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90-577: The Cullen–Harrison Act , named for its sponsors, Senator Pat Harrison and Representative Thomas H. Cullen , enacted by the United States Congress on March 21, 1933, and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt the following day, legalized the sale in the United States of beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% (by weight) and wine of similarly low alcohol content, thought to be too low to be intoxicating, effective April 7, 1933. Upon signing

180-700: A property requirement . The literacy test was administered by the voting registrar; in practice, they were white Democrats. Provisions in the constitution also included a grandfather clause , which provided a loophole to enable illiterate whites to register to vote. It said that "Any citizen who was a voter on January 1, 1867, or his son or grandson, or any person naturalized prior to January 1, 1898, if applying for registration before September 1, 1898, might vote, notwithstanding illiteracy or poverty." Separate registration lists were kept for whites and blacks, making it easy for white registrars to discriminate against blacks in literacy tests. The constitution of 1898 also required

270-488: A Republican president as few as three times in that interval. Kentucky did usually vote for the Democratic Party in presidential elections from 1877 to 1964, but was still a competitive state at both the state and federal levels. The Democratic Party in the state was heavily divided over free silver and the role of corporations in the middle 1890s, and lost the governorship for the first time in forty years in 1895. In

360-457: A century in former Confederate states, were complicated. For varying reasons African Americans remained enfranchised in the border states despite movements for disfranchisement during the 1900s. The percentages of African Americans of the populations of the Border States was generally significantly lower than the percentages in the former Confederate states from 1870 to 1960. Less than 10% of

450-425: A class that covered most adult men who could have fought in the war, the paramilitary groups worked for political aims: to turn Republicans out of office, disrupt their organizing, and use force to intimidate and terrorize freedmen to keep them away from the polls. Such groups have been described as "the military arm of the Democratic Party". They were instrumental in many Southern states in driving blacks away from

540-497: A decade of disfranchisement, the white supremacy campaign had erased the image of the black middle class from the minds of white North Carolinians." In Virginia, Democrats sought disfranchisement in the late 19th century after a coalition of white and black Republicans with populist Democrats had come to power; the coalition had been formalized as the Readjuster Party . The Readjuster Party held control from 1881 to 1883, electing

630-683: A discriminatory way. They succeeded in disenfranchising most of the black citizens, as well as many poor whites in the South, and voter rolls dropped dramatically in each state. The Republican Party was nearly eliminated in the region for decades, and the Southern Democrats established one-party control throughout the Southern United States. In 1912, the Republican Party was split when Theodore Roosevelt ran against William Howard Taft ,

720-719: A federal crime. Despite white Southerners' complaints about Reconstruction, several Southern states kept most provisions of their Reconstruction constitutions for more than two decades, until late in the 19th century. In some states, the number of blacks elected to local offices reached a peak in the 1880s although Reconstruction had ended. They influenced the local level, where much of government took place, although they did not win many statewide or national seats. Subsequently, state legislatures passed restrictive laws or constitutions that made voter registration and election rules more complicated. As literacy tests and other restrictions could be applied subjectively, these changes sharply limited

810-472: A free vote and a fair count, how are you going to beat 135,000 by 95,000? How are you going to do it? You had set us an impossible task. We did not disfranchise the negroes until 1895. Then we had a constitutional convention convened which took the matter up calmly, deliberately, and avowedly with the purpose of disfranchising as many of them as we could under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. We adopted

900-601: A full count of the population, but they disfranchised several million black and white citizens. Southern white Democrats comprised the " Solid South ", a powerful voting bloc in Congress until the mid-20th century. Their representatives, re-elected repeatedly by one-party states, exercised the power of seniority, controlling numerous chairmanships of important committees in both houses. Their power allowed them to have control over rules, budgets and important patronage projects, among other issues, as well as to defeat bills to make lynching

990-561: A governor and controlling the legislature, which also elected a US Senator from the state. As in North Carolina, state Democrats were able to divide Readjuster supporters through appeals to White Supremacy. After regaining power, Democrats changed state laws and the constitution in 1902 to disenfranchise blacks. They ratified the new constitution in the legislature and did not submit it to the popular vote. Voting in Virginia fell by nearly half as

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1080-577: A large and increasingly educated black community concentrated in Baltimore. This city had many free blacks before the Civil War and they had established both economic and political power. The state legislature passed a poll tax in 1904, but incurred vigorous opposition and repealed it in 1911. Despite support among conservative whites in the conservative Eastern Shore , referendums for bills to disenfranchise blacks failed three times in 1905, 1908, and 1910, with

1170-430: A majority of Mississippi voters, who were effectively limited to white Democrats, following the state legislature's disenfranchisement of most black voters by a new constitution and discriminatory practices dating from 1890. After winning Vardaman's Senate seat in 1918, Harrison was re-elected for another three terms, as Mississippi was a one-party state dominated by Democrats. He ran unopposed in 1930 for his third term in

1260-523: A new constitution, which contained provisions for voter registration that required voters to pay poll taxes and pass a literacy test . The literacy test was subjectively applied by white administrators, and the two provisions effectively disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites. The constitutional provisions survived a Supreme Court challenge in Williams v. Mississippi (1898). Other southern states quickly adopted new constitutions and what they called

1350-678: A new state legislative effort to disenfranchise blacks failed because of the strong organization of the Republican Party in pro-Union regions of the state. Republicans won Kentucky in the 1924 and 1928 presidential elections, the former of which was the only state that Warren G. Harding lost in the 1920 presidential election , but Coolidge won in the 1924 United States presidential election . Kentucky also elected some Republican governors during this period, such as William O'Connell Bradley (1895-1899), Augustus E. Willson (1907-1911), Edwin P. Morrow (1919-1923), Flem D. Sampson (1927-1931), and Simeon Willis (1943-1947). Maryland voted for

1440-452: A person to satisfy a longer residency requirement in the state, county, parish, and precinct before voting than did the constitution of 1879. This worked against the lower classes, who were more likely to move frequently for work, especially in agricultural areas where there were many migrant workers and sharecroppers. The effect of these changes on the population of black voters in Louisiana

1530-524: A result of the disfranchisement of blacks. The eighty years of white Democratic control ended only in the late 1960s after passage and enforcement of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the collapse of the Byrd Organization machine. Oklahoma was unique, as it only became a state in 1907 . During the American Civil War , most of what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma was designated as

1620-585: A self-serving political maneuver. As chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee , Harrison was one of the three or four key people behind the creation of the Social Security system in 1935. He also promoted low tariffs and reciprocal trade agreements. When the Senate majority leader's job opened up in 1937, Harrison was expected to win the position, but nose counts put him in a near tie with Kentucky's Alben Barkley . Harrison's campaign manager asked Bilbo,

1710-493: A skilled orator and witty debater, a reputation he maintained throughout his political career. Newspaper editor Clayton Rand described his longtime friend's oratory style as "an eloquence that flowed like a babbling brook through a field of flowers." After four years as district attorney on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Harrison won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1911 and was re-elected three times. One of

1800-568: A summer term at the University of Mississippi before transferring to Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge on a baseball scholarship. He dropped out after two years due to a lack of funds but was brought on to pitch for the Pickens, Mississippi, semi-professional baseball team in the 'Old Tomato League' summer circuit. After his stint in semi-professional baseball, Harrison moved to Leakesville, Mississippi . He taught and later became principal of

1890-451: The 1896 presidential election , the state was exceedingly close, with McKinley becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to carry Kentucky, by a mere 277 votes, or 0.06352%. McKinley's victory was, by percentage margin, the seventh-closest popular results for presidential electors on record. In Kentucky, Lexington's city government had passed a poll tax in 1901, but it was declared invalid in state circuit courts. Six years later,

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1980-660: The Carolinas in late 1871. United States marshals supervised state voter registrations and elections and could summon the help of military or naval forces if needed. These measures led to the demise of the first Klan by the early 1870s. New paramilitary groups quickly sprang up, as tens of thousands of veterans belonged to gun clubs and similar groups. A second wave of violence began, resulting in over 1,000 deaths, usually black or Republican. The Supreme Court ruled in 1876 in United States v. Cruikshank , arising from trials related to

2070-615: The Colfax Massacre , that protections of the Fourteenth Amendment, which the Enforcement Acts were intended to support, did not apply to the actions of individuals, but only to the actions of state governments. They recommended that persons seek relief from state courts, which had not been supportive of freedmen's rights. The paramilitary organizations that arose in the mid to late 1870s were part of continuing insurgency in

2160-541: The Georgia poll tax in 1877. Other measures followed, particularly near the end of the century, after a Republican-Populist alliance caused the Democrats to temporarily lose some Congressional seats and control of some gubernatorial positions. To secure their power, the Democrats worked to exclude blacks (and most Republicans) from politics. The results could be seen across the South. After Reconstruction, Tennessee initially had

2250-816: The Indian Territory . Most tribal leaders in Indian Territory aligned with the Confederacy. Oklahoma disenfranchised its black population, which comprised less than 10% of the state's population from 1910 to 1960. In Guinn v. United States (1915), the Supreme Court invalidated the Oklahoma Constitution 's "old soldier" and "grandfather clause" exemptions from literacy tests. In practice, these had disenfranchised blacks, as had occurred in numerous Southern states. This decision affected similar provisions in

2340-605: The Knights of the White Camellia . Compared to the Klan, they were open societies, better organized, and devoted to the political goal of regaining control of the state legislatures and suppressing Republicans, including most blacks. They often solicited newspaper coverage for publicity to increase their threat. The scale of operations was such that in 1876, North Carolina had 20,000 men in rifle clubs. Made up of well-armed Confederate veterans,

2430-693: The Redeemers . In the South, the process of white Democrats regaining control of state governments has been called "the Redemption". African-American historians sometimes call the Compromise of 1877 "The Great Betrayal". Following continuing violence around elections as insurgents worked to suppress black voting, the Democratic-dominated Southern states passed legislation to create barriers to voter registrations by blacks and poor whites , starting with

2520-867: The Senate Journal as a means to filibuster during the 1922 debate on the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill . The Senate rules state that "the reading of the Journal shall not be suspended unless by unanimous consent", so Harrison's discussion of the Senate Journal was unable to be clotured until the sponsors withdrew the Bill. Harrison served on the Senate Finance Committee and was chairman of that body from 1933 to 1941 (Seventy-third through Seventy-seventh Congresses), and served as President pro tempore of

2610-555: The United States Congress , where the Democratic Solid South enjoyed "about 25 extra seats in Congress for each decade between 1903 and 1953". Also, the Democratic dominance in the South meant that southern senators and representatives became entrenched in Congress. They favored seniority privileges in Congress, which became the standard by 1920, and Southerners controlled chairmanships of important committees , as well as

2700-534: The freedmen 's exercise of political power. In 1867, black men voted for the first time. By the 1868 presidential election , Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia had still not been re-admitted to the Union. General Ulysses S. Grant was elected as president thanks in part to 700,000 black voters. In February 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified; it was designed to protect blacks' right to vote from infringement by

2790-485: The "Mississippi Plan". By 1908, all states of the former Confederacy had passed new constitutions or suffrage amendments, sometimes bypassing general elections to achieve this. Legislators created a variety of barriers, including longer residency requirements, rule variations, and literacy and understanding tests, which were subjectively applied against minorities, or were particularly hard for the poor to fulfill. Such constitutional provisions were unsuccessfully challenged at

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2880-451: The "Solid South" inhibited the national party from fulfilling center-left initiatives desired since the days of William Jennings Bryan . Woodrow Wilson , one of two Democrats elected to the presidency between Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt , was the first Southerner elected after 1856. He benefited from the disfranchisement of blacks and the crippling of the Republican Party in the South. Soon after taking office, Wilson directed

2970-737: The 1870s, white racists had used violence by domestic terrorism groups (such as the Ku Klux Klan ), as well as fraud, to suppress black voters. After regaining control of the state legislatures, Southern Democrats were alarmed by a late 19th-century alliance between Republicans and Populists that cost them some elections. After achieving control of state legislatures, white conservatives added to previous efforts and achieved widespread disfranchisement by law: from 1890 to 1908, Southern state legislatures passed new constitutions, constitutional amendments, and laws that made voter registration and voting more difficult, especially when administered by white staff in

3060-579: The 1919 passage of the Volstead Act . Throngs gathered outside breweries and taverns to celebrate the return of 3.2 beer . The passage of the Cullen–Harrison Act is celebrated as National Beer Day every year on April 7 in the United States. This United States federal legislation article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Pat Harrison Byron Patton "Pat" Harrison (August 29, 1881 – June 22, 1941)

3150-426: The Civil War, and some had accumulated property. Literacy was high among African Americans and, as Democrats crafted means to exclude them, suffrage campaigns helped reach blacks and teach them how to resist. In 1896, a biracial Republican coalition enabled the election of Lloyd Lowndes, Jr. as governor. During the 1900s Maryland was vigorously divided between supporters and opponents of disfranchisement, but it had

3240-512: The Confederate slave states from the Civil War. The border states, all slave states, also established laws requiring racial segregation between the 1880s and 1900s; however, disfranchisement of blacks was never attained to any significant degree. Most Border States did attempt such disfranchisement during the 1900s. The causes of the failure to disenfranchise blacks and poor whites in the Border States, as compared to their success for well over half

3330-460: The Democratic Party presidential candidate from 1868 to 1892, but the 1896 presidential election was a realignment in the state, similar to West Virginia. Maryland voted for the Republican Party presidential candidate from 1896 to 1928, except for Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916. In contrast to the former Confederate states, nearly half the African American population was free before

3420-470: The Democratic legislatures passed Jim Crow laws to assert white supremacy, establish racial segregation in public facilities, and treat blacks as second-class citizens. The landmark court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) held that "separate but equal" facilities, as on railroad cars, were constitutional. The new constitutions passed numerous Supreme Court challenges. In cases where a particular restriction

3510-529: The Democrats adopted a constitutional suffrage amendment which lengthened the residence period required before registration and enacted both an educational qualification (to be assessed by a registrar, which meant that it could be subjectively applied) and prepayment of a poll tax . A grandfather clause exempted from the poll tax those entitled to vote on January 1, 1867. The legislature also passed Jim Crow laws establishing racial segregation in public facilities and transportation. The effect in North Carolina

3600-469: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. While their voter registration requirements applied to all citizens, in practice they disenfranchised most blacks. As in Alabama, they also "would remove [from voter registration rolls] the less educated, less organized, more impoverished whites as well – and that would ensure one-party Democratic rules through most of the 20th century in the South". The new provisions of

3690-557: The Jim Crow era. However, Oklahoma was still politically competitive at the federal level during the Jim Crow era. It voted for Warren G. Harding in 1920 and Herbert Hoover in 1928 . Oklahoma did not enact a poll tax found in the former Confederate states, and had a Republican presence in Northwestern Oklahoma with close ties to neighboring Kansas , a Republican stronghold. Oklahoma also elected three Republican senators in

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3780-565: The Jim Crow era: John W. Harreld (1921-1927), William B. Pine (1925-1931), and Edward H. Moore (1943-1949). Starting in 1952 , well before the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Oklahoma has consistently voted Republican in presidential elections, except in Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 landslide. Oklahoma is the only Southern state to have never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate after 1964. The five border states of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, had legacies similar to

3870-479: The North Carolina 1898 election and the following 1900 election. Simmons was elected as the state's US senator in 1900, holding office until 1931 through multiple re-elections by the state legislature and by popular vote after 1920. The Democrats used their power in the state legislature to disenfranchise minorities, primarily blacks, and ensure that Democratic Party and white power would not be threatened again. They passed laws restricting voter registration. In 1900

3960-574: The North to teach freedmen were sometimes attacked or intimidated as well. In 1870, the attempt of North Carolina's Republican Governor William W. Holden to suppress the Klan, known as the Kirk-Holden War , led to a backlash by whites, the election of a Democratic General Assembly in August 1870, and his impeachment and removal from office. The toll of Klan murders and attacks led Congress to pass laws to end

4050-453: The Republican party allowed them to gain control of Delaware's governorship throughout most of the twentieth century. The Republican Party ensured Black people could vote because of their general support for Republicans and thus undid restrictions on Black suffrage. For West Virginia , " reconstruction , in a sense, began in 1861". Unlike the other border states , West Virginia did not send

4140-714: The Senate during the Seventy-seventh Congress, in 1941 until his death that year. He was also a supporter of the Conservative coalition . Harrison was a highly effective politician and a brilliant orator. He listened to his district and provided information, services, and patronage. Due to his ability to maneuver through the political landscape and because he was well-liked by many of his fellow politicians, Harrison became rather influential in both legislation and political endorsement. In 1928, he supported New York Governor Al Smith for President and campaigned for him across

4230-694: The South after the Civil War, as armed veterans in the South resisted social changes, and worked to prevent black Americans and other Republicans from voting and running for office. Such groups included the White League , formed in Louisiana in 1874 from white militias , with chapters forming in other Southern states; the Red Shirts , formed in 1875 in Mississippi but also active in North Carolina and South Carolina; and other "White Liners," such as rifle clubs and

4320-649: The South, where there was opposition and superstition among white Southerners because of Smith’s Catholicism. Harrison became known as the "Gadfly of the Senate" due to his oratory rebuking Republican policies. At the 1932 Democratic National Convention , he swung the Mississippi delegation to Franklin D. Roosevelt on the crucial third ballot and became welcome at the White House. On 16 June 1941, Harrison underwent surgery for an intestinal obstruction . He died from post-operative complications six days later. Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era Beginning in

4410-570: The South. Political disfranchisement did not end until after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , which authorized the federal government to monitor voter registration practices and elections where populations were historically underrepresented and to enforce constitutional voting rights. The challenge to voting rights has continued into the 21st century, as shown by numerous court cases in 2016 alone, though attempts to restrict voting rights for political advantage have not been confined to

4500-686: The Southern United States. The American Civil War ended in 1865, marking the start of the Reconstruction era in the eleven former Confederate states. Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts , starting in 1867, establishing military districts to oversee the affairs of these states pending reconstruction. During the Reconstruction era, blacks constituted absolute majorities of the populations in Mississippi and South Carolina , were equal to

4590-496: The Supreme Court in Giles v. Harris (1903). In practice, these provisions, including white primaries , created a maze that blocked most blacks and many poor whites from voting in Southern states until after the passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Voter registration and turnout dropped sharply across the South, as most blacks and many poor whites were excluded from

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4680-459: The U.S. Senate. A supporter and former law partner of Theodore G. Bilbo , Stewart C. "Sweep Clean" Broom surprisingly aided Harrison's 1936 reelection campaign by giving a well-received speech encouraging "Bilbo folks" to save Bilbo "from his own blunder." Despite having received past help from Harrison, Bilbo actively supported Martin Sennett Conner for Harrison's Senate seat, presumably as

4770-489: The ability to elect two US Senators) and were successful in electing several US Representatives elected through electoral fusion . The fusion coalition made impressive gains in the 1896 election when their legislative majority expanded. Republican Daniel Lindsay Russell won the gubernatorial race in 1897, the first Republican governor of the state since the end of Reconstruction in 1877. The election also resulted in more than 1,000 elected or appointed black officials, including

4860-543: The best-educated of these men continued to "fail" the literacy tests administered by white registrars. The historian J. Morgan Kousser noted, "Within the Democratic party, the chief impetus for restriction came from the black belt members," whom he identified as "always socioeconomically privileged." In addition to wanting to affirm white supremacy, the planter and business elite were concerned about voting by lower-class and uneducated whites. Kousser found, "They disfranchised these whites as willingly as they deprived blacks of

4950-414: The constitutions of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia election rules. Oklahoma and other states quickly reacted by passing laws that created other rules for voter registration that worked against blacks and minorities. Oklahoma did not have a Republican governor until Henry Bellmon was elected in 1962 , though Republicans were still able to draw over 40% of the vote statewide during

5040-515: The educational qualification as the only means left to us, and the negro is as contented and as prosperous and as well protected in South Carolina to-day as in any State of the Union south of the Potomac. He is not meddling with politics, for he found that the more he meddled with them the worse off he got. As to his “rights”—I will not discuss them now. We of the South have never recognized the right of

5130-460: The election in 1897 of George Henry White to Congress, as a member of the House of Representatives. At the 1898 election, the Democrats ran on White Supremacy and disfranchisement in a bitter race-baiting campaign led by Furnifold McLendel Simmons and Josephus Daniels , editor and publisher of The Raleigh News & Observer . The Republican/Populist coalition disintegrated, and the Democrats won

5220-428: The former Confederate States, Delaware voted for the Republican Party in a majority of presidential elections from 1876 to 1964 (12 out of 23). Delaware voted for the Democratic Party presidential candidate from 1876 to 1892, but then consistently voted for the Republican Party presidential candidate from 1896 to 1932, except in 1912 for Woodrow Wilson when the Republican Party split. The allegiance of industries with

5310-494: The governorship for eight of the next nine terms, and electing 82 of 106 U.S. Representatives until 1932. West Virginia had a relatively low percentage of African Americans from 1870 to 1960, comprising between 4% to 7% of the state's population. In 1932, as the nation swung to the Democrats, West Virginia again became solidly Democratic. It was perhaps the most reliably Democratic state in the nation between 1932 and 1996, being one of just two states (along with Minnesota) to vote for

5400-547: The junior member from Mississippi, to consider voting for his fellow Mississippian. Bilbo, a race-baiting Democratic demagogue whose base was among tenant farmers, hated the upper-class Harrison, who represented the rich planters. The rivalry between the two had deepened over years of disagreement over aspects of the New Deal and how federal money should be distributed throughout Mississippi. Bilbo said he would vote for Harrison only if he were personally asked. Harrison replied, "Tell

5490-424: The last vote being the most decisive. The existence of substantial Italian immigration completely absent from the former Confederate states meant that these immigrants were exposed to the possibility of disfranchisement, but much more critically allowed for much stronger resistance amongst the white population. The Democrat-dominated state legislature tried to pass disfranchising bills in 1905, 1907, and 1911, but

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5580-516: The leadership of the national Democratic Party. During the Great Depression , legislation establishing numerous national social programs were passed without the representation of African Americans , leading to gaps in program coverage and discrimination against them in operations. In addition, because black Southerners were not listed on local voter rolls, they were automatically excluded from serving in local courts . Juries were all white across

5670-442: The legislation, Roosevelt made his famous remark, "I think this would be a good time for a beer." According to the Cullen–Harrison Act, states had to pass their own similar legislation to legalize sale of the low alcohol beverages within their borders. Roosevelt had previously sent a short message to Congress requesting such a bill. Sale of even low alcohol beer had been illegal in the U.S. since Prohibition started in 1920 following

5760-540: The legislature proposed the Digges Amendment to the state constitution. It would have used property requirements to effectively disenfranchise many African American men as well as many poor white men (including new immigrants). The Maryland General Assembly passed the bill, which Governor Austin Lane Crothers supported. Before the measure went to popular vote, a bill was proposed that would have effectively passed

5850-561: The local high school. While supporting himself as an educator, Harrison studied law. He passed the Mississippi State Bar and opened a law practice in 1902. In 1906, Harrison was elected district attorney to the Second Judicial District, and in 1908, moved to Gulfport, Mississippi . He served as district attorney until being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1910. The 1910 election introduced Harrison as

5940-480: The majority of its soldiers to the Union. The prospect of those returning ex-Confederates prompted the Wheeling state government to implement laws that restricted their right of suffrage, practicing law and teaching, access to the legal system, and subjected them to "war trespass" lawsuits. The lifting of these restrictions in 1871 resulted in the election of John J. Jacob , a Democrat, to the governorship. It also led to

6030-498: The mid-1870s. The insurgent Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was formed in 1865 in Tennessee (as a backlash to defeat in the war) and it quickly became a powerful secret vigilante group, with chapters across the South. The Klan initiated a campaign of intimidation directed against blacks and sympathetic whites. Their violence included vandalism and destruction of property, physical attacks and assassinations, and lynchings . Teachers who came from

6120-462: The most "consistently competitive political system in the South". A bitter election battle in 1888, marked by unmatched corruption and violence, resulted in white Democrats taking over the state legislature. To consolidate their power, they worked to suppress the black vote and sharply reduced it through changes in voter registration, requiring poll taxes , as well as changing election procedures to make voting more complex. In 1890, Mississippi adopted

6210-459: The negro to govern white men, and we never will.... I would to God the last one of them was in Africa and that none of them had ever been brought to our shores. The disfranchisement of a large proportion of voters attracted the attention of Congress, and as early as 1900 some members proposed stripping the South of seats, related to the number of people who were barred from voting. Apportionment of seats

6300-694: The party nominee. In the South by this time, the Republican Party had been hollowed out by the disfranchisement of African Americans, who were mostly excluded from voting. Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected as the first southern President since 1848. He was re-elected in 1916, in a much closer presidential contest. During his first term, Wilson satisfied the request of Southerners in his cabinet and instituted overt racial segregation throughout federal government workplaces, as well as racial discrimination in hiring. During World War I , American military forces were segregated, with black soldiers poorly trained and equipped. Disfranchisement had far-reaching effects in

6390-617: The political system. The disenfranchisement of poor whites was not merely an unintentional byproduct of laws intended to prevent blacks from voting, because many supporters of disenfranchisement explicitly stated a desire to also prevent poor whites from voting. Senator and former South Carolina Governor Benjamin Tillman defended this on the floor of the Senate: In my State there were 135,000 negro voters, or negroes of voting age, and some 90,000 or 95,000 white voters... Now, I want to ask you, with

6480-570: The polls and ensuring a white Democratic takeover of legislatures and governorships in most Southern states in the 1870s, most notoriously during the controversial 1876 elections . As a result of a national Compromise of 1877 arising from the 1876 presidential election, the federal government withdrew its military forces from the South, formally ending the Reconstruction era. By that time, Southern Democrats had effectively regained control in Louisiana , South Carolina , and Florida – they identified as

6570-472: The populations of Missouri and West Virginia were African American. In Kentucky, 5-20% of the state's population was African American. In Delaware, 10-20% of the state's population was African American. In Maryland, 15-25% of the state's population was African American. Despite Delaware not abolishing slavery until the ratification of the 13th amendment, due its proximity to the Northeast and not bordering any of

6660-449: The rate of white illiteracy in the South at that time was 31 percent. Some states used grandfather clauses to exempt white voters from literacy tests altogether. Other states required otherwise eligible black voters to meet literacy and knowledge requirements to the satisfaction of white registrars, who applied subjective judgment and, in the process, rejected most black voters. By 1900, the majority of blacks were literate, but even many of

6750-503: The rejection of the war-time constitution by public vote and a new constitution written under the leadership of ex-Confederates such as Samuel Price , Allen T. Caperton and Charles James Faulkner . In 1876 the state Democratic ticket of eight candidates were all elected, seven of whom were Confederate veterans. For nearly a generation West Virginia was part of the Solid South. However, Republicans returned to power in 1896, controlling

6840-627: The segregation of federal facilities in the District of Columbia, which had been integrated during Reconstruction. With a population evenly divided between races, in 1896 there were 130,334 black voters on the Louisiana registration rolls and about the same number of whites. Louisiana State legislators passed a new constitution in 1898 that included requirements for applicants to pass a literacy test in English or his native language in order to register to vote or to certify owning $ 300 worth of property, known as

6930-407: The son of a bitch I wouldn't speak to him even if it meant the presidency of the United States." Despite Harrison's support for Roosevelt and his policies, shortly before the vote, the president wrote a letter of support for Barkley. When the ballots were in, Harrison lost by one vote, 37–38. Like other Southern Senators, he opposed federal action on civil rights , becoming the first senator to use

7020-526: The state constitutions almost eliminated black voting. Although nothing approaching precise data exists, it is estimated that in the late 1930s, less than one percent of blacks in the Deep South and around five percent in the Rim South were registered to vote, and that the proportion voting even in general elections, which were of no consequence due to complete Democratic dominance, was much smaller still. Secondly,

7110-563: The states. At the same time, by 1870 all Southern states had dropped enforcement of disfranchisement of ex-Confederates except Arkansas, where disfranchisement of ex-Confederates was dropped in the aftermath of the Brooks-Baxter War in 1874. White supremacist paramilitary organizations, allied with Southern Democrats, used intimidation, violence, and even committed assassinations to repress blacks and prevent them from exercising their civil and political rights in elections from 1868 until

7200-702: The violence. In 1870, the strongly Republican Congress passed the Enforcement Acts , imposing penalties for conspiracy to deny black suffrage. The Acts empowered the President to deploy the armed forces to suppress organizations that deprived people of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment . Organizations whose members appeared in arms were considered in rebellion against the United States. The President could suspend habeas corpus under those circumstances. President Grant used these provisions in parts of

7290-663: The vote by most blacks and, often, many poor whites; voter rolls dropped across the South into the new century. Florida approved a new constitution in 1885 that included provisions for poll taxes as a prerequisite for voter registration and voting. From 1890 to 1908, ten of the eleven Southern states rewrote their constitutions. All included provisions that effectively restricted voter registration and suffrage, including requirements for poll taxes, increased residency, and subjective literacy tests . With educational improvements, blacks had markedly increased their rate of literacy. By 1891, their illiteracy had declined to 58 percent, while

7380-598: The vote." Perman noted the goals of disfranchisement resulted from several factors. Competition between white elites and white lower classes, for example, and a desire to prevent alliances between lower-class white and black Americans, as had been seen in Populist-Republican alliances, led white Democratic legislators to restrict voter rolls. With the passage of new constitutions, Southern states adopted provisions that caused disfranchisement of large portions of their populations by skirting US constitutional protections of

7470-469: The white population in Louisiana, and represented more than 40 percent of the population in four other former Confederate states. In addition, the Reconstruction Acts and state Reconstruction constitutions and laws barred many ex-Confederate Southern whites from holding office and, in some states, disenfranchised them unless they took a loyalty oath . Southern whites, fearing black domination, resisted

7560-709: The youngest members of the House, Harrison made his mark as an effective debater against Republican tariff and tax policies and soon became a favored aide to Democratic President Woodrow Wilson . In particular, Harrison supported Wilson's New Freedom policies and those concerning Mexico and Germany at the onset of America's involvement in World War I . In 1918, he ran against incumbent U.S. Senator James K. Vardaman , an enemy of President Wilson. In return for Harrison's past support, President Wilson personally endorsed him for Senator. Already popular among his constituents, Harrison emphasized his differences with Vardaman and won over

7650-606: Was a Mississippi politician who served as a Democrat in the United States House of Representatives from 1911 to 1919 and in the United States Senate from 1919 until his death. Pat Harrison was born at Crystal Springs, Mississippi . His father was a Confederate veteran of the Civil War and died in 1885. As a child, Harrison sold newspapers to supplement his family's income. After graduating as class valedictorian from Crystal Springs High School in 1899, he attended

7740-494: Was devastating; by 1900 black voters were reduced from 130,334 to 5,320 on the rolls. By 1910, only 730 blacks were registered, less than 0.5% of eligible black men. "In 27 of the state's sixty parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer; in nine more parishes, only one black voter was." In 1894, a coalition of Republicans and the Populist Party won control of the North Carolina state legislature (and with it,

7830-455: Was overruled by the Supreme Court in the early 20th century, states quickly devised new methods of excluding most blacks from voting, such as the white primary . Democratic Party primaries became the only competitive contests in southern states. For the national Democratic Party, the alignment after Reconstruction resulted in a powerful Southern region that was useful for congressional clout. Nevertheless, before President Franklin D. Roosevelt ,

7920-430: Was rebuffed on each occasion, in large part because of black opposition and strength. Black men comprised 20% of the electorate and had established themselves in several cities, where they had comparative security. In addition, immigrant men comprised 15% of the voting population and opposed these measures. The legislature had difficulty devising requirements against blacks that did not also disadvantage immigrants. In 1910,

8010-455: Was still based on total population (with the assumption of the usual number of voting males in relation to the residents); as a result, white Southerners commanded many seats far out of proportion to the voters they represented. In the end, Congress did not act on this issue, as the Southern bloc of Democrats had sufficient power to reject or stall such action. For decades, white Southern Democrats exercised Congressional representation derived from

8100-420: Was the complete elimination of black voters from voter rolls by 1904. Contemporary accounts estimated that seventy-five thousand black male citizens lost the vote. In 1900 blacks numbered 630,207 citizens, about 33% of the state's total population. The growth of the thriving black middle class was slowed. In North Carolina and other Southern states, there were also the insidious effects of invisibility: "[w]ithin

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