The Election of 1876 is most well-known for what happened after the polls were closed. Fraudulent and delayed vote counts, rival state tallies of votes, and intense political maneuvering to determine the outcome after the last votes were cast is what is remembered now. Just as important was what happened before Election Day. The election is known for marking the end of Reconstruction not just because of a backroom deal for the presidency, but also because “Redeemer” governments dedicated to white supremacy took hold in all of the Southern states.
The Redeemers were typically former Confederates who formed the conservative wing of the Democratic Party in the South. Dedicated to “redeeming” their states from Black Republicans and white Radicals, they had tallied victories in elections in states with white majorities. The states where Blacks were in the majority, South Carolina and Mississippi, were tougher nuts to crack. Only a tiny percentage of African Americans voted Democratic, and at least a sliver of the white vote went to the Republicans, seemingly giving the Republicans a good chance of victory.
In 1875 the Redeemers in Mississippi pioneered a path to white power even in those parts of the South where whites were outnumbered by Blacks. Called the “Mississippi Plan” the strategy used thousands of armed white militia to eliminate white defections to the Republicans and to intimidate Blacks into not voting.
In South Carolina the friends of gubernatorial candidate Wade Hampton hoped to emulate the white Mississippians. They sought advice from the leaders there on how to organize the redemption of their own state.
One of the men they asked for guidance from was General S. W. Ferguson of Washington County, Mississippi. Ferguson wrote to Theodore G. Barker, of Charleston, Wade Hampton’s adjutant during the Civil War and a close friend of Hampton’s. Ferguson, originally from South Carolina, served as a Brigadier General of Confederate cavalry during the Civil War and moved to Mississippi after the Confederate surrenders.
Martin Gary, another former Confederate general, apparently obtained a copy of S.W. Ferguson’s letter. Gary had taken on himself the organizing of a “Mississippi Plan” style of campaign for the 1876 Election, so Ferguson’s missive provided useful intelligence on how to use violence to secure victory.
Ferguson described how in a county where Blacks outnumbered Whites by five to one, a hotbed of Black Republicanism, the decision by the whites to used concentrated political violence had given them control of the election. Ferguson wrote that “We determined to carry the election at all hazards, and, in the event of any blood being shed in the Campaign, to kill every white Radical in the Country; we made no threats, but we let this be known as a fixed and settled thing.” White Republicans, he said, were not willing “to sacrifice themselves on the altar of rascality.” Blacks did not turn out to vote when they saw the Republican leaders “cower and finally retire from the contest.”
He advised that armed white men needed to be posted at the polls to control the votes of African Americans, and if necessary to kill them. He famously told the South Carolinians: “never threaten a man individually; if he deserves to be threatened, the necessity of the times require that he should die. A dead Radical is very harmless—a threatened Radical . . . is often very troublesome, sometimes dangerous, always vindictive.”
[Source of Quotes: Andrew Jr., Rod. Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior to Southern Redeemer (Civil War America) (p. 377). The University of North Carolina Press. Kindle Edition.]
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