Stephen B. Packard
| Stephen Bennett Packard, Sr. | |
 | |
27th Governor of Louisiana
| |
| In office January 8, 1877 – April 24, 1877 | |
| Preceded by | William Pitt Kellogg |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Francis Redding Tillou Nichols |
| Born | April 25, 1839 Auburn, Maine Resident of New Orleans and Marshalltown, Iowa |
| Died | January 31, 1922 (aged 84) Seattle, Washington |
| Resting place | Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park in Seattle |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Emma Frances Steele Packard |
| Children | Blanche Packard (1863-1925)
Stephen Packard, Jr. |
Stephen Bennett Packard Sr. (April 25, 1839 – January 31, 1922), a native of Maine, emerged as an important Republican politician in Louisiana during the era of Reconstruction. He was governor from January 8 until April 24, 1877, when the Democrats regained the office and imposed Jim Crow laws after the disputed results of the 1876 election. He later spent twenty-five years raising livestock in Marshalltown in Marshall County in central Iowa and then retired to Seattle, Washington.[1]
Contents
Background
A captain in the Union Army during the American Civil War, Packard was appointed United States Marshal in New Orleans in 1871 during the first administration of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. He emerged as a leader of what was called the "Customhouse Ring," a faction in the Republican Party opposed to Governor Henry Clay Warmoth (1842-1931). By 1872, Warmoth, a native of Illinois, had allied with anti-Grant Republicans and some Democrats, supporting election of Democratic candidate John McEnery.[2][3]
Political campaigns
- See also: Democrat_election_fraud#1874
In 1872, Packard directed the successful gubernatorial campaign of Republican William Pitt Kellogg. He supported the impeachment of outgoing Governor Warmoth. A Returning Board appointed by Warmoth certified McEnery as victor, but the Republicans, outraged by election violence and fraud, appointed their own Returning Board. Both parties claimed victory. The legislature impeached Warmoth as governor on election fraud charges. Packard obtained federal recognition of the African American Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (1837-1921) as acting governor for the thirty-five days left in Warmoth's term.[2]
Kellogg was ultimately recognized by President Grant as the legitimate authority in charge, but violence related to the election resulted in 80-150 deaths of blacks in the Colfax Massacre in Grant Parish,[4] and the paramilitary White League takeover in September 1874 of the state buildings in New Orleans, at the cost of nearly 100 casualties among city police and militia. Federal troops restored order for a time, but in January 1875 the Democrats started meeting separately as a legislature at the Odd Fellows Hall.
In 1876, Packard was the Republican gubernatorial candidate. In another disputed election, Packard and his Democratic opponent, Francis Redding Tillou Nicholls (1834-1912), held separate inaugurations. Since 1868, each Louisiana election since 1868 had increasing levels of political violence. Packard issued a statement asserting was the legal governor.[5]
The White League, effectively an arm of the Democratic Party, had conducted open campaigns of intimidation and physical attacks, to keep freedmen and other Republicans away from the polls. Nicholls had led in the balloting by some eight thousand votes, but the Republican-controlled State Returning Board cited fraud and declared Packard the victor. Pinchback refused to support Packard and endorsed Nicholls. President Grant did not recognize the Republican nominees in Louisiana or South Carolina, which also had disputed election results that year.[6]
Compromise of 1877
On January 9, 1877, federal troops were withdrawn from New Orleans, as Grant gave up on the state, leaving it to its own devices. On February 15, 1877, Packard survived an assassination attempt by William H. Weldon, who was himself wounded in the altercation.[7] At that time in New York, Packard was still perceived to be the Louisiana governor.
After the contested election of 1876, the Democratic-backed legislature, allied with Democratic Governor Francis Nicholls, selected Henry Martin Spofford (1821-1880) as a U.S. Senator (this was before the popular election of senators). The Republican-dominated legislature, allied with Republican Governor Packard, had separately selected William Pitt Kellogg as senator. The United States Senate, then dominated by the Radical faction of the Republican Party, refused to seat Spofford.[8][9]
In the Compromise of 1877, the incoming Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes recognized Francis Nicholls as the legitimate Louisiana governor. In exchange, the Louisiana electoral votes were cast for the Hayes-Wheeler ticket. Similarly, Hayes had recognized the "Redeemer" Democrat, Wade Hampton, III (1818-1902), a Confederate general, as governor of South Carolina, rather than the incumbent Republican Daniel Henry Chamberlain (1835-1907). As a result of the national compromise, the U.S. government removed remaining federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina, despite the patterns of violence and assassinations related to elections.
Packard was appointed as United States consul at Liverpool, England, as "compensation for surrendering his claim to the governorship."[10] [2] When he returned to the United States in 1885, Packard purchased 1,100 acres of land near Marshalltown, Iowa, dedicated to livestock breeding in which he succeeded for the next twenty-five years.[11]
Democrats regain power and impose Jim Crow
After more years of election violence, in the late 19th century, the Democrat-dominated Louisiana legislature passed Jim Crow laws and ultimately a new constitution, which effectively disenfranchised blacks in the state, a situation that was maintained into the 1960s, excluding blacks from voting and serving on juries. In 1964, oilman Charlton Lyons of Shreveport sought the governorship as a Republican and polled 37.5 percent of the vote against Democrat John J. McKeithen.[12]
In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, authorizing the U.S. government to enforce constitutional rights to vote, and blacks began to register and vote in large numbers throughout the South, increasingly in alliance with the Democratic Party, which had previously with relatively few exceptions supported slavery.
Death
Packard's wife, the former Emma Frances Steele (1842-1907), a Louisiana native, died on the Packard farm in Marshallton, Iowa, and is interred there at Riverside Cemetery. After his wife's passing, Packard relocated to Seattle.The couple had four children: Blanche Packard (1863-1925), Stephen Packard, Jr. (1871-1941), Walter S. Packard (1875-1941), and Sidney Steele Packard (1877-1902). Packard and three of his children, Blanche, Stephen, Jr., and Walter, are interred at the Washelli Columbarium at Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park in Seattle, where they lived in their later years. Son Sidney Packard is buried alongside his mother in Marshallton, Iowa.[1][13]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Stephen Bennett Packard. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on May 8, 2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Packard, Stephen B.. A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography: Louisiana Historical Association. Retrieved on May 8, 2020.
- ↑ A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography uses these sources for the article on Packard: David C. Roller and Robert W. Twyman, eds., The Encyclopedia of Southern History (1979); Joe Gray Taylor, Louisiana Reconstructed, 1863-1877 (1974).
- ↑ J. E. Dunn (August 31, 1896). About Uncle Tom's Cabin: A Louisianian Says Meredith Calhoun Was Not a Model for Legree. utc.iath.virginia.edu (correspondence of The New Orleans Times-Democrat). Retrieved on May 8, 2020.
- ↑ (1878) Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1877, Vol. 2. D. Appleton Company: Google Books. Retrieved on May 8, 2020.
- ↑ Eric Foner, Reconstruction, 1863-1877, New York: Perennial Classics, 1988, p. 577.
- ↑ The New York Times, February 16, 1877: "The Democratic Assassin: Gov. Packard's Attempted Murder."
- ↑ Hans Louis Trefousse (1991). [https://books.google.com/books?id=droOCwUgu2UC&pg=PA159&lpg=PA159&dq=stephen+b+packard&source=web&ots=qD4X3-TQMJ&sig=-ZngfGQOtyEaz2gZ6jG10gshuk8 Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction]. Google Books. Retrieved on May 8, 2020.
- ↑ (1880) Reports of Committees: 30th Congress, 1st Session - 48th Congress, Vol 4. Government Printing Office through Google Books. Retrieved on May 8, 2020.
- ↑ Foner, Reconstruction, p. 4.
- ↑ George Mills, Rogues and Heroes from Iowa's Amazing Past, The Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa, 1972.
- ↑ In the gubernatorial campaign cycle of 1959-1960, Francis Grevemberg had waged a Republican campaign for governor, but he had not the remotest chance of defeating Democrat Jimmie Davis.
- ↑ History of Iowa from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century -- Stephen B. Packard.
