In United States history, scalawag was a pejorative slur referred to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts after the conclusion of the American Civil War.
The Solid South was the electoral voting bloc for the Democratic Party in the Southern United States between the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. During this period, the Democratic Party controlled southern state legislatures and most local, state and federal officeholders in the South were Democrats. During the late 19th century and the early 20th century, Southern Democrats disenfranchised nearly all blacks in all the former states of the Confederate States of America. This resulted in a one-party system, in which a candidate's victory in Democratic primary elections was tantamount to election to the office itself. White primaries were another means that the Democrats used to consolidate their political power, excluding blacks from voting.
George Smith Houston was an American Democratic politician who was the 24th Governor of Alabama from 1874 to 1878. He was also a congressman and senator for Alabama.
David P. Lewis was a lawyer and politician who served as the 23rd governor of Alabama from 1872 to 1874 during the Reconstruction era. He was also a Deputy from Alabama to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, serving from February until April 1861, when he resigned from office. He was a Unionist. He was the last Republican to serve as Governor of Alabama until H. Guy Hunt was elected in 1986.
William Hugh Smith was an American planter and politician, the 21st Governor of the U.S. state of Alabama. He was the first Republican elected as governor in the state, serving from 1868 to 1870 during the period of Reconstruction. A former enslaver, he had opposed secession from the United States on the grounds it would imperil slavery. He appeared driven by practical consideration rather than principled opposition to slavery.
George Henry Williams was an American judge and politician. He served as chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, was the 32nd Attorney General of the United States, and was elected Oregon's U.S. senator, and served one term. Williams, as U.S. senator, authored and supported legislation that allowed the U.S. military to be deployed in Reconstruction of the southern states to allow for an orderly process of re-admittance into the United States. Williams was the first presidential Cabinet member to be appointed from the Pacific Coast. As attorney general under President Ulysses S. Grant, Williams continued the prosecutions that shut down the Ku Klux Klan. He had to contend with controversial election disputes in Reconstructed southern states. President Grant and Williams legally recognized P. B. S. Pinchback as the first African American state governor. Williams ruled that the Virginius, a gun-running ship delivering men and munitions to Cuban revolutionaries, which was captured by Spain during the Virginius Affair, did not have the right to bear the U.S. flag. However, he also argued that Spain did not have the right to execute American crew members. Nominated for Supreme Court Chief Justice by President Grant, Williams failed to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate primarily due to Williams's opposition to U.S. Attorney A. C. Gibbs, his former law partner, who refused to stop investigating Republican fraud in the special congressional election that resulted in a victory for Democrat James Nesmith.
Southern Democrats are members of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States.
James Milton Smith was a Confederate infantry colonel in the American Civil War, as well as a post-war Governor of Georgia.
William James Purman was a U.S. Representative from Florida. A Republican, he also served in the Florida Senate and in the Florida House of Representatives.
Jeremiah Haralson was a politician from Alabama who served as a state legislator and was among the first ten African-American United States Congressmen. Born into slavery in Columbus, Georgia, Haralson became self-educated while enslaved in Selma, Alabama. He was a leader among freedmen after the American Civil War.
The West Virginia Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of West Virginia.
At the end of the American Civil War, the devastation and disruption in the state of Georgia were dramatic. Wartime damage, the inability to maintain a labor force without slavery, and miserable weather had a disastrous effect on agricultural production. The state's chief cash crop, cotton, fell from a high of more than 700,000 bales in 1860 to less than 50,000 in 1865, while harvests of corn and wheat were also meager. The state government subsidized construction of numerous new railroad lines. White farmers turned to cotton as a cash crop, often using commercial fertilizers to make up for the poor soils they owned. The coastal rice plantations never recovered from the war.
James Madison Wells was elected Lieutenant Governor and became the 20th Governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction.
The Alabama Republican Party is the state affiliate of the Republican Party in Alabama. It is the dominant political party in Alabama. The state party is governed by the Alabama Republican Executive Committee. The committee usually meets twice a year. As of the February 23, 2019 meeting in Birmingham, the committee is composed of 463 members. Most of the committee's members are elected in district elections across Alabama. The district members are elected in the Republican Primary once every four years, with the most recent election for the committee having been on June 5, 2018. The new committee takes office following the general election in November 2018. In addition, all 67 county GOP chairmen have automatic seats as voting members. The state chairman can appoint 10 members. Each county committee can appoint bonus members based on a formula that theoretically could add 312 seats, although that formula currently calls for only about 50 seats.
John Henry Caldwell was a U.S. Representative from Alabama.
Stephen Ralph Windom is an American attorney and politician who served as member of the Alabama State Senate from 1989 to 1998 and as the 27th lieutenant governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003.
The 1986 Alabama gubernatorial election saw the election of Republican H. Guy Hunt over Democrat Bill Baxley. In state politics, this election is largely seen as a realigning election since Hunt was the first Republican to be elected governor in 114 years – the last Republican to be elected was David P. Lewis in 1872 during the Reconstruction era. In March 1986, incumbent George Wallace announced that he would not seek a fifth term as governor, ending an era in Alabama politics.
The 1874 Alabama gubernatorial election took place on November 3, 1874, in order to elect the governor of Alabama. Incumbent Republican David P. Lewis unsuccessfully ran for reelection, losing to Democratic former U.S. Representative George S. Houston. This election would end an era of serious competition between the local Democratic and Republican parties, and start a 112-year win streak for Democrats in the gubernatorial level.
Will Ainsworth is an American politician serving as the 31st lieutenant governor of Alabama since 2019. He previously served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2014 to 2018, representing its 27th district.
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