The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

416

Success of the Republican “Southern Strategy”

Battles in the West

In the late 1860s the rise of the Republican party was due
both to the weakness of the southern Democrats and to the
enfranchisement of black men. African Americans voted
solidly Republican—the party of Lincoln—and they exer-
cised their vote diligently. In many elections, black voter
turnout approached 90 percent.“It is the hardest thing in the
world to keep a negro away from the polls,” complained a
white Alabama politician.
The power of the black vote in 1870 is demonstrated in
the accompanying map. Of the fifteen congressional districts
that encompassed the interior counties from Louisiana
through South Carolina, it was in the Cotton Belt, where
blacks comprised the majority, that Republican candidates

MAPPING THE PAST

The Politics of

Reconstruction

TEXAS LOUISIANA

MISSISSIPPI

ARKANSAS

ALABAMA

UNORGANIZED

TERRITORY

GEORGIA

FLORIDA

SOUTH

CAROLINA

VIRGINIA

NORTH CAROLINA

TENNESSEE

Gulf of Mexico

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

Republicans:

Black representative

Scalawag

Carpetbagger

Black majority population in 1870

Democrat representative

Republican Party in the South 1871–1873

42nd Congress: elected 1870, served March 1871 to March 1873

Republicans Win in Deep SouthThe six black members of the House of Representatives in 1871 are from left to right: Benjamin Turner, Robert
De Large, Josiah Wells, Jefferson Long, Joseph Rainey, Robert Brown Elliott. Each is linked to his district; the member in the blue coat—center—is
not connected to a “black” dot. A special Republican primary replaced him with a scalawag.

won fourteen seats. Throughout the South, Republicans took

thirty-one of the fifty-seven seats in the House of

Representatives. In the three states where blacks outnum-

bered whites—South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana—

the Republicans won every House seat.

Five blacks were among the Republican victors. With

the exception of Josiah Walls, a former slave who had

fought with the Union army and represented Florida, all of

the blacks were from areas with a substantial black major-

ity: three from South Carolina, the other from Alabama.

“Carpetbaggers,” Republicans from the North, were also

strong in the areas where blacks had a majority, especially

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia. Except for the two con-

gressional districts in lower Louisiana, no “carpetbaggers”

won House seats where blacks did not constitute a majority

of the population.