AMERICA'S DEADLIEST ELECTION

A harrowing dive into Louisiana’s gubernatorial election of 1872, which pitted defenders of Reconstruction against white supremacists.

CNN journalist Bash and veteran co-author Fisher offer an elucidating case study in America’s bitter history of refusing to recognize election results. In Reconstruction-era Louisiana, election integrity was deeply compromised by vying Democratic and Republican forces. At issue was the refusal of the former Confederates, white supremacists, and Andrew Johnson Democrats to accept the civil rights of formerly enslaved people staunchly supported by Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party. The charismatic, corrupt “carpetbagger” Republican Henry Warmoth became governor of Louisiana in 1868, allying himself with President Ulysses S. Grant and African Americans and instituting a patronage system. That state’s 1868 election had been marked by violence and fraud, much of it due to the makeshift political system constructed "in the ruins of war." By the gubernatorial election of 1872, the authors comment, "at every step in the process there existed some type of intimidation, cheating or fraud intended to change the outcome.” A feud within the Louisiana Republican Party led to Warmoth backing Democrat (and Confederate war hero) John McEnery against Republican William P. Kellogg, a member of the faction that charged Warmoth with betraying the African Americans who had helped elect him. Weeks after the 1872 election, ballots were still being tabulated; observers and reporters were frequently denied access to observe the counting, and both sides claimed victory. Dueling inaugurations took place, along with open insurrection and a massacre of Blacks in Colfax County. Court cases vied to decide the issue, essentially leaving the matter up to the states in US v Cruikshank, a blow to Reconstruction that laid the foundation of Southern segregation. The authors manage to render the tortuous details of these political shenanigans engaging, and the consequences timely and fresh.

Enlightening cautionary tale whose fury resonates today.