“Instead of restoring the Union, it (the Republican Party) has–so far as in its power–dissolved it, and subjected ten States, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and Negro supremacy.”
-Democratic errant claims were ludicrous as the years from 1865-1868 was not marked by “profound peace”
-It was profoundly violent with a rapid and expansive growth of the Klan who perpetrated numerous deadly attacks against African Americans
***-the ten States that Democrats that had seceded to form the slave-holding Confederate States of American claimed they were:
“Subjected to military despotism and Negro supremacy”
-these States were not harmed by Negros, but required to recognize the civil rights of African Americans
-Democrats were accustomed to the suppression of black Americans that simply to give them equality was absurdly considered to be “Negro Supremacy”
***the Democrats saw that equality of blacks and that of making blacks and whites equal before the law meant “Negro Supremacy”
Pg. 57 Rebel General Nathan Bedford Forrest
-portrait featured at the 1868 Democratic Convention who was honored as a leader of the platform (party)
-Forrest had been a slave-trader from Tennessee
-Forrest was a Rebel General who conducted the massacre of black soldiers in the infamous bloody episode at Fort Pillow
-after the black Union soldiers had surrendered, Forrest ordered them to be slaughtered on the spot
-they used the most barbaric and inhumane tortures and atrocities, including nailing black soldiers to the sides of buildings and then burning down the buildings, drowning others, and even burying black soldiers alive
***after the War, Forrest became the first Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan
Pg. 58 13th & 14th Amendments & federal civil rights laws:
-huge steps had been made obtaining civil rights, but Democratic States held a staunch steadfast resistance
-the Democratic States ignored the constitutional Amendments and the federal laws
-before the former Confederate States could be readmitted into the United States, they had to first approve both the 13th and 14th Amendments
***they had to create new state constitutions that guaranteed equal civil rights for black Americans
As a result:
-the States chose to rewrite the state level constitutions
1867: Alabama rewrote its constitution
1868: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas rewrote their constitutions
1870: Texas and Virginia became the last of the former confederate States to rewrite their State constitutions
-the votes to ratify these new constitutions granting civil rights to black Americans was met with massive resistance that led to riots and attacks by Democrats throughout these States
Ex. Not because of racism but to stop them from voting
-1868 in Mississippi, Democrats and the Klan attacked blacks on their way to vote for the new constitution
-Democrats attacked Republican officials administering those elections were similarly attacked
Pg. 59 Former State Governor William Sharkey
-appointed by Democratic President Andrew Johnson
-led an armed band who threatened and attacked election officials
-order was not restored until federal troops arrived to stop what one official described as the Democrats’ “reign of terror”
-due to the events in Mississippi, the congressional Committee on Reconstruction had extensive hearings which were rigged
Committee on December 15, 1868
-Testimony: Robert Flournoye, election worker
-asked to explain who he made contact with concerning the sentiment of the constitution
-he claimed to only have met on Negro man in Mississippi who was a Democrat
-claimed he tried to change his mind but left him a Democrat
-Mississippi at that time had 444,000 blacks and only 383,000 whites
-blacks voted overwhelmingly Republican
-the only way to defeat the new State constitution with its civil rights was to prevent blacks from voting Republican
-this is the reasoning for the violence
-A no vote was a win so a dead black Republican was labeled as “one less vote”
***Key point: Why African Americans remain Democrats if they wanted to keep them as slaves even to this day?
Colonel French Smith
-spoke at the Democratic convention in Texas
“I love to kill Indians, but would rather kill one Negro than two Indians.”
-despite the strident opposition throughout the southern States the new constitutions eventually passed and a number of black Americans were elected to national office
Pg. 61-63: First Seven black Americans elected to the U.S. Congress:
-they were all Republicans
-1872 they were pictured in the newspaper as:
“The First colored Senator an dRepresentatives; in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States”
Hiram Rhodes Revels of Mississippi
- ordained minister who served as a missionary and pastor, recruited three black regiments, and was a chaplain during the Civil War
***Revels became America’s first black U.S. Senator
-Democrats in congress challenged his credentials in an attempt to expel him from Congress on a technical or procedural grounds