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158 6 LOUISIANA AND SOUTH CAROLINA Anomalous Stereotypes The doctrine of State sovereignty . . . proved to be as fruitful a source of evil to the country as had been the wrath of Achilles to the Greeks, or the eating of the apple by Eve in the garden of Eden to human posterity. —James G. Taliaferro, president of the Louisiana convention No body of men for a more important purpose ever assembled in Louisiana. For years our State has groaned under the effects of unwholesome laws, and confusion, anarchy and bloodshed has been the result. This Convention is expected to be to the State, what the doctor is to the patient; it is to prescribe decided remedies to purge our political system until the debris of Slavery is entirely removed. —Michel Vidal, Louisiana convention delegate What can be expected of a government framed by such men! —David Golightly Harris, Spartanburg County, South Carolina, January 1868 overview The 1870 census reported black majorities in three states of the former Confederacy— Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. From 1840 through 1870, blacks comprised, on average, some 53% of Mississippi residents. The proportion of blacks in Louisiana’s population from 1810 through 1870 was virtually the same. Blacks’ relative numbers were slightly greater in South Carolina, where they averaged 56.9% of all inhabitants from 1820 through 1870.1 Only in Louisiana and South Carolina, however, were blacks a majority in the Black and Tan conventions, and because of this fact these two assemblies have generally received more attention than any of the others—both in the form of ridicule from past observers, who abhorred them because of their racial composition, and in the form of praise from more recent commentators , who believe that they merit special attention in light of ongoing efforts at crafting a more pluralist version of our national history. This atypical delegate mix of the Louisiana and 159 Louisiana and South Carolina South Carolina conventions—so central to their notoriety—is, of course, our principal reason for coupling them in this chapter. Although racially similar, these two conventions, as we shall demonstrate, were quite different . Union occupation of Louisiana dated from the spring of 1862, and by war’s end antebellum free blacks in New Orleans (a number of whom were French speaking) had taken a leading role in establishing the state’s Republican party and in putting the issue of black enfranchisement on the national political agenda.2 By June of 1867, however, more “moderate” elements would snatch control of the party and would generally prevail in Louisiana’s constitutional convention, even in the face of opposition from both disgruntled radicals and outspoken conservatives. In contrast, South Carolina’s Republicans, who organized their party only after passage of the Reconstruction Acts of March 1867, escaped (at least initially) intraparty factionalism of the intensity witnessed in Louisiana. Republican delegates seated in Charleston were thus to enjoy a luxury denied their fellows in any of the other Black and Tan conventions—including even the one assembled in New Orleans. During their deliberations, they met with no organized dissent at all. introduction General Philip Sheridan, headquartered in New Orleans, took command of the Fifth Military District (Louisiana and Texas) on March 19, 1867; two days later, General Daniel Sickles followed suit in the Second Military District (the Carolinas), establishing his headquarters in Charleston. Registration of Louisiana’s voters began on May 1 and was completed by July 30; the process got under way a bit later (August 1) in South Carolina and was finished there by October 1. The referendum authorizing the convention in Louisiana and the election selecting its delegates were then scheduled for September 27–28; the same were set for some two months later, November 19–20, in South Carolina.3 Having completed preliminary organization of the party in September of 1865, Louisiana Republicans assembled in New Orleans on June 11, 1867, to prepare for the September elections . They hoped the platform forged there would appeal to the freedmen, who comprised an almost two-to-one majority (84,436 to 45,218) over whites in the state’s electorate. As adopted, it opposed the imposition of all educational or property qualifications for the franchise or for holding public office, advocated that at least half of Republican nominations for such offices go to the newly enfranchised citizens who comprised the majority of the party faithful, and disavowed distinctions between freeborn and freed in the selection of black candidates for...

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