Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback was an American publisher, politician, and Union Army officer who served as Governor of Louisiana from December 9, 1872 to January 13, 1873. Pinchback was the first African-American governor and the second lieutenant governor in the United States. A Republican, Pinchback served as acting governor of Louisiana for 35 days, during which ten acts of Legislature became law. He was one of the most prominent African-American officeholders during and following the Reconstruction Era.
The Colfax massacre, sometimes referred to as the Colfax riot, occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the parish seat of Grant Parish. An estimated 62–153 Black men were murdered while surrendering to a mob of former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan. Three White men also died during the confrontation.
Murphy James Foster was the 31st Governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana, an office he held for two terms from 1892 to 1900. Foster supported the Louisiana Constitution of 1898, which effectively disfranchised the black majority, who were mostly Republicans. This led to Louisiana becoming a one-party Democratic state for several generations and excluding African Americans from the political system.
Louis Alfred Wiltz was an American politician from the state of Louisiana. He served as 29th Governor of Louisiana from 1880 to 1881 and before that time was mayor of New Orleans, lieutenant governor of Louisiana, and a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.
Samuel Douglas McEnery served as the 30th Governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana, with service from 1881 until 1888. He was subsequently a U.S. senator from 1897 until 1910. He was the brother of John McEnery, one of the candidates in the contested 1872 election for governor.
William Pitt Kellogg was an American lawyer and Republican Party politician who served as the governor of Louisiana from 1873 to 1877 and twice served as a United States senator during the Reconstruction era.
John McEnery was a Louisiana Democratic politician and lawyer who was considered by Democrats to be the winner of the highly contested 1872 election for Governor of Louisiana. After extended controversy over election results, the Republican candidate William Pitt Kellogg was certified. McEnery, who had been an officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, was not allowed to take office following a weighing in by the federal government and local Republicans loyal to President Ulysses S. Grant.
Henry Clay Warmoth was an American attorney and veteran Civil War officer in the Union Army who was elected governor and state representative of Louisiana. A Republican, he was 26 years old when elected as 23rd Governor of Louisiana, one of the youngest governors elected in United States history. He served during the early Reconstruction Era, from 1868 to 1872.
George Michael Decker Hahn, was an attorney, politician, publisher and planter in New Orleans, Louisiana. He served twice in Congress during two widely separated periods, elected first as a Unionist to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1862, as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 1865, and later as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1884. He was elected as the 19th Governor of Louisiana, serving from 1864 to 1865 during the American Civil War, when the state was occupied by Union troops. He was the first German-born governor in the United States, and is also claimed as the first ethnic Jewish governor. By that time, he was a practicing Episcopalian.
The Wheeler Compromise, sometimes known as the Wheeler Adjustment, was the settlement of the disputed gubernatorial election of 1872 in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and negotiation to organize the state's legislature in January 1875. It was negotiated by, and named after, William A. Wheeler, Congressman from New York and a member of the U.S. House Committee on Southern Affairs. He later was elected as Vice President of the United States.
The following table indicates the party of elected officials in the U.S. state of Louisiana:
Henry Clay Knobloch, also spelled Knoblock, was the 19th Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana from 1885 to 1889 serving under Governor Samuel D. McEnery.
The Battle of Liberty Place, or Battle of Canal Street, was an attempted insurrection by the Crescent City White League against the Reconstruction Era Louisiana Republican state government on September 14, 1874, in New Orleans, which was the capital of Louisiana at the time. Five thousand members of the White League, a paramilitary organization made up largely of Confederate veterans, fought against the outnumbered racially integrated New Orleans Metropolitan Police and state militia. The insurgents held the statehouse, armory, and downtown for three days, retreating before arrival of federal troops that restored the elected government. At least 32 people, including at least 21 members of the White League, were killed in the fighting. No insurgents were charged in the action.
Ruth McEnery Stuart (1849–1917) was an American author.
The 1892 Louisiana gubernatorial election was held on April 19, 1892. Like most Southern states between Reconstruction and the civil rights era, Louisiana's Republican Party was virtually nonexistent in terms of electoral support. In addition, the Republican Party had split into two factions, each supporting a different candidate. As Louisiana had not yet adopted party primaries, this meant that the Democratic Party convention nomination vote was supposed to be the real contest over who would be governor. At the convention, pro-lottery former Governor Samuel D. McEnery was nominated. As a result of the nomination of a pro-lottery candidate, a group of anti-lottery Democrats nominated their own candidate, State Senator Murphy J. Foster. In addition to the four candidates already mentioned, the increasingly popular Populists nominated R. H. Tannehill and their candidate. Despite all of this, Senator Foster was elected with 45% of the vote with a comfortable 19% margin between him and McEnery, who placed second. This election marked the last time until 1979 that the official Democratic Party nominee was defeated.
The 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election was the second election to take place under the Louisiana Constitution of 1868. As a result of this election William Pitt Kellogg was elected Governor of Louisiana, but not before federal troops stepped in to enforce his election. The results of this election were highly contentious and resulted in racial violence across the state, including the Colfax massacre. U. S. President Ulysses S. Grant had to step in and formally recognize Kellogg as Governor to resolve the violence. Kellogg's Democratic opponent John McEnery finally conceded the election in September 1874 after briefly overthrowing Kellogg's government. This was Last time a Republican won the governorship in Louisiana until 1979
The Battle of Liberty Place Monument is a stone obelisk on an inscribed plinth, formerly on display in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, commemorating the "Battle of Liberty Place", an 1874 attempt by Democratic White League paramilitary organizations to take control of the government of Louisiana from its Reconstruction Era Republican leadership after a disputed gubernatorial election.
Edmond Ducre Estilette, known as E. D. Estilette, was a politician and lawyer in Opelousas, Louisiana. He served in a number of public positions, most notably speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives at the end of Reconstruction in 1875. Estilette oversaw the creation of one of the most infamous Black Codes of the post-Civil War era, but he was later seen as a moderating force in the turbulent politics of that era.
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