SLAVE STATE REPUBLICANS in CONGRESS, 1861-1877 by Philip
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Slave state Republicans in Congress, 1861-1877 Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Avillo, Philip Joseph, 1942- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 29/09/2021 20:20:10 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/565331 SLAVE STATE REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS, 1861-1877 by Philip Joseph Avillo, Jr„ A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1 9 7 5 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my direction by Philip Joseph Avillo, Jr._________ . entitled SLAVE STATE REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS f____________ 1861-1877________________________________________ be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement of the degree o f ____________DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY___________________ 3 / 7 S~ issertation Director Date After inspection of the final copy of the dissertation, the following members of the Final Examination Committee concur in its approval and recommend its acceptance:- o U This approval and acceptance is contingent on the candidate's adequate performance and defense of this dissertation at the final oral examination. The inclusion of this sheet bound into the library copy of the dissertation is evidence of satisfactory performance at the final examination. STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library, Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. (%)COPYRIGHTED BY PHILIP JOSEPH AVILLO, JR. 1975 iii For LINDA iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the process of writing this study, I received the invaluable assistance of many persons. I want to thank specifically Sue Spaulding and the Inter-library Loan Department at The University of Arizona, Nancy Prewitt of the Missouri State Historical Society, Rodney A. Pyles of the West Virginia University Library, and the staff of the Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, I am especially grateful to Mary Dale Palsson, government documents librarian at The University of Arizona, and her entire staff, for making accessible to me the many resources of their division. I also wish, to thank my readers, Professors Edwin M, Gaines and James Donohoe, for their willing assistance and helpful criticisms. To Professor John V, Mering, who has served these many years as my teacher, critic, counselor, and friend, I shall be forever indebted. My wife, Linda, by providing me with the' encouragement and gentle prodding which 1 so often needed, made the entire undertaking possible. v TABLE OF CONTENTS * Page LIST OF TABLES . , . , , . , , ... , vii ABSTRACT ...................... ix CHAPTER 1. SLAVE STATE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN: PRODUCT OF THE OATH ............. .. ................ 1 2. SLAVE STATE REPUBLICANS AND THE ORIGINS O F ... RECONSTRUCTION .......... , . 23 3'. SLAVE STATE REPUBLICANS IN THE FORTIETH CONGRESS: SUSTAINED THROUGH PROSCRIPTION „ . , 59 . 4, SLAVE STATE REPUBLICANS AND SOUTHERN BLACK ENFRANCHISEMENT 78 5. SLAVE STATE REPUBLICANS AND THE FIFTEENTH a m e n d m e n t ............................... 102 6. AFTERMATH OF THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT; SLAVE STATE REPUBLICANS IN THE FORTY-FIRST CONGRESS p e g o g eg fl o e e g e e e g e g g 137 7. SLAVE STATE REPUBLICANS AND ECONOMIC ISSUES . g ..... g .................. 164 8. BLACK vs. WHITE: THE DILEMMA OF SOUTHERN REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN ............ 199 9. SLAVE STATE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1877 ............ 229 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ............. ......... 242 Vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Non-Seceding Slave State Votes for 186 0 and 1864 Presidential Elections ....... 3 2. Votes of Slave State Representatives on Economic Bills, Thirty-ninth Congress , . .', 27 3. Slave State Republican Voting and the Tariff ............. 31 4. Bills Dependent upon Slave State Republican Votes for Passage 37 5. Slave State Republican Votes on House Bills Relating to the Freedmen ........... 53 6. Registration Under the Reconstruction Acts . 90 7. Selected Suffrage Amendment Votes in the House Fortieth Congress, Third Session . , . , 110 8. Selected Suffrage Amendment Votes in the Senate Fortieth Congress, Third Session , . 113 9. Slave State Republican Votes in the House Relating to the Fifteenth Amendment 4 „ 116 10. Selected Votes in the Senate Forty-First . Congress ................... 141 11. Selected Votes in the House Forty-First Congress . , . 144 12. House and Senate Votes on Currency Legislation in the Fortieth Congress ..... 173 13. Selected House and Senate Votes on Currency and Funding Legislation in the Forty-first Congress » , . 178 14. Selected House Votes on Tariff and Railroad Legislation . , 189 vii yiii LIST OF TABLES!— Continued Table Page 15. Senate Vote on Civil Rights Bi l l ................ 217 16. House Vote on the Alabama Bill . 223 17. Selected House Votes During Election Crisis . 234 18. House Vote on Lodge’s Force Bill 240 ABSTRACT At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, only one Republican from the slave states of the South served in the United States Congress, but, by the end of the war, twenty-three Republicans from the slave states sat in Congress, The readmission by 1868 of most of the seceded slave states, moreover, increased this number to sixty-six, and, in 1870, after the readmission of the last four seceded states, the number of slave state Republicans in Congress peaked at eighty. Overall, during the period 1861 to 1877, nearly three hundred and fifty slave state Republicans occupied seats in the Congress of the United States. Rather than resulting from massive voter realign ment, however, this complete political reversal of the Republican party's fortunes in the South developed from a two-pronged national Republican policy. On the one hand, the party successfully gained thousands of black votes through the enfranchisement of the freedmen in the seceded states. Simultaneously, gtate and.national elements of the Republican party passed legislation, ostensibly only to disfranchise Confederate sympathizers, but which effectively barred many anti-Republicans from the polls, ix ' X Throughout this period of Republican ascendancy in the South, Congressional Democrats cried foul, accusing their Republican colleagues of sponsoring Reconstruction legislation merely for partisan purposes, Republicans countered that their policy of Confederate disfranchisement and black enfranchisement stemmed primarily from the party’s desire to preserve the Union as well as to protect the political rights of black Americans, Notwithstanding the intrinsic merit of the Republican party's quest to guarantee equal political rights to American blhcks, southern Republican conduct in Congress appeared often to substantiate this Democratic criticism. For example, the slave state Republican presence in Congress gave the party the votes it needed to pass such legislation as the First Reconstruction Act, the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and the First Enforcement Act. Equally important, Reconstruction legislation of this type equipped slave state Republican Congressional candidates with the legal machinery necessary to win election in the South, and thereby enabled the Republican party to maintain for nearly a decade a Congressional majority. Surprisingly, historians have generally overlooked the importance, oj: the slave state Republican Congressmen/ attributing the Republican legislative successes primarily to the party’s majority rather than the presence of slave state Republicans, When historians have discussed slave xi state Republicans, moreover, they referred generally to those men representing the former states of the Confederacy. Many Republicans from the non-seceding slave states of the' border served in Congress, however, and they too played a crucial role in the formation of the party's Reconstruction program. Despite the beneficent returns which the slave state Republicans brought to their party, many northern Repub licans became after 18 68 disenchanted with Republican Re construction programs, and the northern and southern unity which had accounted for many Republican legislative successes began to disintegrate. Widespread Republican abandonment of the Republican party in the South paralleled the disunity. Not surprisingly, as this apathy toward the slave state Republicans swept through national Republican ranks, the party's southern wing weakened proportionately. • Created by northern Republican policy, the southern Republican Congressmen who served from 1861 to 1877 had often proved instrumental in enacting the Republican party's legislative program. Without continued external assistance, most Republican Congressional candidates in the slave states found it impossible to fend for themselves, and, after 1877, the number and