much right to represent Mississippi in the U. S. Senate as did Adelbert Ames. Unfortunately, no record is made of who initiated the vote, but a Democrat is a solid bet.

The unfinished, short-term seat proved up for grabs, however, no one candidate having a majority in either branch of the legislature. From what I’m able to gather, the joint session combined the votes of both houses from the previous day’s separate sessions to form the baseline for the 19 January voting:

R. W. Flournoy, who you may recall from an earlier post as a man James Garner in Reconstruction in Mississippi described as one of the most Radical Republicans in the state, received 27 votes [he was not a member of the legislature]

The aforementioned Abel Alderson 21

B. B. Eggleston [not in the legislature] 19

State senator Alston Mygatt, a Carpetbagger representing Warren and Issaquena counties, 8

C. B. New [not a member of the legislature] 2

Alexander Warren, a Scalawag representing Madison county 1

T. W. Stringer, a Negro representing Warren and Issaquena counties in the senate 1

J. J. Spelman, a Negro representing Madison County in the Mississippi house 4

J. W. C. Watson, an old-line Whig who served as a senator in the Confederate Congress, now a Democrat not serving in the legislature, but who had proved a thorn in the side of the Republicans during the Black and Tan Convention 18 

 J. W. Vance [another non-member of the legislature, who had been nominated in the house the day before by Scalawag M. Campbell representing Desoto County and in the senate by F. H. Little representing Chickasaw and Monroe Counties. Vance was a favorite of Democrats and a number of (I think we can safely assume) moderate Scalawags] 19

I would like to expand here, if I may, on my reckless use of the term “safely assume.” I am making some effort here at home to identify all these legislators by party affiliation and faction. I had identified senator Little as a probable Carpetbagger, based on his voting, but the only thing I’m sure of at this point is that he was a Republican. His nomination of Vance for the U.S. Senate seat indicates he might very well have been a Scalawag. However, on the second round of voting for this seat, also on 19 January, he voted against Vance, casting his ballot for B.B. Eggleston—can’t get much more “Carpetbag” than that. Of course, when studying the legislative journals, one doesn’t see the behind-the-scenes maneuvering going on, just clear indications that something is amiss. And “what” senator Little really was remains a mystery for now (at least to me).

The field proved smaller for the first joint ballot, six candidates as opposed to ten. Clearly some wheeling and dealing had gone on. The leading Democratic candidate from Wednesday’s last ballot, Watson, was no longer in the running and Eggleston’s total had jumped by twenty votes and the Southern wing’s choice, J. W. Vance, by 12. The withdrawal of Watson from the running resulted in his 18 votes being divvied up primarily between J. W. Vance, Robert Lowry (Newt Knight’s nemesis, who would eventually become governor of the state), and Abel Alderson:

 R. W. Flournoy, 22

Abel Alderson, 23

B. B. Eggleston, 39

Flournoy, Alderson and Eggleston (the first two Scalawags, one radical, one moderate, and Eggleston, the Carpetbagger, were trading Negro and Carpetbagger votes at this point).

J. W. Vance, 31

Robert Lowry, 5

C. B. New, 1

Hiram Revels’ name finally appears on the second ballot in the joint session when he was nominated by Mr. W. H. Roane, a Carpetbagger representing Pike County in the Mississippi house. One Carpetbag and three Negro senators voted for him as did eighteen Negroes and eight Carpetbaggers in the house. He received no Scalawag or Democratic votes on this ballot.

Abel Anderson 15

B. B. Eggleston 19

R. W. Flournoy 11

Robert Lowry 2

Hiram Revels 30

J. J. Spelman 3

Stafford, [not a member of the legislature] 1

J. W. Vance, 39

As of this juncture, Vance had gained two Democratic senators who had voted for Robert Lowry and a Scalawag who now chose to abandon Eggleston (or decided Eggleston was a lost cause). The battle at this point became one between Revels and Vance vice Revels and Eggleston, because once Revels’ hat was in the ring, the Negroes abandoned Eggleston (except the gentleman senator Revels and representative J. J. Spelman from Madison County who had nominated Eggleston in the first place, and Charles Caldwell, the Negro senator from Hinds County, who remained loyal to Abel Anderson). Eggleston, Alderson, and Flournoy had received a significant number of Negro votes prior to Revels’ nomination. Eggleston lost 10 Negro votes to Revels in addition to 5 Carpetbaggers; Flournoy lost 7 Negroes to Revels; and Abel Alderson lost 2 Negroes and 2 Carpetbaggers.

By the third ballot, Flournoy, Stafford, the Negro Spelman, and Lowry are gone and numbers are shifting:

Abel Alderson 13

B. B. Eggleston 19

Hiram Revels 40

J. W. Vance 49

And by the fourth ballot the quest for the sixty-one required votes is really between only two men, the Scalawag nominee, J. W. Vance, and the Negro nominee, Hiram Revels:

Abel Alderson 8

B. B. Eggleston 18

Hiram Revels 43

J. W. Vance 50 (who received 2 Carpetbag votes, one from the Alderson camp and one, actually, from Revels’ camp).

At this point, the legislative body adjourned until Tuesday, 20 January 1870, and the next day, the Scalawag senator, J. H. Pierce representing Panola and Tallahatchie Counties, withdrew J. W. Vance’s name from the list of hopefuls, and on the sixth ballot, Hiram Revels received 81 votes, twenty more than needed to win election. But here are a couple of interesting things to ponder. The first deals with the withdrawal of John W. Vance’s name and the second is the re-dissemination of the votes once Vance’s name was removed.

What happened over night to compel the Scalawag senator Pierce to remove Vance’s name from the competition before the first vote on 20 January? Of the five Scalawags in the senate who had supported Vance without fail, four now cast their votes to Revels. The fifth, H. N. Ballard representing Desoto County, does not appear to have voted. All seven Democratic senators who had supported Vance (the senate total), cast their ballots to the wind as did his 22 Democratic supporters in the house. John Surratt (Lincoln assassination conspiracy) and John Smith (Pocahontas’ old flame) being among the nominees. To be fair, there were votes cast for good nominees such as J. Z. George, lawyer and future Mississippi supreme court justice prior to his election to the U. S. Senate in 1881 and W. S. Featherston, antebellum legislator and Confederate war hero who would remain active in politics in the fight against the Carpetbag administration and into Redemption. W. L. Sharkey even received a couple of votes, but my point here is that in the election for the short-term U.S. Senate seat, in January 1870, there was no further coordinated vote among this now rudderless group once Vance was removed from the field. Six of the 13 Scalawag representatives who had supported Vance in the house, threw in their lots with Revels, backing their senators, the remainder, less one, cast their votes for Abel Alderson.

So what happened? Why did the Scalawags (and it does appear that it was the senate Scalawags who “sold out” and suddenly withdrew the name of the leading contender right from under their nominally allied Democratic compatriots with whom they appeared in lockstep on their way to sending a Democrat to the U.S. Senate.  [Just can’t trust those Scalawags]. Ah, but was it the sell-out it appears? Vance’s name wasn’t the only one missing from that final vote—B. B. Eggleston’s was, too. Fourteen Carpetbaggers, 2 Negroes, and 1 Scalawag who had voted for the ex-Union general now cast their votes for Revels. With Revels’ already existing 43, that made 60 votes—not quite enough to win the seat. And the plot thickens.

John W. Vance (the leader on the night before the decision) was father to two Confederate veterans. He was a long-time lawyer and resident in Desoto County (the same county represented by Scalawag Senator Ballard who didn’t vote in the final poll), and on the 10th of May 1870, the Mississippi senate confirmed Alcorn’s appointment of J. W. Vance as judge on Mississippi’s Twelfth Circuit.

Here’s what I think happened. The Carpetbaggers, foiled by their Negro supporters, who were sticking by their guns regarding a Negro getting that senate seat, now accepted the fact that Eggleston, sheared of his Negro votes, would not win that seat. The Eggleston clique (there were always Carpetbaggers who opposed Eggleston just like there were those who supported Revels) capitulated and cast their lots with the Revels’ ascendancy. But even if all Eggleston’s votes shifted to Revels (and there was no guarantee of that), there were Carpetbaggers adamantly opposed to a Negro getting that seat. Add to that, the popular Scalawag Abel Anderson was still in the running. That meant Revels would still come up shy of the votes he needed to win. So after that final vote the evening of 19 January and adjournment, the pro-Vance moderate Scalawags approached the Radical camp and offered their Republican colleagues a deal. The Scalawags would withdraw Vance’s name and cast their support (or, at least enough support) to Revels, if the Radicals would support John W. Vance for judge on Mississippi’s Twelfth Circuit. I would guess that Alcorn would have been privy to the agreement. I for one can believe those moderate Senate Scalawags (and their Democratic allies who nevertheless refused to vote for Revels (nor were they needed at that point)) found more value in having their man as a judge on the Twelfth Circuit than they did in a lame-duck senator whose term would end in fourteen months. [And, of course, it could have been the other way around—the Radicals could have approached the Scalawags. I simply have my suspicions as to which group was the smarter of the two. Shoot, the Scalawags could have supported Vance all along hoping for an opportunity to make such a deal. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it did happen in much this way]. The moderate Scalawags cut a deal with the Carpetbaggers, putting Revels in the U. S. Senate in return for placing Vance on the Twelfth Circuit—really not much of a sacrifice for Alcorn, who would have preferred a Southerner on the circuit anyway.  

One last aside. I had some initial trouble with my theory on the selection of Judge Vance for the Twelfth Circuit in that other Mississippi records place him on the Third Circuit (Adams, Claiborne, Franklin, and Jefferson Counties). It was a major glitch in that it simply made no sense for that particular man—critical to my theory—to be assigned to the Third Circuit. My J. W. Vance, the one leading the vote count on the evening of the 19th, came from Desoto County, and for the deal I proposed to work he had to have been appointed to the Twelfth Circuit. Sure enough, a review of the of 19 May 1870 Hernando Press confirmed the state senate had approved native son J. W. Vance for the Twelfth Circuit and stated specifically the Twelfth Circuit was comprised of Desoto, Panola, Sunflower, and Tallahatchie Counties. Yeah, you catch that? Panola and Tallahatchie Counties were represented by Senator J. H. Pierce, the same man who had withdrawn Vance’s name on the morning of the 20th of January. Why the other historical records have it wrong, I don’t know. Of course, it was probably a one-time error that kept repeating itself. Research is so much fun.

The seating of Hiram Revels in the U. S. Senate next time—along with all the other “conditions” for Mississippi’s reentry into the Union.

Thanks for reading,

Charlsie

The Black and Tan’s Committee of Five Comes Alive--Like Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster

This post is number twenty-four in a historical series discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from the Democratic victory over the Republican reconstruction constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. For earlier posts in this long series based on Alcorn, (best read in sequence from oldest to most recent), start with 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 23 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014, 13 January, 24 January, 9 February, 24 February, 9  March, 31 March, 8 May, 10 June, 30 June,  3 August, and 30 August 2015.

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The investigation promulgated by the committee of five to prove fraud in the June/July 1868 election (see my 30 August post) continued its work for four months. On 3 November its chairman, W. H. Gibbs, ex-major, 15th Illinois Infantry, issued a proclamation from “the rooms of the committee of five, of the Mississippi constitutional convention” reiterating the convention’s processes in framing the rejected constitution under the Reconstruction Acts and concluding that the constitution submitted to a vote of the people that past summer had been duly ratified and the Republican ticket elected. Gibbs and cohorts came up with his “legal” votes cast by throwing out the results of Copiah, Carroll, Chickasaw, De Soto, Lafayette, Rankin, and Yallobusha Counties on account of threats, intimidation, fraud, and violence. He even went so far as to declare five Republican representatives had been elected to the 41st Congress even though elections for that Congress had not been held. Shoot, if you’re writing up your own election results, why not go for broke? The report also declared that a large number of the Democrats elected to the legislature won their seats through fraud.

The provocative statements were modus operandi of the Radicals across the South. Today they are accepted as gospel. Fraud and intimidation occurred on both sides, but given the skewed population at the time and the overwhelming presence of Federal troops and registrars at the polls (and the countryside where trouble was reported), I believe that much of what the Democrats/Conservatives were accused was fabricated, a prevailing thought often alluded to in the Democratic papers at the time. But no matter what the committee of five attempted to hatch, the rejected constitution left Mississippi under military rule. At home, General Gillem was in charge and the case of the rejected constitution, along with allegations of tyranny and fraud against it, were in the hands of a Radical Congress. 

Emboldened by that partisan Congress, Mississippi’s Radicals called for a convention in Jackson on 25 November 1868 and drew up a memorial requesting Congress declare the new constitution ratified, presented causes for the present “embarrassment” of Republicans within the state, and requested permanent relief from Congress—that translated to “remove the disloyal citizens from civil positions and put us in their place.” To justify this takeover of state government, members asserted that a large class of Mississippians was in defiance of authority and the wishes of Congress and that class had rejected all terms for restoration to the Union and assumed the right to dictate the terms under which its members would agree to reenter the Union—the one we supposedly never left.  

In tandem with framing this memorial, the committee of five appointed a committee of six persons from the state at large and two from each of the five congressional districts to proceed to Washington and lay the memorial before Congress and urge readmission of the state. This was the committee of sixteen:

1. State at large:  

R.W. Flourney*

Jonathan Tarbell

Abel Alderson

Alston Mygatt

E. Stafford

F. Hodges 

2. Congressional district representatives: 

First: U. Ozanne, J. L. Alcorn**

Second: W. W. Bell, J. G. Lyons

Third:  George F. Brown, G. W. Van Hook

Fourth:  T. W. Stringer, H. W. Barry

Fifth: E. J. Castello, W. H. Gibbs 

*Flourney was a Southern secessionist who was, by 1867, reputed to be the most Radical Republican in the state.
**Yes, the man who started this series long ago is now a “card-carrying” Radical Republican, at least, in the official sense.

In the meantime, the Republican Party offices in almost every county in the state held mass meetings/conventions and drew up resolutions for the committee of sixteen to set before the Reconstruction Committee in Washington to support Congressional interdiction. In lieu of declaring an all-around Republic victory that past July, options offered were setting up a provisional government in Mississippi (Republicans in charge, of course) or reconstituting the constitutional convention. All these resolutions were printed in the state’s (Republican) newspapers and transmitted to the committee of sixteen in Washington for inclusion with the other material set before the Reconstruction Committee. Doubtless the Democratic newspapers put the word out, too, with fiesty comments, but doubt they sent them to the Reconstruction Committee—to Democratic Representatives in the “loyal states”, perhaps, who did have their seats? 

And with that last comment, it is important to note that events in Mississippi were not occurring in a vacuum. The tyranny wrought by Congressional Reconstruction was no longer meeting simple resistance across the late “insurrectionary states”. Legal recourse for justice to the Southern taxpayer had been routinely thwarted by the powers now residing in Washington, and the result was evolving into a backlash. Events in Georgia and Tennessee had taken such turns that the Radicals in Congress were forced to re-evaluate the terms for readmitting the last three “unreconstructed” states of Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi back into the Union and are important for understanding what happened in Mississippi. Oh what a tangled web casting aside the Constitution had wrought, and the Radicals had no intention of returning to “the law of the land” to sort it all out and repair the situation. To them, the Constitution was a worthless piece of paper to be circumvented and altered (so they could give public homage to it without allowing it to affect their agenda). I will continue with this adjunct in my next post.  

Thanks for reading,
 

Charlsie

 

 

Alcorn’s Final Option: Joining the Republican Team in Mississippi

This post is number eighteen in a historical series dealing with Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator following the War Between the States and is a continuation of my 9 March post immediately below discussing Alcorn’s activities under the Reconstruction Acts of 1867.

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Not only was the “progressive” constitution defeated in the summer of 1868, so was the Republican ticket expected to make up Mississippi’s legislature as well as her governor and four of five representatives who would represent her in the U.S. House. The men who wrote that constitution and chose the Republican ticket were primarily white and were from the North and ex-Union soldiers to boot. Representative examples include General George C. McKee (Illinois)’, Jonathan Tarbell (New York), L.W. Perce (New York), and H.R. Pease (Connecticut). T.W. Stringer was a Negro minister from Canada who came to the state with the Freedman’s Bureau. Newly “initiated” Mississippi Republicans included R.W. Flourney (ex-slave holder and Confederate, who was one of four men who represented Pontotoc County at the secession convention, voted for secession, raised a military unit for the Confederacy, and after the war turned Republican and became one of the most radical in the state), J.L. Wofford (ex-Confederate turned conservative Republican. I believe he was from South Carolina, but had settled in the Corinth, Mississippi area after the war), J.S. Morris (a Vicksburg attorney, who later became state attorney general), and the Reverend James Lynch, a Negro preacher from Mississippi.  

Before moving on, I’d like to toss out a brief anecdote in regards to Reverend Lynch, who came to Mississippi in league with the Methodist Episcopal Church, North and would become Mississippi’s secretary of state. During the Mississippi Republican Party’s first convention in September 1867, H.R. Pease moved to add the word “colored” to the name of each Negro delegate. Reverend Lynch moved to amend, suggesting the color of each delegate’s hair be added also.

In her autobiography of Alcorn, Lillian Pereyra described the Republican ticket as all-white, but I found one broadside in a July, 1868, Columbus, Mississippi newspaper that lists a freedman, R.O. Gleed, as running for the state house of representatives. The Republican nominee for governor was ex-brevet general, Beroth B. Eggleston (ex-U.S. Army), of the 1st Ohio. He came replete with an impressive record and honorable discharge from the Grand Army of the Republic. Eggleston had accepted the surrender of Atlanta from Colonel Glenn in July of 1864 and there proceeded to establish martial law within the city, or what was left of it.  

As of December 1868, only three “insurrectionary” states still remained outside the Union, Texas, Virginia, and Mississippi—they’d yet to be “reconstructed”—meaning they’d failed to do what Congress directed them to do under the Reconstruction Acts. What it boiled down to was Mississippi and Texas had managed to keep the Republican Parties in their respective states from winning at the polls and putting puppet governments in their stead. Virginia’s Republican Party suffered massive polarization between its conservative and radical factions from the “git-go,” implying the party itself prevented issues from even making it to the polls. Her people finally approved a “blessed” constitution in 1869.  

James Lusk Alcorn took no part in the constitutional convention of 1867 or in choosing the Republican ticket that followed, but his cousin, Robert J. Alcorn, who had come to Mississippi from Kentucky in 1852 and whose name appears on receipts for purchasing cattle for the Confederate Army in the late fall of 1863, appears on the ticket as the nominee for secretary of state. (Hmmm—think a case should have been make for perjury there?) Robert Alcorn represented Yalobusha County and urged adoption of the constitution noting the more obnoxious of its features could later be modified. That would have been a reference to the wholesale proscription clauses disfranchising Confederates and all those who supported the Confederacy. In her work, Pereyra indicates redemption by an oath of allegiance put one back in the voting rolls. General Ord’s registration requirements (see my 9 March post below) do not validate that, but I’ve run across so many clear contradictions I can’t help but think the determination was made at the discretion of whichever tyrant was in charge, his decision predicated on his perception of how the voter would cast his ballot. Certainly Alcorn gave his oath of allegiance, which returned his property to him, but he not only voted, he ran for office (and won) under the Reconstruction Acts...as did his cousin who, without a doubt, also swore an oath to the United States.  

In early 1868, at the time Robert Alcorn would have been running his campaign for secretary of state and stumping the “Reconstruction” constitution, he was busy in Coahoma County founding a newspaper which supported his cousin’s appeal for a new hybrid party. The presence of the newspaper in James’ home county suggests the two cousins were already on the same sheet of music, and James reciprocated support by speaking on behalf of the Republican ticket only days before the 10 July 1868 election. 

By the summer of 1868, politics within the state had polarized into Republican and Democratic camps. If Alcorn’s hybrid party of Douglas Democrats and old-Whigs ever had a chance, it had passed. Since Alcorn believed Mississippi’s road to salvation was through representation in Congress, the Democrats’ determination to resist the Reconstruction Acts and remain under martial law would not have been an option for him. 

Alcorn’s support for the Republican Party widened the gap between him and those who had supported participation (acquiescence in, vice capitulation to) the Reconstruction Acts the year before. The difference, of course, is that with the constitutional convention behind them, the opportunity for participation had passed and the constitution created by those who did attend meant wholesale proscription and rule by those who had little or nothing invested in the state. Now, the reticent purveyors of acquiescence had no recourse for maintaining constitutional liberty except to defeat the Republican agenda at the polls. Alcorn, without a doubt, still clung to the belief that salvation lay with representation in congress. 

As stated in my 9 March post below, to everyone’s surprise, the reinvigorated Democratic Party defeated the Republicans. It is at this point when Alcorn’s name appears on the list of party leaders within the state of Mississippi,  and the party’s first move is an attempt to vacate the Democratic victory, to declare the Republicans victors, the constitution approved, thereby “reconstructing” the state in the image of Northern progressivism, and bring Mississippi back into the Union with her other Southern sisters so betrayed. The fight was on with James Lusk Alcorn clearly aligned on the side of Republican tyranny. 

I’m going to end this post here because the ensuing fight speaks so much to the true agenda of the Radicals not only in Congress, but also in Mississippi (of whom I’d suggest Alcorn was not one—but you know the old adage, if you lie down with dogs you’re gonna get fleas on you). It was a risk he took and fleas he got. He never fully redeemed himself in the eyes of Mississippi, and he never will. That Democratic victory in the summer of 1868 stands as one of the great efforts of political triumph that a people have ever put forth to peacefully thwart tyranny in their own defense, yet Alcorn aligned himself with outsiders, who, once the reality of their unbelievable defeat became known cried foul despite the prior presence of additional U.S. army forces and strict supervision by registrars belonging to those now crying foul. Together, he and his new friends would travel to Washington with reams of “x” marked affidavits declaring intimidation and fraud and fear for their lives (really—who was protecting them then who hadn’t protected then on Election Day?) in an effort to have Congress declare a Republican victory. James Lusk Alcorn thought it was all for the best, of course—salvation lay in representation.

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For earlier posts on Alcorn, best read in sequence from oldest to most recent, see 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 18 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014, 13 January, 24 January, 9 February, 24 February, and 9 March 2015 below.