1869 Mississippi gubernatorial election

November 30, 1869


Nominee	James L. Alcorn	Lewis Dent
Party	Republican	National Union Republican Party
Alliance		Democratic
Popular vote	76,186	38,097
Percentage	66.66%	33.34%

County results
Alcorn:      50-60%     60-70%     70-80%     80-90%     >90%
Dent:      50-60%     60-70%      70-80%     80-90%
     No Returns

Governor before election

Adelbert Ames
Republican

Elected Governor

James L. Alcorn
Republican

The 1869 Mississippi gubernatorial election was held on November 30, 1869, in order to elect the Governor of Mississippi. James L. Alcorn, Republican and moderate planter who had previously served in the Confederate Army, defeated National Union Republican Party nominee Judge Lewis Dent, the brother-in-law of President Ulysses S. Grant and former Union Army official. The Democratic Party supported Dent rather than nominating their own candidate.^[1]^[2]^[3] It was the first election following the Reconstruction era military governorship of Adelbert Ames.^[4]

General election

The rapidly shifting political alliances of the post-Civil War period saw conservative white supremacists in both parties allied with Dent, while most African-Americans and some whites allied with Alcorn. The former Confederate Alcorn was more racially progressive than former Union Army official Dent, and civil rights for formerly enslaved African Americans defined the campaign. White terrorism, including murders by the Ku Klux Klan occurred regularly throughout the campaign in violent opposition to the newly granted voting rights for African Americans. Following its 1869 constitutional convention, Mississippi also voted on a new state constitution, that granted expanded rights to African-Americans and paved the way for the establishment of new state institutions including public schools, and both houses of the state legislature on November 30, 1869.^[4]^[5]

Results

Mississippi gubernatorial election, 1869^[6]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	James L. Alcorn	76,186	66.66
	National Union Republican	Lewis Dent	38,097	33.34
Total votes			114,283	100.00
	Republican hold

References

^ Michele, M. "The History of the Negro Vote in Mississippi". Loyola University Chicago eCommons. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
^ "MISSISSIPPI.; The Republican State Convention--General Alcorn Nominated for Governor". The New York Times. September 30, 1869. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
^ "POLITICAL; " National Republican" State Convention of Mississippi--Judge Dent Nominated". The New York Times. September 9, 1869. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
^ ^a ^b Dubois, W.E.B. (1935). Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1880. New York: The Free Press. pp. 439–450. ISBN 0-684-85657-3.
^ Young, Patrick (September 29, 2019). "Mississippi Republicans Demand Racial Equality in 1869 Party Platform". The Reconstruction Era.
^ "MS Governor". Our Campaigns. Retrieved January 5, 2022.

Reconstruction era

Participants

Federal government	Presidents Abraham Lincoln Andrew Johnson Ulysses S. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes Congress 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 Radical Republicans Moderate Republicans Conservative Republicans African-American senators African-American representatives Reconstruction Amendments United States Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction United States House Select Committee on Reconstruction Federal judiciary Taney Court Chase Court Waite Court Federal bureaucracy Edwin Stanton Freedmen's Bureau Justice Department
State governments	Southern United States Confederate States of America
Others	African Americans Free people of color Freedman Politicians Carpetbaggers Ku Klux Klan Scalawag Redeemers White League Red Shirts Democratic Party Bourbon Democrat Horatio Seymour Samuel J. Tilden Republican Party Stalwarts Charles Sumner Thaddeus Stevens Lyman Trumbull Benjamin Wade John Bingham James Mitchell Ashley Freedman's Savings Bank Women during the Reconstruction era

Elections

Presidential	1864 DNC National Union Convention Radical Democracy Party 1868 DNC RNC 1872 DNC RNC Liberal Republican Party Straight-Out Democratic Party Victoria Woodhull 1876 DNC RNC Greenback Convention Prohibition Convention Electoral Commission Compromise of 1877
U.S. Senate	1864–65 1866–67 1868–69 1870–71 1872–73 1874–75 1876–77
U.S. House	1864–65 1866–67 1868–69 1870–71 1872–73 1874–75 1876–77
Gubernatorial	1863 CA CT MA MN NH OH PA VA VT WI WV 1864 CT IL IN LA MD MA MI MO NH VT WV 1865 CT FL LA MA MN NJ OH SC VT WI 1866 CT DE MA ME MI NC OR PA TX VT WV 1867 CA CT MA MD ME MN OH VT WI 1868 AL CT FL IL IN LA MA ME MI MO NC NJ SC VT WV 1869 CT IA MA ME MN MS OH PA VA VT WI 1870 AL CT DE MA ME MI MO OR SC VT WV 1871 CA CT IA KY MA MD ME MN NJ OH WI 1872 AL CT FL IL IN LA MA ME MI MO NC PA SC VT WV 1873 CT IA MA ME MN MS OH VA WI 1874 AL CT DE KS MA ME MI MO DE OR SC VT 1875 CA CT IA KY MA MD ME MN OH OH WI 1876 AL CO CT Apr. CT Nov. FL IL IN KS LA MA ME MI MO NC RI SC VT WV
U.S. elections	1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876

Key events

Prelude	American Indian Wars Slavery in the United States A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838) Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1839) Seneca Falls Convention (1848) National Women's Rights Convention (1850) American Civil War Confiscation Act of 1861 Confiscation Act of 1862 District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act (1862) Militia Act of 1862
1863	Emancipation Proclamation General Order No. 143 Lincoln's presidential Reconstruction Ten percent plan National Bank Act Women's Loyal National League New York City draft riots 1863 State of the Union Address
1864	Wade–Davis Bill 1864 elections 1864 State of the Union Address
1865	13th Amendment Second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln Address Black Codes Special Field Orders No. 15 Freedmen's Bureau Freedmen's Bureau bills Confederates surrender at Appomattox Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Shaw University New Departure 1865 State of the Union Address Founding of the Ku Klux Klan
1866	Civil Rights Act of 1866 Memphis massacre of 1866 New Orleans Massacre of 1866 Swing Around the Circle Southern Homestead Act of 1866 Fort Smith Conference and Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty of 1866 Choctaw and Chickasaw Treaty of Washington of 1866 Tennessee readmitted to Union Petition for Universal Freedom National Labor Union Ex parte Garland Ex parte Milligan Slave Kidnapping Act of 1866 1866 elections
1867	Tenure of Office Act Command of Army Act Indian Peace Commission Knights of the White Camelia Pulaski riot Reconstruction Acts Reconstruction military districts Constitutional conventions of 1867 Habeas Corpus Act of 1867 Peonage Act of 1867 First impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson 1867 State of the Union Address
1868	14th Amendment Second impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson Impeachment of Andrew Johnson Timeline Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson Impeachment managers investigation Articles of impeachment Arkansas readmitted to Union Florida readmitted to Union North Carolina readmitted to Union South Carolina readmitted to Union Louisiana readmitted to Union Alabama readmitted to Union Opelousas massacre Fourth Reconstruction Act Georgia v. Stanton 1868 elections 1868 State of the Union Address
1869	National Woman Suffrage Association American Woman Suffrage Association Alabama Claims Annexation of Santo Domingo Board of Indian Commissioners Public Credit Act of 1869 Black Friday (1869) Ex parte McCardle First transcontinental railroad 1869 State of the Union Address
1870	15th Amendment Enforcement Act of 1870 Justice Department Naturalization Act of 1870 Kirk–Holden war Shoffner Act 1870 elections 1870 State of the Union Address
1871	Ku Klux Klan hearings Second Enforcement Act Ku Klux Klan Act Alcorn State University Meridian race riot of 1871 Treaty of Washington New York custom house ring Civil service commission United States expedition to Korea 1871 State of the Union Address
1872	General Mining Act of 1872 Crédit Mobilier scandal Modoc War Star Route scandal Salary Grab Act Amnesty Act 1872 elections 1872 State of the Union Address
1873	Panic of 1873 Colfax massacre Timber Culture Act Slaughter-House Cases Virginius Affair Coinage Act of 1873 Long Depression Comstock laws 1873 State of the Union Address
1874	Brooks–Baxter War Battle of Liberty Place Coushatta massacre Red River War Timber Culture Act White League Election Massacre of 1874 Vicksburg massacre Black Hills Gold Rush Sanborn incident Anti-Moiety Acts 1874 elections 1874 State of the Union Address
1875	United States v. Cruikshank Civil Rights Act of 1875 Red Shirts Mississippi Plan Clifton Riot of 1875 Yazoo City Riot of 1875 Specie Payment Resumption Act Whiskey Ring Wheeler Compromise Delano affair Pratt & Boyd 1875 State of the Union Address
1876	Hamburg massacre South Carolina civil disturbances of 1876 Ellenton massacre Great Sioux War of 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn United States v. Reese Trader post scandal Centennial Exposition Cattellism Safe burglary conspiracy 1876 elections 1876 State of the Union Address
1877	Electoral Commission Compromise of 1877 Nez Perce War Desert Land Act Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Aftermath	Posse Comitatus Act (1878) Civil Rights Cases (1883) United States v. Harris (1883) Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Williams v. Mississippi (1898) Wilmington insurrection of 1898 Giles v. Harris (1903) Disenfranchisement

Aspects

Historiography	Bibliography of the Reconstruction era James Shepherd Pike The Prostrate State (1874) James Bryce The American Commonwealth (1888) Claude G. Bowers The Tragic Era (1929) Columbia University John Burgess Walter Lynwood Fleming Dunning School William Archibald Dunning Charles A. Beard Howard K. Beale W. E. B. Du Bois Black Reconstruction in America (1935) C. Vann Woodward Joel Williamson William R. Brock The American Crisis (1963) John Hope Franklin From Slavery to Freedom (1947) After Slavery (1965) Leon Litwack Been in the Storm So Long (1979) Eric Foner Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988) Kenneth M. Stampp Steven Hahn A Nation Under Our Feet (2003) The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019)
Memory	Winslow Homer A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876) Thomas Dixon Jr. The Leopard's Spots (1902) The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) D. W. Griffith The Birth of a Nation (1915) United Daughters of the Confederacy Gone with the Wind (1939) David W. Blight Race and Reunion (2001)
Legacy	Women's suffrage in the United States Labor history of the United States Gilded Age Jim Crow era Civil rights movement American frontier
Other topics	African American founding fathers of the United States Forty acres and a mule Habeas corpus History of the United States (1865–1917) Paramilitary Race (human categorization) Reconstruction Treaties Suffrage Technological and industrial history of the United States White supremacy Whitecapping

Category