In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

r Chapter 7 “A Choice of Evils”: City Politics, 1885–1892 As the 1880s drew to a close, Chattanooga’s Republicans faced growing challenges to their hegemony. Local and state Democrats increased both in number and in power and mounted a series of political attacks against the town’s Republican regime. At the same time, racial and ideological divisions among Republicans threatened the unity and cooperation necessary for the party’s survival. Though the party would achieve great success in the face of such adversity , it would eventually meet defeat, and the regime founded upon the spoils of victory would ultimately fall to the forces of whiskey and Jim Crow. At mid-decade, Republicans maintained their domination of local politics. The complete failure of Democratic candidates in the 1885 city election had a demoralizing effect on that party’s membership. Bourbon leaders, in their attempts to seize control of city government, inadvertently strengthened the power of their Republican foes; thus, by the beginning of 1886, Democrats held just one seat on the six-man Chattanooga Board of Aldermen. Discouraged, many Democratic supporters lost their zeal for local politics. Still others, no doubt, questioned the wisdom of paying a poll tax to vote in an election their party seemed destined to lose. Adding to the sense of indifference were the new citywide ward races, which denied ward residents their choice of candidates and consequently generated little enthusiasm. As a result, apathy became a characteristic of local Democratic politics and marked the 1886 city canvass. That fall, despite a rapidly growing population, the number of registered voters in the city actually declined from 4,136 to 3,704. The vast majority of the lost votes belonged to white Democrats. According to the Times, the number of white voters decreased from 2,269 to 1,781 in the 1886 city registration. At the same time, black voters, registered by the city’s efficient Republican machine, actually increased their numbers from 1,767 to 1,923.1 Black voters, who now outnumbered their white counterparts, celebrated the results of the registration drive, and the local black press rejoiced that freedmen 108 “A Choice of Evils” were “not downed” by charter revisions. White Democrats, on the other hand, viewed the coming election with indignation and dismay. John MacGowan, alarmed by the prospect of Negro rule, condemned white Republicans for their alleged exploitation of black voters. “The bad tendencies of the negro character,” the colonel contended, “are being luxuriantly developed by his rascally political guides.” He then accused white Republicans of teaching blacks “trickery as a fine art” and indoctrinating them “with the ethics of highwaymen.”2 MacGowan also criticized the city’s Democrats, whom he ultimately blamed for the coming political debacle, and rebuked apathetic voters for “throwing the power of the ballot into the hands of the irresponsible, ignorant, and depraved.” He lamented that the “vast majority of the white people have virtually abandoned the government of their city to the negroes and the bad men who lead them.” Such “shameful neglect,” he predicted, would doom the community to “all the ills of dishonest administration.”3 Democratic ward candidates, rather than experience certain defeat at the hands of a black majority, opted instead to withdraw from the race. Citing a “hopeless contest,” the despondent nominees angrily lashed out at the Democratic leadership for not “performing its duty as to registration” and expressed hope that the impending defeat might “redound to the benefit of the party in the future.”4 In the ensuing canvass, white turnout was low and black voters dominated. According to the Times, “less than one-third the usual vote was cast, and two-thirds of that was by negroes.” Altogether, the paper estimated that “not more than five-hundred white men” voted. In each race the number of voters declined substantially. In the Fourth Ward, for example, the number of voters dropped from 2,577 in the 1884 ward race to 1,509 in 1886. Similarly, the total vote in the Fifth Ward race decreased from 2,442 to 1622 and fell in the at-large race from 2,560 to 1,700.5 Republicans, facing no viable opposition, easily prevailed over an assortment of independent and Prohibitionist foes. The only Democrat on the ballot was Pat Fleming, who entered the Fourth Ward race at the last minute and received a paltry twenty-eight votes. Republicans easily elected three new aldermen , including W. C. Hodge, a black candidate representing the Fourth...

Share