South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1878

The 1878 South Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 5, 1878 to select the governor

Governor of South Carolina

The Governor of the State of South Carolina is the head of state for the State of South Carolina. Under the South Carolina Constitution, the Governor is also the head of government, serving as the chief executive of the South Carolina executive branch. The Governor is the ex officio...

of the state of South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

. Wade Hampton III

Wade Hampton III

Wade Hampton III was a Confederate cavalry leader during the American Civil War and afterward a politician from South Carolina, serving as its 77th Governor and as a U.S...

was renominated by the Democrats

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

and ran against no organized opposition in the general election to win reelection for a second two-year term.

Campaign

Upon becoming Governor after a prolonged struggle against Daniel Henry Chamberlain

Daniel Henry Chamberlain

Daniel Henry Chamberlain was a planter, lawyer, author and the 76th Governor of South Carolina from 1874 until 1877....

in the gubernatorial election of 1876

South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1876

The 1876 South Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 7, 1876 to select the governor of the state of South Carolina. The election campaign was a referendum on the Radical Republican-led state government and their Reconstruction policies...

, Wade Hampton

Wade Hampton III

Wade Hampton III was a Confederate cavalry leader during the American Civil War and afterward a politician from South Carolina, serving as its 77th Governor and as a U.S...

adopted moderate racial policies and favored many Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

proposals. For instance, the state modified the agriculture lien

Lien

In law, a lien is a form of security interest granted over an item of property to secure the payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation...

law and passed a law giving counties the ability to mandate the fencing

Agricultural fencing

In agriculture, fences are used to keep animals in or out of an area. They can be made from a wide variety of materials, depending on terrain, location and animals to be confined...

of livestock. Hampton also appointed many blacks

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

to government positions and provided for more funds to be spent educating black children than white children.

Republican convention

The state Republican Party

South Carolina Republican Party

The South Carolina Republican Party and the South Carolina Democratic Party are the two major political parties within the U.S. state of South Carolina...

held their convention in Columbia

Columbia, South Carolina

Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...

on August 7 and August 8. The white Republican leaders opposed fielding a slate of candidates for statewide offices and even proposed a resolution to endorse Hampton. They felt that any opposition to Hampton would only encourage the Democrats to mount an aggressive and unified campaign. Instead, they proposed for the party to concentrate its resources on contesting the local races in hopes that the Democrats would not vigorously contest those elections due to lack of competition at the state level.

However, many prominent black Republicans favored fielding a slate of statewide candidates and launch an all out campaign against the Democrats. The sentiment among the delegates favored this position, but party chairman, Robert B. Elliott

Robert B. Elliott

Robert Brown Elliott was an African-American member of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina, serving from 1871-1874.-Early life and education:...

, and other Republican leaders managed to convince the delegates the futility of fielding a statewide campaign. When a resolution was offered to pledge the Republican Party to field a state ticket, it was defeated by a vote of 85-35. The platform of the party adopted at the convention merely stated that a full slate was inexpedient because it was "impossible for Republican voters to organize and vote without incurring great personal danger". Thus, the campaign of 1878 for the Republicans was left up to the county organizations.

Fusion

An attitude of apathy and defeatism swept through the Republican camp and most were resigned to the inevitable destruction of the party. One leader commented that it was highly unlikely "that the Republicans could succeed without federal troops in 1878 where they had failed with them in 1876." Several Republican county organizations passed resolutions supporting Hampton's reelection for governor and even endorsed Democratic candidates for county offices. For example, in Marion County the Republicans placed five out of nine Democratic candidates on their ticket in a policy of fusion

Electoral fusion

Electoral fusion is an arrangement where two or more political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, pooling the votes for that candidate...

Democratic division

Throughout Hampton's first term in office, he appealed for political harmony between the races. Hampton carried out his pledge to ensure equal rights between the races and he appointed more black men to office than Chamberlain

Daniel Henry Chamberlain

Daniel Henry Chamberlain was a planter, lawyer, author and the 76th Governor of South Carolina from 1874 until 1877....

had during his term as governor. The more militant faction of the Democratic Party, led by Martin Gary

Martin Witherspoon Gary

Martin Witherspoon Gary was a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and a Democratic politician in postbellum South Carolina.-Early life and career:...

, was entirely against any cooperation with blacks and instead sought to remove blacks completely from political life. The Edgefield County Democrats would not acknowledge any black Democratic clubs and they prevented blacks from participating in the primary election

Primary election

A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....

s. Hampton publicly refuted this policy and no other county followed suit. Nevertheless, new laws were enacted by the General Assembly

South Carolina General Assembly

The South Carolina General Assembly, also called the South Carolina Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of South Carolina. The legislature is bicameral and consists of the lower South Carolina House of Representatives and the upper South Carolina Senate. Altogether, the General...

in 1877 to make it harder for blacks to participate and vote in the electoral process.

General election

The general election was held on November 5, 1878 and Wade Hampton was reelected as governor of South Carolina

Governor of South Carolina

with no organized opposition, although there was much more electoral fraud

Electoral fraud

Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...

and violence than the election in 1876. For instance, on Edisto Island

Edisto, South Carolina

Edisto Island is one of South Carolina's Sea Islands, the larger part of which lies in Charleston County, with its southern tip in Colleton County. The Charleston County part is a census-designated place. The population was 2,301 at the 2000 census...

where 1,000 Republicans and 50 Democrats resided, the polls never opened. The Red Shirts

Red Shirts (South Carolina)

The Red Shirts or Redshirts of the Southern United States were white paramilitary groups in the 19th century, active primarily after the formal Reconstruction era of the United States. They first arose in Mississippi in 1875, when Democratic Party private militias adopted red shirts to make...

in Fairfield County physically beat anyone who dared vote for a Republican. Combined with the lack of a Republican candidate and new prohibitive voting laws, turnout was not surprisingly much less than the 1876 election

South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1876

.

| colspan=5 |Democratic

Democratic Party (United States)

hold
|-

External links

SCIway Biography of Governor Wade Hampton III