One-Party Rules: The Most Significant Election in the History of North Carolina

As voters arrived at the polls on a rainy election Tuesday, Democrats everywhere were riding the tide of a perfect storm – a bi-partisan desire to get rid of one of the most unpopular presidents in American history, George W. Bush, and a staggering downturn in the economy which affected everything from food prices to the retirement savings of the nation's citizens.

Enter the charismatic senator from Illinois with a gift of gab and a demand for change that appealed to downtrodden voters, and what resulted was more than just the historic election of the first African-American president. The election also signified the return of one-party power, both to Washington and in North Carolina.

Where we've been
Prior to 1898, three parties sought political power in the state.

Following the Civil War, many of those men who supported secession were disenfranchised. As a result, the Republican Party, with the support of newly enfranchised African Americans, rose to power in North Carolina.

When the former Confederates and members of the old Whig Party were able to participate in the political process again, they formed the Conservative Party (later to become the Democratic Party). The Conservative Party opposed the “radical” reconstruction policies championed by the Republican majority in the US Congress.

After gaining control of the General Assembly in 1870, the Conservatives began to reverse some of the measures taken by Republicans during the Reconstruction years, taking a major step forward in 1876 with the election of Zebulon Vance as governor. Vance had previously served as governor during the Civil War.

It looked as if the Democratic Party was on the march in the Tar Heel state.

At the time, the state’s economy was grim. In the 1880s most of the country was facing a severe economic downturn. In North Carolina’s agricultural-based economy, this misery was especially hard on small farmers – and most farmers were small. An inadequate transportation system made it difficult for farmers to get their products to market, and prices were depressed. In this atmosphere, farmers came to mistrust both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and they began to look for an alternative.

An alliance
Some farmers thought they found a home in the Farmers’ Alliance. Founded in 1876 in Lampasas, Texas, the Alliance was an organized agrarian movement advocating higher commodity prices through collective action. In the 1880s, the Alliance increased their membership and began to be a political force, especially in the South, where North Carolina had an active chapter. While the Alliance ultimately failed, it is credited with giving rise to the Populist Party in 1889. The leader of the Populist Party was Leonidas LaFayette Polk, a native North Carolinian.

Several candidates of the Populist Party ran for political office in the 1892 election in North Carolina. While the Populists won only a few seats, the number of votes cast for Populist candidates was surprisingly large. The 1892 Populist and Republican votes combined was greater than the vote for the Democrats, setting the stage for political developments to come. Although the Democratic Party still controlled state government, they had lost support of a majority of the voters in North Carolina.

Parties fuse for political gain
In 1894, Republicans and Populists entered into an accord known as the “fusion” agreement. The two parties decided that they would divide the ticket between the two parties to avoid competing candidates for statewide offices which would dilute the vote and allow the Democrats to win. The fusion ticket swept the state, taking control of the General Assembly and electing Populist Marion Butler and Republican Jeter Pritchard to the US Senate. The new fusion movement resulted in a number of reforms, including the enactment of election laws giving the people of the state more opportunity to participate in state elections.

The Republicans and the Populists fused again in the election of 1896. They not only retained a majority in the legislature, but also elected Republican governor, Daniel L. Russell of Brunswick County. Many African Americans were also elected to offices across the state, and even to the US Congress for the first time since Reconstruction.

Similar fusion movements cropped up in other states, but according to Nicholas Graham of the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “nowhere was it as successful as in North Carolina.”

Even with two successful campaigns under its belt, however, the future for the fusionists did not look as bright as might be expected. The Republicans and the Populists had been successful in passing election reforms and legislation to enhance local self-government in the state, and they continued to have common interest in these two areas. There were other differences, however, and these differences resulted in tension within the coalition. The Populists supported increased coinage of silver, an idea not popular with Republicans. Many Populists were also uncomfortable with the participation of African Americans in the Republican Party.

The 1898 election
As the differences between the Republicans and the Populists became more pronounced, the Populist leadership in the state began to think that Populists should look for ways to work with the Democrats instead, and in 1898 they approached the Democrats with a proposal for a new fusion – this time between Populists and Democrats. The coalition never came to fruition and the Populists went back to the Republicans because they knew it was the only way they could retain the political power they had garnered in during the period 1894-96. In 1898, Republicans and Populists held hands together and marched off to fight it out with the Democrats once again.

The election of 1898 marked a turning point in the history of North Carolina and molded the political landscape for much of the twentieth century.

In 1898, the Democrats needed a strategy for victory, and State Party Chairman Furnifold Simmons of New Bern gave them one. It was called “white supremacy.” Simmons, a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from 1887 to 1889, later served in the US Senate from 1901 to 1931.

Simmons was largely credited for the Democratic victory in the 1892 campaign. His campaign skills were honed and his knowledge of state politics was keen. He was determined to make the 1898 election about one issue and one issue only – restoring white rule in the state and disenfranchising African American voters and office holders.  He set about to establish political organizations in each county, creating a speaker’s bureau which went out to stump in support of white supremacy. This would be the beginning of the famous “Simmons Machine.”

Writing for the North Carolina Collection, Graham noted that

“The ‘white supremacy campaign’ was exactly that. The Democrats stated that only white men were fit to hold political office. They accused the fusionists, especially the Republicans, of supporting ‘negro domination’ in the state. At the time, there were a large number of African American officeholders, some of whom had been elected and many more who were appointed to office. The Democrats referred to themselves as the ‘white man's party’ and appealed to white North Carolinians to restore them to power.”

On August 18, 1898 an editorial appeared in Wilmington Daily Record, an African American newspaper, which suggested that consensual relationships between black men and white women were common throughout the state. Sensing an issue that would incite passion, Democratic newspapers throughout the state, including the Raleigh News & Observer, reprinted the editorial time and time again, sometimes daily until the election.

The white supremacy campaign took its toll on the fusion ticket. It was clearly working and the fusion candidates were on the defense. Republicans tried to press their issues of electoral reform and local self-government, but they were no match for the white supremacy issue. Some of the Populists, seeing no way to blunt the impact, decided to adopt the white supremacy argument as their own. But it was too late. Simmons and the Democrats owned it.

In the closings days of the 1898 campaign the Democrats played the race card with more than simply speeches and newspaper editorials. They used violence and intimidation. The negative campaigning of today’s political races seems tame indeed when compared to the “mean-spirited and personal” tactics used to thwart a fair campaign on the issues of the day. As Graham writes,

“Large groups of men dressed in red shirts and openly brandishing weapons rode through predominantly African American neighborhoods in an effort to scare potential Republican voters away from the polls. The ‘Red Shirts’ were a campaign strategy borrowed from South Carolina Senator Ben Tillman, who appeared on behalf of the North Carolina Democrats.”

On November 8, 1898 the Democrats won a majority in the North Carolina General Assembly and immediately began to fulfill their campaign promise to disfranchise black voters and office holders. In the 1899 legislature Democrats proposed a constitutional amendment to implement a poll tax and a literacy requirement, which was adopted by the electorate in 1900 by a vote of 182,217 to 128,285. African-Americans didn’t regain the right to vote in North Carolina for another 65 years, when the federal Voting Rights Act was finally ratified.

The fusion was also crushed. The Populists disappeared and the Republicans were relegated to minority status for most of the twentieth century. Republicans would not elect another statewide candidate until 1972.

No event since the Civil War had such a significant impact on North Carolina politics as the election of 1898 until the election of the nation's first African-American president 110 years later.  But beyond the historic gains demonstrated by voters, the 2008 election brought an underlying story that mirrors the 1898 election results, and this one doesn’t bode well for transparency and accountability. Candidates rode the Democratic tide to dominate every level of government in 2008, returning North Carolina to one-party representation both nationally and in state government – and when one party dominates, a balance of ideology is lost, along with meaningful political discourse.

And without meaningful political discourse, can there be real transparency in politics?

Updated November 5, 2008