The History of Florida (57 page)

ers. His running mate was Marcel us L. Stearns, a former bureau agent and

prominent legislator who was aligned with white party leaders.

The Hart-Stearns ticket defeated a straight-out Conservative-Democratic

slate headed by former Confederate William D. Bloxham. Hart guided sev-

eral progressive measures through the 1873 legislature, the most important

of which was a funding law that helped improve the state’s financial condi-

tion. It seemed for a time that some political harmony had been achieved

by the bickering Republican Party, but Hart became ill and remained hos-

pitalized for months before he died. In the meantime, Stearns first acted in

Hart’s absence and then became governor in fact. His elevation to the gov-

proof

ernorship did little to nurture harmony in the party. Blacks felt increasingly

alienated as Stearns tried to build his strength with the white, officeholding

faction of the party. His actions led to new feuds. Congressman Wil iam

J. Purman and Senator Simon B. Conover both broke with him, and the

newspapers were filled with their acrimonious assaults on each other.

The Conservative-Democrats had not been idle. Despite Bloxham’s poor

showing in 1872, they were steadily gaining seats in both legislative branches.

After the 1874 election, they claimed a small majority in the assembly and

a 12–12 tie in the senate. The assassination of Republican Senator Elisha

Johnson broke the tie, but reminded everyone of the fragility of relations

between native white Conservatives and their Republican opponents. Al-

though they denied involvement in the murder, many Conservatives noted

the political result. One of them wrote privately that “in losing Johnson we

gain a county. Who could not afford to make this sacrifice?”4 The 1876 elec-

tion was approaching, and “bloody shirt politics” was back in the headlines.

Lingering memories of the war and Confederate defeat, abolition of slav-

ery and enfranchisement of the freedmen, military occupation, and a dis-

orderly and fractious government al egedly control ed by “carpetbaggers”

and “scalawags” had left a heavy burden on native white Floridians by the

272 · Jerrell H. Shofner

mid-1870s. El en Cal Long was reminded of this when she sought assistance

from her friends to place a Florida exhibit at the Philadelphia centennial cel-

ebration to be held in 1876. Old acquaintances from all over the state found

myriad reasons why they could not help, but the problem was summed up

when a friend wrote, “I’m sorry your effort in behalf of our oppressed state

has been abortive . . . fifteen years bitter struggle has crushed nearly every

spark of patriotism from the Southern breast . . . and it will be hard to bury

the past.”5

Despite such sentiments, which were widely held, Conservative-Demo-

cratic leaders were much more pragmatic in 1876 than they had been four

years earlier. They had noticed that many newcomers to peninsular Florida,

while still favoring the national Republican Party, were tired of the disrup-

tiveness in the state capital for which they blamed Florida Republicans.

Henry Sanford, for example, expressed wil ingness to support a Conser-

vative-Democrat for governor while voting for a Republican presidential

candidate. Determined to take advantage of such a split ticket opportunity,

the Conservative-Democrats named George F. Drew, a prominent lumber-

man and former Unionist, for governor.

Stil fighting among themselves, the Republicans renominated Marcel-

lus Stearns for the position he held. In an election that was overshadowed

proof

by the national presidential contest between Democrat Samuel Tilden and

Republican Rutherford Hayes, about 48,000 Floridians voted in an election

that was so close that fewer than a hundred votes would decide the outcome.

With the presidential election depending on the outcome of the elections

in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, “visiting statesmen” from both

parties rushed to the three state capitals to do what they could for their

respective candidates. They joined numerous curious observers and several

companies of U.S. soldiers and literal y overran Florida’s small capital city.

The newcomers in the peninsular counties who had split their tickets had

created a dilemma for the state canvassing board, composed of two Republi-

cans and one Democrat. Since the presidential election depended on fewer

than 100 votes, it appeared that Republican Hayes deserved Florida’s four

electoral votes, but split tickets had left Stearns and the Florida Republicans

several hundred votes behind Hayes. Governor Stearns told some of the

“visiting statesmen” that he would not be pleased with a Hayes victory in

which he did not share. The majority of the canvassing board voted to throw

out several hundred votes on the grounds that they were improper. Those

excluded votes tended to come from counties which returned Conservative-

Democratic majorities. The result was majorities for Republicans at both

Reconstruction and Renewal, 1865–1877 · 273

presidential and state levels. The “visiting statesmen” left Tal ahassee believ-

ing that Florida would be counted in the Republican column.

Local Conservative-Democrats had said nothing until the visitors were

gone. They then induced the state supreme court to order a recount of the

votes as they had been received from the counties, that is, to restore those

votes which had been thrown out for various reasons. The recount showed

that Hayes still had a small majority, but that Democrat George F. Drew had

defeated Stearns for governor. Drew was inaugurated without incident on 2

January 1877.

The dispute over the presidency caused a near deadlock in Washington.

After nearly three months, an electoral commission declared Hayes victori-

ous, and he was sworn in as president in March 1877. In April, he removed

the remaining U.S. troops from Louisiana and South Carolina. There were

none in Florida after 23 January 1877. This disputed election and the so-

called Compromise of 1877, which involved the withdrawal of the troops,

came to symbolize the end of Reconstruction.

An immediate result of the events of late 1876 and early 1877 was consoli-

dation of their control of the state by the newly empowered Conservative-

Democrats. Drew used the extensive powers of his office in the same way

that his Republican predecessors had. Soon his party controlled most state

proof

and county offices, including the all-important election machinery. Blacks

continued to hold some local offices but in diminished numbers. Many of

the defeated Republican officials left the state, but a number made Florida

their home. Harrison Reed, for example, remained in Jacksonville and died

in his adopted state in 1899. Senator Simon Conover and Secretary of State

Samuel B. McLin joined several others who lived out their lives in the de-

veloping citrus country of peninsular Florida. Horatio Bisbee was elected to

Congress from east Florida in 1882. But the Republicans’ political strength

was waning. In 1884 they attempted to fuse with a dissident wing of the

Democratic Party, but the fusion ticket was easily defeated by the regular

Democratic candidate, former Confederate General Edward A. Perry.

By 1884, Democrats, who had by then dropped the “Conservative” from

their party name, were confident that they had solidified their majority sta-

tus in Florida. In an attempt to rid themselves of one more reminder of

Reconstruction days, a majority of them voted in 1884 for a constitutional

convention to write stil another fundamental law for the state. It would

replace the onerous 1868 document which they still regarded as an imposi-

tion on the state from outsiders. Dominated by Democrats, the convention

wrote a new constitution that weakened the powers of the governor, made

274 · Jerrell H. Shofner

Florida’s Capitol at Tallahassee as it appeared in the 1870s. A cupola would be added in

proof

1891, and the building would serve until a new Capitol was built nearby in 1978.

most offices at state and local levels elective, and strengthened the powers of

local officials. It also provided for a poll tax, which was enacted by the 1889

legislature. That law effectively kept most black voters away from the pol s.

The Republican Party ceased to be a serious challenge to Democratic con-

trol of the state, and Florida would be a one-party state for many decades.

The years of Reconstruction had been turbulent and traumatic for many

Floridians, and the Democrats successful y used recollections of those years

to cement political control, but there were other important results. There

was a definite shift of the population southward and a corresponding dimi-

nution of the hegemony of Middle Florida planters. The plantation belt re-

mained comparatively static until well into the twentieth century, while the

peninsula, all the way from Jacksonville southward, was settled by both per-

manent inhabitants and winter residents. Many of both groups engaged in

citrus culture and tourism. Others turned to railroad construction to bind

the new section to the rest of the nation. These changes were set in motion

during the Reconstruction era, but their development is a matter for later

chapters.

Reconstruction and Renewal, 1865–1877 · 275

Notes

1. Florida,
House
Journal,
1865–66.

2. Helen Moore Edwards,
Memoirs
(privately printed, n.d.).

3. H. Reed to D. L. Yulee, 16 February 1868, David L. Yulee Papers, P. K. Yonge Library

of Florida History, University of Florida, Gainesville.

4. Henry L’Engle to E. M. L’Engle, 23 July 1875, Edward M. L’Engle Papers, Southern

Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hil .

5. Ida Wood to Mrs. Long, 8 April 1872, Richard Keith Call Papers, Southern Historical

Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hil .

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