So while today commemorates the events of July 4th, 1776, I’d like to take the opportunity to remember another episode that unfolded exactly 100 years later which led to one of the most stunning campaigns of overt political terror in our history.

By the Summer of 1876, Reconstruction had been carrying on for over a decade, and it was already apparent that the whole project was quickly reaching its end. After years of violent insurgency by ex Confederate veterans, first through the Klu Klux Klan then through a plethora of rifle clubs and paramilitary organizations, state after state was reverting back into the hands of control white supremacist regimes of southern Democrats.

But in South Carolina, where recently freed slaves made up a majority of the population, the Reconstruction government was still holding out. This was largely due to continuing presence of Federal troops, and perhaps more importantly the organization of freedmen into self defense militias.

On July 4th, 1876, a national guard militia composed mainly of freedmen was parading in Hamburg South Carolina when two planters riding a carriage demanded to be let through. After some brief tension, the planters were let through. On July 6th the planters went to court, complaining that the militia was obstructing the road. Over the next two days bands of armed white men, largely ex confederates, began to gather at the court house from surrounding counties.

By July 8th this armed mob numbered more than 100, and under its own authority demanded the militia disband. When they refused, the mob attacked. The militia took cover in the local armory where they tried to hold their ground, but after awhile it became apparent that the mob, which was wheeling out a cannon, had them out gunned and outnumbered. As night fell, the militia attempted to escape, but many were rounded up by the mob. At 2 am, 4 of the freedmen were summarily executed by the mob, on after the other.

In all, 7 people were killed in the episode, and while 94 white men who had participated in the mob were charged, none were prosecuted. But more important than simply escaping justice, the mob had achieved its goals beyond its wildest dreams. The whole episode convinced the South Carolina Democrats to coalesce around the “Edgefield Plan” to violently seize power.

Over the next months, in a pattern by now well established across many “redeemed” southern states, white ex confederates formed themselves into hundreds of rifle clubs and paramilitary organizations and proceeded to violently terrorize freedmen into submission. The most notable among these paramilitary groups was the Red Shirts, who gathered in Charleston wearing red shirts to mock Benjamin Butler’s “waving the red shirt” in which he held up the bloody shirt of a man flogged by the KKK.

Lest you think that crassly mocking horrible episodes of human suffering is a recent innovation...

Over the next few months, episodes of violence were repeated across South Carolina, reaching a bloody peak with the Ellenton Riot, when a band 500-600 Red Shirts massacred more than 100 blacks. On the other hand, Democrats also pursued a policy of “preference, not proscription” in which blacks who vocally supported Democrats were given preferential treatment in employment. This devastated black artisans. On election day, hundreds of armed whites across the state, as some crossing over from Georgia, menaced black voters at the polls. Nominally they were ensuring “fair play” but it was obvious their goal was coercion and disenfranchisement.

Despite this violence, the election was still close. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wade Hampton, won by a narrow margin, while the Republicans barely carried the state for Presidential candidate Rutherford Hayes. Citing the violence, sitting Governor Republican Daniel Chamberlain refused to validate the results and over the next few months South Carolina fell into a state of anarchy as two sitting governments vied for control.

Over the next few months, episodes of violence continued, but after the Compromise of 1877 removed all remaining Federal troops from the south the situation became hopeless. With Federal troops removed, and black militia men being pushed to the brink of ruin, resistance to the white supremacist regime collapsed. Over the next few years the redeemers solidified their power as remaining reconstruction Republican officials, particularly black ones, were denied their seats, impeached or prosecuted in a cynical abuse of power.

Over the next century, and perhaps more, South Carolina was continuously run as essentially a one party white supremacist regime. Violence only abated after it had become unnecessary, but the mechanisms and implicit threat always remained. In that time, they sent a succession of genteel men always preaching overtures of civility and etiquette, but who were themselves only in power on the basis of the crassest most naked use of violent terror.