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Under military jurisdiction of Gen. E. O. C. Ord, voter registration in 1867 was orderly and peaceful, resulting in the federal enrollment of 60,167 black voters and 46,636 white voters entitle to vote for delegates to a constitutional convention. Ord appointed local officials until elections could be held, including the first black to hold state office, B. J. Montgomery as Justice of the Peace in Davis Bend, a propserous black planter and former business manager of Jeffereson Davis. Henry Pease led the Freedman's Bureau schools in Mississippi and enrolled 13,721 black children, about 10% of the school-age black population. In November, 83 whites and 17 blacks are elected delegates.
The state constitutional convention met Jan. 8, 1868, with 100 delegates, including 67 Republicans but only 20 carpetbaggers. This convention was not radical or irresponsible, and the draft constitution was moderate, typical of most southern reconstruction constitutions. It accepted the requirements of the 14th Amendment, including the exclusion of former Confederates from holding office. It provided for universal adult male suffrage but not social equality or integration (except public transportation). It did not require compulsory school attendance nor prohibit miscegenation.
Democratic threats and boycotts kept blacks away from polls and prevented ratification by a majority of voters in 1868. In response, scalawags formed the Union Republican Party under Gov. James Alcorn and modified the proposed constitution to allow ex-Confederates to hold office and removed the universal adult male suffrage requirement. New elections were held and won by the Union Republicans, with Alcorn as governor, James Lynch as secretary of state, Henry Pease as superintendent of education. The voters in this election also ratified the modified state constitution. The new legislature convened in January, 1870, ratified the 15th Amendment, voted to send Adelbert Ames and Hiram Revels to the Senate. Congress accepted the results and approved the readmission of Mississippi on Feb. 23, 1870.
Over the next 4 years, the legislature of 140, including 35 blacks, approved many reforms, including public eduction, a black state university named in honor of Alcorn, and reorganized judiciary financed by the state, new hospitals and asylums and public buildings. Violence by the Ku Klux Klan swept through Miss, in 1871, aimed especially at the black schools. President Grant sent the federal army to suppress the Klan, and the moderate Alcorn is criticized for failing to suppress the Klan. In Nov. 1871, the 24-year old former slave John R. Lynch is selected by the Republican majority in the legislature to become speaker of the House. Alcorn resigned and is replaced by Ohio-born Lt. Gov. Ridgely Powers.
By 1873, Alcorn and his Union Republicans joined with Democrats to create a new "Republican party of Mississippi"