James Alcorn, from Georgetown

With this insight, it is not surprising to see James L. Alcorn become probably Mississippi's most prominent scalawag and the first Republican Governor of the state. Ardently opposed to the Democracy all his life, it was easy for him to move to a new party with a strong business outlook and the intent to use the Black vote to keep in power those he thought should be in power, i.e., an aristocracy of wealth that included himself. Alcorn steadily moved toward Negro suffrage, and in so doing alienated conservatives in the state and appeared to be more and more radical when in reality he probably was more conservative than they. But he was a practical realist; he embodied the practical businessman's ability to shift with changing times while his colleagues clung to a dead past. Although in the long run Alcorn was defeated, that defeat fastened a second hundred year burden on the back of the state and section that he loved. Hindsight, of course, is always easy, but it would appear that had Alcorn been able to establish a viable Republican Party composed of Conservative white Southerners and Blacks the progressive South of today would have appeared one hundred years earlier. Passions, however, outweighed practicality.

Alcorn began his push in the direction of suffrage in August, 1867, when he issued a pamphlet entitled Views of the Hon. J. L. Alcorn on the Political Situation of Mississippi. In this pamphlet he seemed to be calling for a new party that would bargain with the Radicals in Congress, and he stated that Mississippi could not afford two parties based on racial distinction. He concluded his appeal with this statement about Blacks: "All that Congress has given him I accept as his with all my heart and conscience, I propose to vote with him, to discuss political affairs with him; to sit, if need be, in political counsel with him, and from a platform acceptable alike to him, to me, and to you, to pluck our common liberty and our common prosperity out of the jaws of inevitable ruin."

Unable to get his erstwhile supporters to join with him in what seemed to them incredible folly, Alcorn had no place to go but the Republican Party. By 1868 he was openly working with the Republicans. He was an avowed candidate for Governor by the summer of 1869 and in September of that year accepted the gubernatorial nomination from the Republican Convention. He campaigned vigorously, was elected, and took office in March of 1870. Much of his victory was due to the support of the Military Commander of the Fourth Military District, Adelbert Ames, who was also the provisional governor of the state. Ames was identified with the radical wing of the Republican Party, and he and Alcorn soon became bitter enemies as they contested for control of the Republican Party in Mississippi. The first legislature that met after Alcorn's election elected Adelbert Ames to the Senate for a full term and Hiram Revels, a black minister from Natchez, for theshort one year term ending in March, 1871. Alcorn, even before being inaugurated as governor, was elected for the full term beginning March, 1871; thus he entered his office expecting to be there only one year.

marker from Coahoma Co.

A fair-minded assessment of Alcorn's administration would admit that he did a credible job under incredible difficulties. He got the State back on its feet financially, made repairs to ruined public buildings, expanded the court system, and inagurated a system of public education that, even though rudimentary and segregated, did reach into all parts of the state. Oakland College became Alcorn State University in 1871, funded by the land grant college system of the 1862 Morrill Act. However, before the end of his first year criticism against the school system mounted and the Ku Klux Klan engaged in increasing violence against the Negro schools. This violence gave critics of the Alcorn administration an excuse to appeal to Washington, particularly to Adelbert Ames, for help, asking for federal troops. Alcorn consistently maintained that there was no organized Klan activity, even after pushing through the Legislature an act outlawing the wearing of masks and disguises, and creating a "special contingency fund" to investigate acts of violence. No doubt he was trying to prevent federal troops being sent to the state and also to prevent Adelbert Ames from having an excuse to interfere. Congress, however, passed the Enforcement Act, and in the summer of 1871 a Congressional Investigating Committee came to Mississippi. Alcorn realized he would have to remain in the state until after the fall election to retain control of the party so he refused to take his Senate seat in March and postponed it until November of 1871. Thus from March 1871 to November 1871 he was not only Governor, but Senator-elect. The rivalry between Ames and Alcorn became more intense as Ames returned to Mississippi to campaign in the fall elections. Ostensibly campaigning together against the Democrats, it was obvious that the two were jockeying for position, thus moving the Republican Party towards the factionalism that would help to destroy it. Following the election, Alcorn resigned as Governor, left the governorship to the Lieutenant Governor, Ridgely Powers, and went to Washington to take his Senatorial seat. In Washington, Mississippi's two Senators spent their time arguing with each other on the Senate floor rather than working together for the benefit of the State.

Gen. Adelbert Ames

Ames considered himself the champion of the Negro and civil rights. An idealist, he could not abide the practical moderate position of Alcorn. Alcorn had a comparable antipathy to Ames, who he thought was an outsider using the Blacks and carpetbaggers for his own political advancement. In Mississippi and in Washington the two struggled, and when Ames was able to get the gubernatorial nomination of the Republican Party in August of 1873, Alcorn was appalled, having expected it to go to Governor Powers. Two days later he announced to the same convention that he would also run for governor, and campaigned against Ames as an outsider, accusing his supporters of dishonesty. He hoped for White conservative support to "save" the state from Ames, but his defeat meant the end of any hope for a native Republican Party.

Alcorn remained in the Senate, however, where he continued to support internal improvements, particularly levee-building, but with little success. He opposed the Radicals in the South but consistently supported the positions of the Republican Party. He campaigned in Mississippi in 1876 for Hayes and in that contested election he cast his vote on a straight party line. Following the action in the spring of 1877, he departed from state and national politics, returned to Coahoma County, and spent the rest of his life attending to business and family. In 1879 he built a twenty-two room Victorian mansion named "Eagle's Nest" at Jonestown, where he owned twenty thousand acres of land. He may have failed to achieve what he desired in politics, but he desired to be.

Before his death on 20 December 1894, he emerged briefly from political retirement to participate in the Constitutional Convention of 1890. Ever the practical realist, he voted for the clauses that disenfranchised the Blacks even though twenty years before he had worked for their enfranchisement. Unlike Ames, his support had never been based on principle but on expediency. His actions were in character with his life, as are all of his extant writings. An examination of the tracts, brochures, and political speeches show the two consistent themes of his life-practical politics and business acumen. Although bitterly criticized, he served his state well. He was widely respected by his Southern compatriots, and it would appear that if Alcorn, with his background, ability and integrity, could not take his state into the twentieth century, then no one could. His failure meant the failure of his State and region."

by Martha Mitchell Bigelow, from Access Corinth