The Origins of White Supremacy
Did redemption truly come to North Carolina in 1877? In 1870, Congress ratified the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which stated that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” Regardless of Democratic control over the State government, this amendment still stood as the law of the land, and blacks, by this time making up a significant portion of the Republican Party, still held voting rights, continued to express those rights, and held office positions (Hahn 2003, 219-230). To circumvent the power of the Republican vote at the state level, in 1872 Democrats gerrymandered the Congressional districts, concentrating the black vote into the Second Congressional District. (Item #551) By doing so, Democrats effectively monopolized state power after 1877. Despite the efforts to circumvent black power, however, blacks could still vote. (Other methods of restricting black power are discussed in the section on “negro domination.”) It was not until the rise of populism in 1890 when disgruntled white farmers left the Democrats and the successful fusion of the Populists with the Republicans in 1894 that Democrats realized the dangers of allowing for any vote by African Americans. The 1898 Democratic campaign expressed that realization and determined to officially Redeem North Carolina through disfranchisement.
The White Supremacy Campaign
While the campaign of 1898 played host to many issues such as silver, education, debt and railroad regulation, the platform upon which the Democrats oriented all of the issues was white supremacy. “This is a white man’s country,” the Democrats claimed in their official Party Handbook, “and white men must control and govern it.” (Item #382, 38). White supremacy was a reactionary strategy wielded by Democrats following the successful takeover of state government by the Republicans and Populists on a fusion ticket in 1894. Recoiling from the loss of their one-party dominated state, Democrats set out to frame the election of 1898 as one of restoration. Race and partisan politics both play large roles in how the Democrats remembered North Carolina reconstruction politics, and how they envisioned the future.
Don't let the facts get in your way, Stann.
