Why the Whigs Became Democrats

Ku Klux Report, Georgia testimony, pp. 760-779. Statement of Ben-
jamin H. HII, later senator from Georgia. So much did the Old
Whigs dislike the Democrats that the white party was during
Reconstruction called the Conservative party, not Democratic. Not
until 1906 was the term "Conservative" dropped as a part of the
name of the white party in Alabama.
[1871]

THE very best class of people, especially the old whigs and the Union men. . objected to the reconstruction measures of Congress, because of the fact that these measures disfranchised indiscriminately our white people, and enfranchised their slaves, and thereby compelled the former intelligent master of the slaves, to submit to a government to be formed of a constituency composed of their slaves and such persons as chose to act with them. It was, therefore, a sense of self-respect, not any desire to injure the negro or to resist the government, and not any desire even to not submit to reconstruction, but it was a sense of self-respect and of honor that prevented them from accepting the reconstruction measures. . . As the result of that feeling, of that sense of self-respect, many of the old whigs and "Union" democrats were driven where they did not want to go, into temporary affiliation with the democratic party. .

I tell you frankly that after the war ended, we, the old whigs and the Union men, expected to take control of affairs down here; that was our expectation, and I think we would have done it if you had allowed us to do so. I will tell you candidly that I think very likely if the republican party had been magnanimous to the old whigs after the war, in extending us privileges,.. it might have built up a republican party in the South, and given us the control of this country. Then you would have forced upon our people the conviction that the democracy was responsible for the war, for all its consequences, and for all the losses that followed; but, by pursuing a different policy, you convinced our people that the most horrid accounts given by the secession democrats of the purposes of the northern people were true. The old whigs and Union men before the war utterly scouted the idea that there was any desire on the part of the northern people to oppress us. .

I have done more writing since the war upon that subject than anybody else, and my writings are full of that. . . I think, my opinions were responded to unanimously by the whigs; every old whig paper in the State, and every old Union democratic paper in the State, was in accord with those sentiments uttered by me until, I will say, twelve months ago [1870]. . .

I advised [1866] our people to go into a new party arrangement if possible. I used this expression: . . We will not go to the democracy, because if secession was wrong the democratic party instigated it; and if secession was right, the democratic party of the North joined in the war to put it down. In no event, therefore, should we of the South trust the democratic party.

We old whigs said, Well, you see all the evils of secession that we prophesied have become true; now we suppose the people will believe us, and not believe the old secession democrats, who wanted to drink all the blood that would be shed by the war; we suppose now that the old whig party will arise from its ashes in some form, at least what we call the anti-democratic element.

But.. Congress came in, lumped the old Union democrats and whigs together with the secessionists, and said that they would punish us all alike; would put us all alike under the negro. That naturally created a sympathy between us and the secession democrats. Congress by that act prevented us from saying to the secession democrats that all they had said was untrue; that the northern people had no desire to oppress them, because the acts of Congress proved that they were right. I wish to state once more, as an evidence that the old Union democrats and the whigs might have come to the surface and controlled this country, we elected an old Union whig as the first governor in 1865, whom the democrats had repeatedly rejected before the war, whom we never could elect before the

war.

5. STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS

President Grant and Mississippi Politics

Annual Cyclopedia, 1869, p. 457. Judge Louis Dent, Grant's brother-
in-law, was the candidate for governor nominated by the reform
element of the Republican party in Mississippi. The first letter is
from Grant to Dent and the second is Dent's reply.
[1869]

Long Branch, August 1, 1869. [1] DEAR JUDGE: I am so thoroughly satisfied, in my own mind, that the success of the so-called Conservative Republican party of Mississippi would result in the defeat of what I believe to be the best interests of the State and country, that I have determined to say so to you. . . I know or believe that your intentions are good in accepting the nomination from the Conservative party. I would regret to see you run for an office and be defeated by my act; but, as matters now look, I must throw the weight of my influence in favor of the party [Radical] opposed to you..

[2] Is it reasonable to suppose that a people, having the free choice of their representatives, would elect for their rulers a class of politicians whose aggressive and hostile conduct. hitherto has rendered them peculiarly obnoxious and disagreeable? This is the charge made by the people of Mississippi against the radicals. . .

This charge is not made because they fought against the South and secession, for many of that class fought on the side of the South. It is not made because they are of Northern birth and education, for many men of Northern birth and education and of the Northern army are with us in antagonism. to this obnoxious party. It is not because they are Republicans, for their antagonists were among the first in the South to organize on the Republican platform and to advocate the civil and political equality of all men, were sent as delegates to Chicago, and for their consistency and constancy were rewarded by you with offices of truth and honor.

But this charge is made. . because the proscriptive antecedents and aggressive policy of these politicians toward the people of Mississippi have made them the objects of peculiar abhorrence. That policy consists not only in the continual advocacy of proscription, but . . such revolutionary doctrines as excite and direct against the white men of the South, and their families a most dangerous animosity. . which, with continuation of the same fuel, would inevitably lead to a black man's party and a war of races.

Neither are such doctrines preached with an honest desire to ameliorate the condition of the freedmen, or promote the ends of peace, or strengthen the Republican party in the South, but solely to alienate from the planter the time-honored confidence and affection of this race, in order that the new political element under the banner of Republicanism, might be entirely controlled and subordinated to their own purposes of power and aggrandizement; and to this class of men, whom you foiled in their attempt to force upon the people of Mississippi the odious constitution rejected at the ballot-box, you now give the hand of fellowship and support, and spurn from you that other class who, accepting the invitation of the Republican party, in good faith, came en masse in Virginia and Tennessee, as they will come in Mississippi and Texas, to stand upon its platform, and advocate its principles.

Division among the Arkansas Republicans

Annual Cyclopedia, 1869, p. 30. A protest signed by eighteen members of the Arkansas legislature.

[1869]

WHEREAS, In the bad management of our State government under the unwise administration of Governor Powell Clayton, and in the rash, reckless, and improvident legislation of the General Assembly, under the control of the Governor and his partisans, the Republican party of Arkansas has received wounds, from the effects of which the most energetic and untiring efforts of its true friends and defenders can alone rescue it, and save it from threatened defeat and overthrow: therefore, ..

We deem it proper to enumerate the following among the more prominent causes of complaint.

1. The criminal abuse of power and dereliction of duty on the part of the Governor as commander-in-chief of the militia. forces of the State, under the late reign of martial law, whereby that which was intended by its friends and advisers as a wise and wholesome measure of safety to the government and safety to the private citizens, has been turned into a means of wrong, crime, and oppression.

2. The criminal and corrupt mismanagement of our great and important railroad interests, whereby a large portion of the State has been entirely ignored and overlooked in the dispensation of "state aid," and nearly all of the leading authorized routes of the State been seized upon by an organized "ring" of penniless adventurers. . who, in connection with the board of railroad commissioners under the control of the Chief Executive, have been made the recipients and beneficiaries of all the benefits of the "loan bill," by which some thirteen millions of dollars have been awarded.

3. The improvident, not to say corrupt, management of the funding bill, by which a debt of several millions of dollars, which the State neither legally nor morally owes, has been assumed and funded without the authority or consent of the people, and contrary to the Constitution of the State.

4. The general spirit of reckless expenditure, extravagant appropriation, which has characterized the administration of the government in all its departments, whereby the annual expenses of the State government, which the representatives of the party promised the people, in their speeches and through their press during the late presidential canvass, shall not exceed two or three hundred thousand dollars, have run up to the enormous and almost incredible sum of a million and a half dollars per annum.