One of the few bright spots for Democrats in the 1868 Presidential Election was the State of Louisiana. 71% of votes tallied were for the Democrat Seymour, while only 29% were for Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican nominee. Seymour received 80,225 votes to Grant’s 33,263.
The question for a lot of Americans was how a state with a majority Black population could go so overwhelmingly for “The White Man’s Party.”
To begin to explore this question, let’s look first at the 1870 Census to see where Blacks and Whites lived in the state. Here are the 1870 Census stats on the White population by parish (county) in Louisiana:
Here are the same stats for blacks:
In elections in most other areas of the South, Republicans did best where blacks were in the majority. While I have found a number of instances of Blacks supporting the Democrats, these tend to be in rather small numbers. So, we would expect that black voters would turn out for Republican candidates pretty heavily.
The state legislature’s joint committee report published these statistics on the vote:
I have posted articles on several explosions of violence in Louisiana in the weeks leading up to the elections. These massacres were extremely effective forms of political action.
One event we looked at was the St. Bernard Parish Massacre. St. Bernard Parish had 1,640 whites in the 1870 Census and and 1,913 blacks. There were 1,187 total registered voters in November 1868. Of these 679 were Republicans. In the November 3, 1868 balloting, 473 votes were recorded for the Democrats and one for the Republicans!
Another outbreak of systematic violence was the St. Landy Parish Massacre. St. Landry Parish had 13776 whites in the 1870 Census and and 11694 blacks.
There were 5,113 total registered voters in November 1868 in St. Landry. Of these 2,102 were Republicans. In the November 3, 1868 balloting, 4,616 votes were recorded for the Democrats and zero for the Republicans.
Suppression of the Black vote was widespread, violent, and effective in Louisiana in 1868.
Here is my source for population statistics.
Here is the Supplemental Report with the election returns.
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