Thomas Adams Upchurch - Legislating Racism: The Billion Dollar Congress and the Birth of Jim Crow

THOMAS ADAMS UPCHURCH

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Copyright 2004 by The University Press of Kentucky

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Upchurch, Thomas Adams.

Legislating racism : the billion dollar congress and the birth of Jim Crow / by Thomas Adams Upchurch.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8131-2311-9 (acid-free paper)

1. African AmericansCivil rightsHistory19th century.
2. MinoritiesCivil rightsUnited StatesHistory19th century.
3. African AmericansLegal status, laws, etc.History19th century.
4. MinoritiesLegal status, laws, etc.United StatesHistory19th century. 5. United States. Congress (51st, 1st session: 18891890)
6. United States. Congress (51st, 2nd session: 18901891)
7. RacismPolitical aspectsUnited StatesHistory19th century.
8. United StatesRace relationsPolitical aspects. I. Title.

E185.61.U63 2004

323.1196'073'009'034dc222003020484

Manufactured in the United States of America.

When Reconstruction met its inglorious demise in 1877, it died unmourned by most white Americans. The issue of the proper place and status of African Americans in southern politics and society lay dormant throughout the 1880s, as Democrats and Republicans split national political power and the collective attention of the American people turned toward Gilded Age economic issues. During that time, Bourbon political leaders cautiously reestablished Democratic control over the southern states, obviating the civil rights of their black denizens in various ways, including political disfranchisement, economic discrimination, and social ostracism. In 1889, however, with the inauguration of GOP President Benjamin Harrison and the convening of the Republican majority in the Fifty-first (Billion Dollar) Congress, attention reverted to what most observers alternately called the Negro question, the southern question, or the race problem. An influential group of Republican leaders hoped to reinstate full suffrage rights for black southerners by passing a strong federal elections law, which would soon come to life under the title of the Federal Elections Bill. Democrats wanted to prevent that possibility at all costs and to solve the race problem in ways of their own choosing, such as promoting a federally funded program to make it possible for black southerners who wished to leave the United States for new homes abroad to do so. If that idea failed, as a last resort they hoped to get away with rewriting southern state constitutions in such a way as to nullify or negate the impact of any new federal elections law the Republicans might pass without overtly violating the U.S. Constitutions Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

The Republican reformers would find their task complicated not only by the obstinance of the Democrats but also by infighting in the ranks of their own party, as half of the partys leaders pushed the continuation of a Gilded Age economic agenda that included everything from tariff and pension reform to silver coinage and regulation of trusts. Then there was the Republican wildcard, Senator Henry Blair of New Hampshire, who had his own agenda, which fit in neither the economic nor the racial reform category. Beyond those obstacles, the reformers had to contend with an American public that had grown increasingly apathetic to the issue of black civil rights over the dozen years since Reconstruction ended, as well as with a growing public awareness of the duplicity of the Republican Party in dealing with Native Americans and Chinese Americans vis--vis African Americans.

With such a host of problems facing the new Congress and administration, would the reformers be able to accomplish their goal of reenforcing the voting rights of African Americans? Or would they be consigned to compromising with their opponents and merely salvaging some marginal degree of civil rights for black southerners? Or would events unfold in ways beyond their imagination, such that the majority party would be totally and abjectly defeated in their quest for racial reform? The events in the Southbeginning with the Mississippi disfranchising constitution of 1890that relegated American blacks to the back of the bus are well known, but those happenings might not have become so entrenched in American society had they not been reinforced by the Billion Dollar Congress in the nations capital. The parenting of the very un-American baby Jim Crow required the efforts of both southern and national politicians at the dawn of an era when the entire western world began to view itself as encumbered with what British writer Rudyard Kipling called the white mans burden.

This book represents the culmination of more than five years of conceptualization, research, writing, and revision. It has been made possible because of the support, advice, encouragement, and constructive criticism of several fellow historians, all of whom I highly respect for their wisdom, experience, and knowledge. I thank Mark W. Summers of the University of Kentucky, a true scholar in the field of late-nineteenth-century American history, for freely giving his time to help me, a total stranger, by reading the whole manuscript and offering the benefit of his expertise. His thirty-page critique of my work was invaluable to the revision process. Reid Derr, a good friend and fellow laborer in the history department of East Georgia College, likewise read the whole manuscript and made some crucial observations that I incorporated in later drafts. Stanly Godbold, who is both a true friend and a mentor, as well as the former southern history specialist at Mississippi State University, read and re-read drafts of some chapters, helped me mold and shape the thesis, and, more important, gave me encouragement to press on (over delicious cups of coffee often served at his home by his lovely wife Jeannie), which is the contribution that I thank him for most. Bob Jenkins, my doctoral program advisor and specialist in African American history, had the dubious task of reading the earliest drafts of this manuscript. With the patience of a saint he did that thankless work, so I thank him now. It was also he who encouraged me to inquire to the University Press of Kentucky for publication of this manuscript, for which I am equally grateful. Many thanks also go to John Marszalek, Ren Crowell, and Jim Haug for serving as readers and critics, and to Bo Morgan for being the conduit through which I was introduced to some of the aforementioned readers of this manuscript. I also thank Jeff Howell for proofreading the final draft.