Tag: Democrat

New Orleans Race Riots…Democrats Murder Republicans

Today in History, July 30, 1866:

The New Orleans Riot. NOLA had been under Union control for most of the Civil War, although deep South in geography and sentiments. In 1864, a state convention of mostly Confederate sympathies had tried to enforce “Black Codes” to limit the rights of Freedmen.

Now that the war was over, “Radical” Republicans were holding a state convention in The Mechanic’s Institute in New Orleans in hopes of gaining control of the legislature.

A group of black Union veterans formed and marched to the Institute in support of the Republicans, where they were attacked by an armed group of former Confederates, including some authorities (the Mayor and others were Democrat former Confederates). 34-35 black and 3 white Republicans were killed.

Other similar riots in the South occurred, convincing enough voters that more stringent Reconstruction policies were needed.

In November Republicans would sweep into both houses of Congress by 77%. The next year they would force through the Fourteenth Amendment protecting citizenship rights and equal protections over the protests of Democrats in Congress. Before it could be ratified, the Reconstruction Acts were passed…requiring former states to ratify if before they could be represented in Congress.

Republicans Killed by Democrats

Today in History, July 30, 1866:

The New Orleans Riot.

NOLA had been under Union control for most of the Civil War, although deep South in geography and sentiments.

In 1864, a state convention of mostly Confederate sympathies had tried to enforce “Black Codes” to limit the rights of Freedmen.

Now that the war was over, “Radical” Republicans were holding a state convention in The Mechanic’s Institute in New Orleans in hopes of gaining control of the legislature. A group of black Union veterans formed and marched to the Institute in support of the Republicans, where they were attacked by an armed group of former Confederates, including some authorities (the Mayor and others were Democrat former Confederates). 34-35 black and 3 white Republicans were killed.

Other similar riots in the South occurred, convincing enough voters that more stringent Reconstruction policies were needed. In November Republicans would sweep into both houses of Congress by 77%. The next year they would force through the Fourteenth Amendment protecting citizenship rights and equal protections over the protests of Democrats in Congress. Before it could be ratified, the Reconstruction Acts were passed…requiring former states to ratify if before they could be represented in Congress.

“This damn fool Sumner is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool.” – Sen. Stephen Douglas

Today in History, May 22, 1856:

Years before the Civil War. On May 20, 1856 US Senator Charles Sumner, a free soil Democrat and later Republican from Massachussetts, had given a firey speech entitled “Crime Against Kansas” about the violence in that state over slavery.

A devout abolitionist, he excoriated the south, in particular Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, who he likened to a pimp abusing a prostitute (slavery).

This enraged Butler’s nephew, Senator Preston Brooks. When Sen. Stephen Douglas heard the speech, he commented, “this damn fool Sumner is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool.”

On the 22nd, Brooks entered the Senate chamber with two other Southern Senators, found Sumner at his desk writing and proceeded to bludgeon him nearly to death with his heavy metal tipped cane while Sumner was trapped within his desk, defenseless.

Southerners hailed Brooks a hero.

Northerners called him a coward. One of these, Republican Representative Anson Burlingame called him such on the House floor.

Brooks challenged Burlingame to a duel. When Burlingame actually accepted and showed up, Brooks did not.

Sumner would suffer debilitating pain for the rest of his life from his injuries, but would recover to become a key proponent of abolitionist policies during reconstruction, living until 1872.

Brooks on the other hand died in January 1857, less than a year after the attack, of the croup.

Fighting the Good Fight…and Consequences

Today in History, March 22: 1871:

North Carolina Governor William Holden (no, not THAT William Holden) is removed from office by impeachment…the first US Governor to receive this punishment.

His crime? Holden was a Republican and an abolitionist…during his tenure as Governor he hired two dozen detectives to hunt down the leaders of the NC KKK, got a bill passed that called out the militia against the KKK, and suspended habeas corpus to enhance his ability to prosecute the leaders of the Klan.

In 1870 the state’s Democrats won the legislature and quickly moved to impeach Holden for his hard-handed tactics against the KKK.

Holden had enacted these actions to counter the assassination of a Republican Senator and the hanging of an African-American police officer, amongst other crimes. In 2011, the entirety of the North Carolina Senate voted to pardon Holden.

The Democrat Jack-Ass is Born Amidst Hatred

Today in History, January 15: 1870 –

“A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion” “And Such a Lion! and Such a Jackass!”

Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast publishes a cartoon which popularizes the Jackass as the symbol for the Democrat party.

A German immigrant, Nast is considered by many to be the father of the modern political cartoon. In addition to the Democrat Jackass, he popularized the Republican Elephant and our conception of Santa Claus. I use the term popularize because he wasn’t the first to use any of these symbols, but he made them known to everyone.

The Jack-ass originally became known as a Democrat symbol when someone called President Andrew Jackson a jack-ass, and he decided to “own it.”

Among other things Nast was an abolitionist and a patriot. Which is why Northern Copperheads angered him so. Copperheads were Northern Democrats that were sympathetic to the Confederate (Southern Democrats) cause. Nast considered them racists and traitors.

Edwin M. Stanton had been part of President Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals”, the Secretary of War who prosecuted the Civil War from Washington and had become respectful and loyal to Lincoln. When Stanton died suddenly on Christmas Eve 1869, the Copperhead Papers in the North continued their criticism of him, speaking ill of the dead.

This was the inspiration for Nast’s cartoon.

This isn’t to say Stanton was a lovable character.  He angered many in D.C. and in the Army.  General William T. Sherman refused to shake his hand at a military review at the close of the war due to Stanton’s treatment of him.  Stanton was an opportunist, but he worked hard at his job.

Go West, Young Man, and Grow Up With the Country!


Today in History, May 20: 1862 – President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, which would give 160 acres of western lands to anyone that would farm it successfully for 5 years and build a residence upon it (often a sod building). The Act would encourage vastly expanded settlement of the west; bad news for Native Americans, good news for those newer Americans wanting to improve their lot in life. Congress had attempted to pass similar acts in 1852, 1854, and 1859, but each time the attempts were shot down by Southern Democrats who were afraid that if the west were populated by poor farmers and immigrants it would result in more “free” states, which would result in more votes against slavery. Once the Republican Lincoln was elected, and the Civil War began, the Southern Democrats were no longer part of the equation.  As their states seceded from the Union, their obstructionist votes left Congress.   The Republicans soon passed the Homestead Act and the settlement of the west began in earnest. By the end of the war 15,000 settlers (some of which were merely pawns for land speculators) had accepted their lands. Eventually 80 Million acres would be settled.

A First in History

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Today in History, February 25: 1870 – On a strict party line vote (we’ve heard that a lot lately) of 48 Republicans for and 8 Democrats against, Methodist minister Hiram Rhodes of Mississippi is confirmed as the first African-American US Senator, the first African-American member of Congress. Rhodes had been a minister, had helped raise the first two black regiments to fight in the Civil War, had been a veteran of the Battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi. Ironically he had served in Lincolnton, North Carolina as a barber with his brother, and served in a seminary in UNION county, Indiana. Democrats had attempted to use the 1857 Dredd Scott decision, A ridiculous Supreme Court decision that decided black people were not citizens, as a basis for preventing Rhodes from attaining the Senate seat.