To accomplish this, he scheduled a new constitutional convention for July 30, 1866. As the Democratic-dominated legislature passed Black Codes that restricted rights of freedmen, Wells began to lean toward allowing blacks to vote and temporarily disenfranchising ex-Confederates. In March 1865, Unionist planter James Madison Wells became governor. State and National BackgroundĬolfax Riot historical marker (1950) in Colfax refers to “carpetbag misrule in the South.” / Photo by Billy Hathorn, Wikimedia Commons In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, historians have paid renewed attention to the events at Colfax and the resulting Supreme Court case, and their meaning in American history, including contemporary history. Intimidation, murders, and black voter suppression by such paramilitary groups were instrumental to the Democratic Party regaining political control in the state legislature by the late 1870s. After this ruling, the federal government could no longer use the Enforcement Act of 1870 to prosecute actions by paramilitary groups such as the White League, which had chapters forming across Louisiana beginning in 1874. Cruikshank (1876) that protections of the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to the actions of individuals, but only to the actions of state governments. In a key case, the court ruled in United States v.
įederal prosecution and conviction of a few perpetrators at Colfax under the Enforcement Acts was appealed to the Supreme Court. A Republican federal judge in New Orleans ruled that the Republican-majority legislature be seated. Foner wrote, “…every election between 18 was marked by rampant violence and pervasive fraud.” Although the Fusionist-dominated state “returning board,” which ruled on vote validity, initially declared John McEnery and his Democratic slate the winners, the board eventually split, with a faction declaring Republican William P. In Louisiana, it had the most fatalities of any of the numerous violent events following the disputed gubernatorial contest in 1872 between Republicans and Democrats. Historian Eric Foner described the massacre as the worst instance of racial violence during Reconstruction. There were rumors of mass graves at the site. Estimates of the number of dead have varied, ranging from 62 to 153 three whites died but the number of black victims was difficult to determine because many bodies were thrown into the Red River or removed for burial.
Most of the freedmen were killed after they surrendered nearly 50 were killed later that night after being held as prisoners for several hours. In the wake of the contested 1872 election for governor of Louisiana and local offices, a group of white Democrats armed with rifles and a small cannon, overpowered Republican freedmen and state militia (also black) occupying the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax. Three white men died in the confrontation, with at least one said to have been shot by his own ally. The Colfax massacre, sometimes referred to by the euphemism Colfax riot, occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, the seat of Grant Parish, where an estimated 62-153 black men were murdered by white Southerners who had formed a militia. In the wake of the contested 1872 election for governor of Louisiana and local offices, white terrorists killed almost 50 freedmen. The collapse of the three emperors' alliance in the first major crisis that it had to face, namely the Bulgarian crisis of 1885–6, suggests that the solution was hardly a happy one.Gathering the dead after the Colfax massacre, published in Harper’s Weekly, May 10, 1873. Accordingly he decided at the end of 1878 that the very nebulous Dreikaiserbündnis of 1872–3 no longer provided an adequate basis for German security in October 1879 he formed a defensive alliance with Austria against Russia, and in June 1881 the new alliance of the three emperors was concluded, although the Austro-German alliance remained in force. Could he secure the isolation of the unforgiving French without embarrassing commitments to his friends and potential allies? The maintenance of friendly relations with, and between, Austria and Russia seemed to him the indispensable basis of German predominance in Europe the worsening of Austro-Russian relations during the long-drawn-out Near Eastern crisis after 1875 had, however, led both his neighbours to grumble at his limited support, although Russia had been very, much more open and indiscreet in her complaints than Austria.
He had soon recognized after 1871 that the interests of the new Germany could no longer be served by war. The Alliance of the Three Emperors was Bismarck's attempt to escape from a dilemma which had led him to a typical crisis of nerves and irritability during the early months of 1879.
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