Alabama Governors: A Political History of the State

William Hugh Smith / Michael W. Fitzgerald

William Hugh Smith, July 1868– December 1870 MicHAel W. fitzgerAld William hugh smith, the state’s first republican governor elected under the terms of military reconstruction, remains a controversial figure. For all of his support for reconstruction, smith occupied an anomalous position at the head of a republican Party composed primarily of freedmen. before the war, smith had owned slaves, and he opposed secession on the grounds it would imperil slave property.Practical considerations,rather than enthusiasm for emancipation and civil rights,motivated his political course, and once elected governor he quickly sought accommodation with the ex-Confederate white majority.he left office under suspicions of corruption because of his handling of state aid to railroads. smith was born in Fayette County, Georgia, on April 26, 1826, the son of Jeptha vinnen smith and nancy Dickson smith.he had two sisters and six brothers, several of whom became his political allies. in his teens, smith moved with his family toWedowee,in randolph County.After an “academic education,” smith read law and was admitted to the bar in 1850. in 1856 he married lucy Wortham, who bore him three sons and five daughters. After some years as a lawyer, smith moved into a political career. From 1855 through 1859 he served in the Alabama house of representatives as a states’ rights Democrat but gradually evolved into a strong Union man. in 1860 he ran as an elector on the presidential ticket of stephen A. Douglas and, in the ensuing crisis, opposed immediate secession.After the war began, 104 / William hugh smith 1868–1870 criticism of smith’s Unionist position became so intense that he heard reports that he was about to be arrested as a traitor. in December 1862, he fled behind Union lines with his father and three of his brothers. smith spent the remainder of the war recruiting soldiers for the First Alabama Cavalry, a Union regiment, and he accompanied that regiment during General sherman ’s “march to the sea.” After Appomattox, smith was a leading candidate of the “Unconditional Unionists” for appointment as provisional governor under presidential reconstruction .The more conciliatory lewis Parsons received the post instead. Parsons appointed smith to the Alabama Circuit Court.smith soon resigned the position on the grounds that no Union man could, in good conscience, serve under the postwar circumstances that existed in Alabama. in concert with other disaffected Unionists, he lobbied Congress to overturn presidential reconstruction and enact black suffrage. he also devoted himself to his entrepreneurial interests in mining and railroad promotion. With the emergence of military reconstruction,smith emerged as a leading political figure in Alabama, chairing the first statewide republican convention in June 1867. he pledged to carry out the work of reconstruction “on the basis of equality and justice for all, without respect to race or color.” smith’s service as head of General Wager swayne’s voter registration bureau ,established to implement the military reconstruction Acts,helped him win the republican nomination for governor in the February 1868 election, which was also called to ratify the reconstruction constitution. When a conservative boycott appeared to have defeated the ratification of the reconstruction constitution, smith opposed republican efforts to declare the document in effect without the stipulated majority. he thus opposed his own inauguration as governor, but Congress placed him in office in July 1868.Among his first actions in office was to secure the abandonment of the constitution’s provisions that disfranchised Confederate public officials and military officers. Despite republican arguments that terrorism made a fair election impossible, smith vetoed the proposal of the republican legislature to cast the state’s presidential electoral vote in 1868 without holding an election.Governor smith also publicly denounced “Carpetbag” influence within the party, specifically that of Alabama’s “radical” senator George e. spencer, a stand that won him considerable praise in the Democratic press. The most striking aspect of Governor smith’s conservative proclivities was his minimizing the need for drastic action against the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan. his term coincided with that group’s worst violence, but smith did not invoke the constitution’s provisions for a state militia because such a force would have been overwhelmingly composed of newly freed black William hugh smith 1868–1870 / 105 men, and this might have led to a racial bloodbath. he argued that local law enforcement could deal effectively with the situation, and he publicly opposed federal...