The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina, 1894-1901

By Helen G. Edmonds

Edmonds gives a detailed and accurate record of the political careers of prominent North Carolina blacks who held federal, state, county, and municipal offices. This record shows that the ration of Afro-American voters was so low that black domination was neither a reality nor a threat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781469610955

Book preview

Chapter One

Introduction

IT IS OFTEN STATED that North Carolina is dominantly a one-party state. The history of the past fifty years bears testimony to the fact that the Democratic party has been in control of government of this state more often than any other party. The historian is compelled to analyze the factors which gave rise to that domination. The North Carolina pattern cannot be fitted into the single formula that the Reconstruction Period, which followed the War Between the States, solidified the Democratic whites against the Republican blacks and thereby created a Democratic state beyond peradventure. The unique forces and circumstances which contributed to the one-party system in this state warrant the analysis of a more recent historical period than Reconstruction.

The Democratic party has, from 1870 to 1951, had a majority representation in the North Carolina legislature, with but one exception. That exception is the brief interlude, 1895–1901, commonly termed the Fusion Period. This treatise, in analyzing the Fusion Period, involved first, the rise of a third party in the state, the People’s party; second, the fusion of that party with the Republican party; third, the Fusion’s overthrow of the Bourbon Democratic party; and, fourth, Democratic restoration. Fusion politics in this study means the strategy employed and the results attained by the Populists and Republicans in their ascendancy, domination, and decline. It means a redefining of the political role of the Negro in the period.

Any writer who deals with the turbulent 1890’s in this state’s history will find that there are two schools of opinion relative to the interpretation of Fusion politics: the old and the new. There will also be found numerous shades of opinion between the two points of view. Those writers who have maintained a condemnation of the Fusion administration constitute the old. The few writers and statesmen who have given some credit to the period constitute the new.

Some of the possible determinants which have established the old school point of view and perpetuated it are: First, most of the earlier writers were staunch Democrats; hence, they were anti-Republican, anti-Populist, anti-Negro participation in politics, and unscientific in the evaluation of data.¹ Second, more recent writers, in treating this period in their general histories of the state, have leaned heavily upon Democratic source materials and have accepted the decade of the 1890’s as a terrible political era, a near replica of Reconstruction days.² Third, many Democratic campaign speakers, at that time and until 1930, resurrected the activities of the Fusion Period to illustrate the necessity of white supremacy, although the majority of Negroes had been disfranchised by constitutional amendment in 1901 and fraudently disfranchised by intricate election laws before 1901.³ Fourth, such source materials as private papers, campaign literature, newspapers, periodicals, and memoirs which set forth the Democratic side of the question are in greater abundance and are more centrally located than those materials which present the Fusion side.⁴

The new school of interpretation of Fusion is small and comparatively recent. The decades of the 1930’s and 1940’s found the emotional attitudes of the Democratic party more receptive to any analysis which was at variance with the established Democratic hypotheses. Pioneer attempts by the students of the University of North Carolina, Duke University, and the University of Chicago have re-examined some aspects of the period. As J. D. Hicks in The Populist Revolt exposed many unjust condemnations which anti-Populist propaganda has assigned to the national movement, so has the new group of writers in North Carolina, by the more thorough use of source materials, attempted to see Populism in its true light. The new school has focused its attention first upon the economic implications involved in Fusion; secondly, upon the racial constituency of the Fusion parties; and thirdly, upon the Democratic techniques employed in the overthrow of Fusion.

Fusion included three factors: the Populist party, the Republican party, and the Negro. It is necessary to analyze critically the existing works which treat each factor separately and the three factors collectively in terms of new points of view. Simeon Delap was the first writer to see in Populism any benefits to this state.⁵ His work is superficial in treatment, but it was a pioneer attempt in a neglected phase of state history. Florence E. Smith sought to justify the righteousness of the Populist party and ignored the truth or falsity of the factors involved in the race question.⁶

There is no separate treatment of the Republican party. The Negro as a component part of the Republican party is also a neglected phase. William A. Mabry, in recording the political activities of the Negro, devoted some attention to the Negro in Fusion politics. He believed that there was no threat of Negro domination, yet he concerned himself more with exposing the effects of Negro office-holding on race relations than ascertaining the number and quality of positions held by Negroes.⁷

Others of the recent writers on state history, as a whole, have introduced new appraisals on Fusion politics and the Negro. Albert R. Newsome and Hugh T. Lefler have modified some of the points of view on the period by showing that the rule of the Populists and the Republicans pleased the people in some respects. They have eliminated some of the Negro-phobia from Fusion politics by the use of the terms some and few in reference to Negro officeholders.⁸ Lefler has opened other new vistas to future writers through his compilation of documentary data which show both sides of the Fusion picture.⁹ The best, most authentic and dispassionate interpretation of the Fusion election of 1896 made thus far has been done by Phillip J. Weaver.¹⁰ His work asserts that Fusion was the reaction against the Democratic party’s failure to meet the new challenge for reform and advancement. While the writers of the old school contend that the Negro vote was responsible for Fusion victory in 1896, Weaver states that victory was assured without the Negro vote. His estimate of the race question in the background of Fusion politics shows that he was not unduly influenced by the racial propaganda of the period.

Recent memoirs, personal correspondence, and autobiographies have contributed some either towards new points of view or towards the furthering of the new points of view. The Clawson Memoirs add a small bit of clarity to the Wilmington Race Riot in that the writer (white) owned the press with which Alex Manly (Negro) printed the Negro newspaper.¹¹ The private correspondence of one Negro sheds much light on the duplicity of some of the Republican leaders.¹² The first two volumes of Josephus Daniels’ autobiography are indispensable for an analysis of the atmosphere of the 1890’s.¹³ These volumes are intensely Democratic, and the author lets this fact be known without apologies. Some of his conclusions are new points of view, as he writes them in retrospect. It is primarily because of Daniels’ retrospective writings that one may assume that the time seems at hand when the emotional attitude of North Carolina historians will permit a dispassionate appraisal of the tempestuous 1890’s. This tendency is well illustrated when this energetic Democratic participant, opponent of the Negro in politics, and enemy of Fusion, says, in 1941:

I made enemies and I garnered friends, and my vehemence of denunciation of opponents was not always tempered with charity But I look back, also, amazed at my own editorial violence at times, even when I understood the circumstances which surrounded it. . . . The poverty of the South, the poverty of my State, and resentment at the Politics of Reconstruction, bred a violence in insecurity which reduced to pure bitterness the contest between men and groups and races.¹⁴

There are certain handicaps inherent in the study of Fusion politics. There are few county histories. Of the ninety-six counties of the state in this period, only six have written histories.¹⁵ Only one of the six discussed Fusion.¹⁶ There is a scarcity of source materials on Negro officeholders. The House and Senate Journals and Public Documents make no distinction between white and colored members of the legislature. The most useful aid in identifying them was the North Carolina Manual, 1913, but this work failed to designate several Negro members. Personal interviews, newspapers, relatives, and secondary materials are the chief means of determining racial identity. The Congressional Record and House Journals (North Carolina General Assembly) are the basic sources for the activities of George H. White and James H. Young, respectively, two Negroes who figured prominently in the period.

The Democratic newspapers of the period were more numerous and had wider circulation; in them, however, one has to wade through vitriolic and partisan propaganda. The Republican party had no official press at the time, and this makes difficult a nonpartisan study of the period. The Populists relied upon the Progressive Farmer and the Caucasian to carry their message.

This work attempts to pursue the path of the new school of interpretation, taking into consideration certain points of view of the old. It aims to investigate the bases of Fusion in each election from 1894 to 1900; to appraise those aspects of Fusion legislation which bear relationship to the Negro; to examine the facts concerning the cry of Negro domination through an analysis of Negro office-holding with regard to federal, state, county, and municipal positions; to see the industrial and commercial forces at work behind the issue of race; and to estimate the Democrats’ use of the race question as an instrument in making North Carolina a one-party state.

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE

1. Samuel A. Ashe, History of North Carolina, Vol. II.

Fred Rippy, (ed.), Furnifold Simmons, Statesman of the New South; Memoirs and Addresses.

James Sprunt, Chronicles of the Cape Fear River 1660–1916, Second ed.

Alfred M. Waddell, Some Memories of My Life.

2. R. D. W. Connor, North Carolina: Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, 1584–1925, Vol. II.

R. D. W. Connor and Clarence Poe, The Life and Speeches of Charles Brantley Aycock.

J. G. deR. Hamilton, History of North Carolina Since 1860 (History of North Carolina, Vol. III).

Archibald Henderson, North Carolina, The Old North State and the New, Vol. II.

3. Charles B. Aycock, Josephus Daniels, Locke Craig, Robert Glenn, T. J. Jarvis, Claude Kitchin, Cameron Morrison, George Rountree, Furnifold Simmons, Francis Winston.

4. Duke University Library (Durham, North Carolina), State Department of Archives and History (Raleigh, North Carolina), State Library (Raleigh, North Carolina), University of North Carolina Library (Chapel Hill, North Carolina).

5. Simeon Delap, The Populist Party in North Carolina, Trinity College Historical Papers, Series XXIV (1922), 40–74.

6. Florence E. Smith, Populism and Its Influence in North Carolina (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1929).

7. William A Mabry, The Negro in North Carolina Politics Since Reconstruction, Historical Papers of Trinity College Historical Society, Series XXIII (1940).

8. Albert R. Newsome and Hugh T. Lefler, The Growth of North Carolina.

9. Hugh T. Lefler, (ed.), North Carolina History Told by Contemporaries.

10. Phillip J. Weaver, The Gubernatorial Election of 1896 in North Carolina (Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1937).

11. Clawson Memoirs. Retelling the Story of the Wilmington Race Riot, North Carolina Historical Commission, Raleigh, North Carolina, deposited May 26, 1944.

12. Private Correspondence of John Dancy, Collector of Customs, Wilmingon, North Carolina. Correspondence in possession of John Dancy, Jr., Director of Urban League, 606 E. Vernor, Detroit, Michigan.

13. Josephus Daniels, Tar Heel Editor, 1939; Editor in Politics, 1941.

14. Daniels, Editor in Politics, 623.

15. Clarence Griffin, History of Old Tryon or Rutherford County, 1730–1936. Joseph Separk, History of Gastonia and Gaston County.

Forster A. Sondley, Buncombe County.

Joseph K. Turner and John Bridges, History of Edgecombe County.

A. M. Waddell, History of New Hanover County, Vol. I. Sherrill L. Williams, Lincoln County.

16. Turner and Bridges, History of Edgecombe County.

Chapter Two

The Factors Underlying Fusion

THE THREADS OF SOUTHERN HISTORY weave a very confusing web, during and immediately after the period of Reconstruction, when writers attempt to characterize the Negro in Southern politics. It is historically unsound to categorize the Negro in Southern politics. Political activities of the Negro in the post-bellum South varied according to localities and ratio in the population. The approach must be specific, confined to state and county areas, and fundamentally localized in nature. The evidence thus secured would then present a more accurate picture than is possible from the general approach. Just as methods of slave discipline, black codes, and master-slave relations differed vastly in Southern areas before the Civil War, so did Bourbon tolerance of Negroes in politics differ in the post-bellum period.

The Reconstruction left in its wake in North Carolina two distinct political parties: the Republican and the Conservative (later called Democratic).¹ The Republican party was composed of carpetbaggers, scalawags, and Negroes. The Conservative party was composed of white men whose desire was to drive out the Northern foreigners who had manipulated their Negro cohorts and to return the control of state government exclusively to whites. The rivalry of these two parties, the Republican to maintain control and the Conservative to obtain it, is roughly the story of Reconstruction in North Carolina. The Conservatives captured the legislature in 1870 and the gubernatorial election in 1876. North Carolina was Democratic from 1876 to 1894. The Negro was less active in politics. The Negro and the Republican party as political factors reappeared in 1894. The strengthening of the Republican party in the 1890’s is closely linked with the appearance of the People’s party (a third party); hence, an examination of these three parties between 1877 and 1894 is important.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

It is reasonably safe to assume that when Congress removed the political disabilities from many North Carolinians in 1872, the restored whites joined the Democratic party. The psychological aftermath of the Civil War gave impetus to the growth of the Democratic party, for the whites suffered not only military defeat, but Reconstruction made voting Republicans of the Negroes. The Democratic legislature of 1874 chafed under the Reconstruction Constitution which had been saddled on the state in 1868. The Constitution of 1868 was condemned on the basis of its origin in a military despotism, and on its lack of suitability to the needs of the State.² A new constitutional convention met on September 5, 1875. The Conservative party secured a majority, but one so narrow that the path of the convention was fraught with difficulties. Among the vast number of amendments proposed, only thirty were adopted.³ Those were ratified in 1876.

While it is needless to go into a survey of the thirty amendments, there are two which claim attention because of their relation to partisan politics and the Negro. The first pertained to suffrage and eligibility to office and stipulated that the residence requirement for voting in any county would be ninety days rather than the previous requirement of sixty days, and that any person convicted of a felony would be debarred.⁴ The second amendment gave to the General Assembly full power to modify, change, or abrogate county government.⁵ Future legislative assemblies, by these constitutional changes, could regulate and control elections and county government.

The repercussions of the presidential election of 1876 also aided the Conservatives in securing a firmer grip on North Carolina. The Hayes-Tilden election of 1876 produced disputed returns from South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. Congress created an Electoral Commission of fifteen—five members each from the House, Senate, and the Supreme Court—to count the disputed returns. The Commission voted 8–7 for Republican Hayes. The decision was not entirely satisfactory. The Commission was accused of voting strictly along party lines.⁶ On February 26, 1877, Republican and Democratic politicians held three conferences, the last of which took place at Wormley’s Hotel, Washington, D. C. The outcome of these conferences was to all intents and purposes an agreement by which the Republicans, while expressly disclaiming any authority to speak for him in effect guaranteed that Mr. Hayes, when he became president, would, by a gradual process of non-interference and withdrawal of troops, allow the Republican governments in the two states [South Carolina and Louisiana] to disappear.⁷ Hayes won the election. He removed the federal troops from the three states in question in March and April of the same year. The policy of removal became universal in all the formerly seceded states.⁸ The Conservative victory of 1876 in the state and the removal of federal troops from the South signalled the end of Reconstruction in North Carolina.

The Conservatives became the Democratic party in 1876, and how they became so is interesting speculation. An authority on the Reconstruction period states this historical probability:

But for Reconstruction, the State would today, so far as one can estimate human probabilities, be solidly Republican. This was clearly evident in 1865 when the attempted restoration of President Johnson put public affairs in the hands of former Whigs who had no thought of joining in politics their old opponents, the Democrats. So strong was the opposition to such a thing that it was eight years before there was an avowed Democratic Party in the State, the Whigs who formed and led the conservative Party having so decided a detestation for the very name.⁹

The association of the Negro with the Republican party had supplied the Democratic party with a fighting weapon. Zebulon Baird Vance and the Democratic ticket vanquished Judge Thomas Settle and the Republican ticket in 1876. The Democrats hailed Vance for the redemption of the state from Yankees and Negroes.

The industrial growth of North Carolina in the 1880’s and 1890’s was reflected in the growth of the Democratic party into whose ranks came many lawyers, textile mill owners, and railroad magnates. While the leadership of the party was not captured by the industrial or capitalistic element until the 1890’s, its presence gave the party in the 1880’s a pro-corporation attitude which was further enhanced by machine politics.¹⁰ Prior to 1894, the Democratic triumvirate included Zebulon B. Vance, the war governor, redeemer of the state, and United States senator; T. J. Jarvis, governor from 1880 to 1884 and later United States senator; and, Matthew Ransom, state Democratic leader and later United States senator. There was no doubt that old men assumed the leadership of the party.

Among the lesser lights were railroad magnates and newspaper editors. Samuel A’Court Ashe was editor of the Raleigh News, precursor to the Raleigh News and Observer, and a staunch party man. His paper failed to recognize the full implications of the agrarian movement in North Carolina and thereby ignored the farmers’ grievances. The editor was anti-Negro and anti-Populist. Julian S. Carr, of Durham, was a wealthy industrial magnate who also had political aspirations. Carr was one of the Democratic possibilities for governor in 1892. Colonel Alexander B. Andrews was a corporation Democrat of the first order, vice president of the Southern Railroad. Andrews owned a Democratic paper in Raleigh, The Morning Post, a vigorous champion of the railroad interest in politics. There was Elias Carr who possessed enough dual characteristics to be pleasing to the corporation element as well as the agricultural element of the party. By 1894, the Democratic party stood for laissez faire policies, no governmental regulation of railroads, and favoritism to business. A party so large, yet governed by so few, was bound to direct party efforts toward self-preservation. The national issues of the 1880’s centered around the regulation of railroads, currency fluctuation, tariffs, control of monopolies, and agricultural demands made by a vocal West. The masses of the Democratic party in North Carolina were never sufficiently informed on the real issues of the day. A cursory examination of the leaders and policies before 1894 shows that no attempts were made to foster social and economic reforms in the Assembly or to agitate it in the state, for reforms were opposed by the industrial and railroad interests.

John T. Crowell, president of Trinity College, a Democrat, a plain citizen, and a close observer of the political lethargy of the day, urged that the legislature increase progressively the appropriations for public schools, encourage immigration, appropriate funds for a systematic and scientific improvement of highways, appoint a board of commissioners of transportation and provide for the construction of dikes along the lowlands and rivers, render more efficient the Bureau of Industrial Statistics, authorize an economic and geological survey of the state, abolish the discrediting homestead law, and establish credit banks for farmers.¹¹ This implied criticism of the political and legislative lethargy of North Carolina confirms Weaver’s contention that the Democrats had failed to offer the state a vitalized program.¹² The leadership of the Democratic party was at a low ebb in 1892. If the leaders could complacently evade the vital issues of the day and retain the support of the unknowing masses, so much the better. It has been said that evasion of issues was most often accomplished by reminding the voters of Negro rule under the Republican party during Reconstruction.¹³ When economic grievances arose, the Democratic leaders attributed them to the policies of the national government, especially those of the Republican administration of Harrison, 1889–93.¹⁴ Any serious attempt to regulate railroads or any other big business in the state was considered at that time as dangerous and radical. The national government had paid lip service to regulation through the creation of the Inter-State Commerce Commission in 1887¹⁵ and the enactment of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law in 1890,¹⁶ but they were largely ineffective.

Another factor solidified the party in the state. Northern Republicans in Congress agitated in 1890 for a Federal Election Law which would extend the long arm of the federal government into state politics. This bill, commonly referred to as the Force Bill, proposed that in response to a petition from five hundred persons in a district or fifty in a county, federal election officers would be supplied, and the arrangement would control federal elections only.¹⁷ While the bill was designed to supervise federal elections only, it was bound to have influence on state politics, as federal and state elections were held at the same time and the same place. The possibility of the Force Bill proved a spur to unity among southern Democrats who regarded white supremacy as an issue more important than all others.¹⁸ The state legislature of 1891 urged its United States senators, Ransom and Vance, and its nine representatives to vote against the Force Bill. It resolved:

That we applaud the patriotic efforts of our United States Senators and representatives in Congress to secure the defeat of the bill now pending in the Congress of the United States and known as the Federal Election Law or Force Bill. That the South has passed through a period during which the antagonism of the races and the suspicions engendered in the minds of the colored people by designing, unprincipled and unpatriotic men placed in jeopardy the stability of society and the lives and property of the people, but now happily that period has passed and comparative contentment, confidence and repose have been established in all parts of the southern States. This has been accompanied by an improvement in the material conditions of both races, by the establishment of schools and education of the people, by the opening of mines, the building of factories; the construction of railroads, and generally by an immense development of the moral, intellectual and material resources of a dozen states peopled by millions of citizens and forming a vast empire, claiming the fostering care of our national legislature. In this advancing prosperity northern and foreign capital has had its share, has largely contributed, northern citizens have sought among us profitable investment for their surplus means and have invested hundreds of millions in our industrial enterprises, to say nothing of the obligations arising from the business dealings between the different sections of our common country. We cannot contemplate the disturbance of these relations in business, prosperous and promising yet greater developments, and as to the sections, fraternal and tending to promote broad patriotism without great concern as citizens, and particularly as residents of that section whose best interests are threatened by the measure in question.¹⁹

The resolutions reflected certain Democratic party attitudes. First, the views of the business or capitalistic element of the party were emphasized, and the use of such terms as railroads, factories, mines, and material resources demonstrated the industrial atmosphere of North Carolina at that time. Second, there was a subtle reminder to Northern Republicans who might support the bill that their money was invested in the state, a warning which was tantamount to the economic threat: support the Force Bill and we will sever our financial arrangements. Third, it was singular for its omission of reference to the agricultural situation, rather centering its attention on industrial enterprises. Fourth, the North Carolina legislature seemed to have considered the resolution a Southern Manifesto incorporating the opinion of all the Southern states which participated in the war. Fifth, its reference to the race question was predicated upon the statement that the period of the former antagonism of the races had happily passed and had been accompanied by the material improvement of both races. One cannot always be safe in making conclusions about a party solely on the basis of its official expressions; but if the Negro people had improved materially, morally, and intellectually before 1891, then they speedily degenerated into a beast according to the party newspapers, speakers, pamphleteers, and politicians of 1895–1901.

More recent historical evidence throws light upon the activities of another element in the Democratic party. There were the Prohibitionists in the 1880’s who sought to outlaw the saloon. Sentiment for state prohibition was crystallized by certain religious groups, chief among which were the Baptists and the Methodists. The party was divided on the issue. The prohibition election of 1881 returned an overwhelming victory for the anti-prohibition forces.²⁰ The nature of the campaign bears out the contention that the Democratic party did not want to make the whiskey issue political.²¹ It is held that the Republican leaders saw the split in the Democratic ranks as an opportunity for their party to emerge victorious in subsequent political elections and thus threw their weight with the anti-prohibition forces.²² The Republicans’ attempt to capitalize on the anti-prohibition sentiment was a fiasco. The Prohibitionists, a remnant group in the Democratic party, had decreased in numbers at the close of the 1880’s.

The Democratic party had, in 1890, two elements: a dominant conservative Bourbon wing (pro-business, anti-reform) led by a few leaders who controlled the complacent rank and file by appeals to party loyalty and fears of Republican-Negro rule; and a minority liberal agrarian anti-corporation wing with such spokesmen as Josephus Daniels, Walter Clark, and Leonidas Lafayette Polk. While the minority liberal element of the party grew into strength in the late 1880’s, because of mounting agrarian revolt, criticism of the Railroad Commission, and the anti-prohibition sentiment, the self-confident Bourbon leaders of the party did not doubt their ability to maintain party unity and control.

United States Senator Vance died in 1894. Matthew Ransom, the younger senator, was not considered for re-election by a Fusionist legislature in 1895. Jarvis was now merely the former governor. With the decline of the triumvirate’s political influence, a more vocal group of young men came to the front in the party. These young men were predominantly lawyers, with the exception of Josephus Daniels. Daniels, an ardent party man, assumed editorship of the Raleigh News and Observer in 1894 and wielded immeasurable influence through his paper which was anti-Populist and anti-Negro. There was no man more responsible for shaping public opinion against Fusion than he. The following lawyers rose to influence in the party: Furnifold M. Simmons, Henry G. Connor, Locke Craig, Robert Glenn, Charles B. Aycock, Cameron Morrison, George Rountree, William W. Kitchin, Claude Kitchin, Alfred M. Waddell, and Walter Clark. This infusion of young and vigorous blood was there in 1894 but was not decisive.

In comparing the Democratic party with the Republican party, there is no doubt that political experience was on the side of the Democratic party. The Negro cohorts of the Republican party discredited the party in the estimation of the majority of white North Carolinians because their [Negro] participation in politics gave the Democratic party a safe majority of white voters.²³

In 1894, the Democratic party was a white man’s party. . . . And as such demanded and received the allegiance of those who were opposed to universal suffrage upheld by the Republicans and provided for in the Constitution of 1868. The question of the Negro in politics was the dominant issue in all party affiliations.²⁴ The majority of the Democratic leaders were not farmers who had suffered from the severe agrarian depression, but were men engaged in other businesses that had been less affected.²⁵ In reference to their lack of progressiveness, Henderson states that in many respects they were apathetic and hostile toward the introduction of new ideas.²⁶ Democratic election law, Democratic control of county government, gerrymandering, intimidation, manipulation, and corruption had kept the Democratic party in control from 1876 to 1894.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

The Republican party in North Carolina increased in numbers as a result of the Act of Reconstruction enacted by Congress, March 2, 1867. General Canby, the military governor, called a constitutional convention in Raleigh. Pursuant to the call, one hundred and seven Republicans and thirteen Conservatives appeared as delegates.²⁷ After fifty-five days of deliberation, the Constitution of 1868 emerged. It was ratified. William W. Holden, of Wake County, was elected Republican governor in that year. White and Negro Republicans dominated the legislature for the next two years. The Conservatives captured the legislature in 1870 and from that time until 1894 there was a recession in the activities of the Republican party. The party was held together chiefly because the machinery fell into the hands of Federal officeholders.²⁸

The constituency of the Republican party in 1868 included carpetbaggers, scalawags, and Negroes. The excessive influence of the Northerners declined rapidly after 1870 and the leadership of the party passed into the hands of native whites. They cannot be classified as Yankees seeking to impose foreign customs and political mores on a local people.

The geography of the state played its part in the development of the party. A few extreme western counties were centers of Republican strength. The background of the western counties bore, and bears today, testimony to the clash between the seaboard and the frontier. Lack of equitable representation in the General Assembly, together with the contempt with which the western, nonslaveholding white farmers were treated by the slave owners of the lowland, had incited sectional hostility before the Civil War. Perhaps with some modification as to solidarity, the opinion can be accepted that "when the war came the mountaineers stood loyally by the Union and rendered most efficient service to the armies through the long contest. When the war ended, they entered the Republican party en masse."²⁹

The geographical distribution of the party as revealed by the gubernatorial elections from 1876 through 1896 shows that ten counties in the western third of the state voted Republican in each election.³⁰ There were sixteen counties in the central and eastern thirds which voted Republican during the same period.³¹ There were then in the east and west definite centers of Republican strength. The geographical distribution of the party cannot be ascertained from these twenty-six counties alone. A better indication of the opposition strength to the Democratic party is shown through