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Bourbonism and agrarian protest;: Louisiana politics, 1877-1900
Bourbonism and Agrarian Louisiana Politics, 1877-1900 William Ivy Bourbonism and Agrarian Louisiana Politics, 1877-1900 Louisiana State University FIRST First Edition, First Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Louisiana State University Press, 1969. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good with light shelf wear. Dust jacket is very good with light shelf wear. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 376104 History We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!
305 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
22 people want to read
About the author
William Ivy Hair
6 books3 followersWilliam Ivy Hair was Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Southern History at Georgia College in Milledgeville.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 7, 2018
Hair provides an eminently readable overview of Louisiana politics from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to approximately the defeat of Louisiana Populism in the 1896 gubernatorial election. Focusing on the Bourbons and the forces behind the "Agrarian Protest" of the title, Hair alternates discussion of the two groups in the book, following up one chapter about the Bourbons with another about the forces behind the Agrarian Protest. In any chapter on either, however, he talks about the politics the forces were involved in. Another reviewer said that this book is a little light on the evidence and I am inclined to agree. Hair overwhelmingly draws upon the partisan newspapers of both sides for his account of the groups and their politics.
Starting with the end of Reconstruction with the election of Francis T. Nicholls as governor and the Compromise of 1877 Hair relates how the Bourbons initially worked with other factions of the Democratic Party to reestablish Democrat rule and send the Republicans packing, then immediately work to undermine their own governor for being too close to the center for their liking.
Once in control of the government (esp. under governors Wiltz and McEnery) the Bourbons underfunded, abused, and neglected all types of public institutions from the public school system to the levees. They refused to tax the propertied interests (themselves) or any rich person or successful business with money at all, unless as punishment for deviation from orthodox Democrat politics (like the Sugar planters did in the 1896 gubernatorial election). It became a trend among the Bourbons to oppose the most moderate of reforms. They opposed anything that might be even slightly onerous to them actually, no matter how much good it might to the state, or themselves in the long run. Often they did so by successful racist appeals to maintain white supremacy, to the great detriment of the state.
"Here, in fact, lay the supreme tragedy of McEnery Bourbonism: that men who must have possessed the intelligence and capacity to give Louisiana enlightened government were so blinded by the memories of Civil War and Reconstruction, and race hatred, as to give unthinking allegiance to whoever trumpeted loudest the shibboleths of States' rights and white supremacy." (110)
The greatest part of the cost of the Bourbon's obstinacy was borne by the poor black and whites who suffered the most from the lack of reform measures. The blacks were forced into sharecropping for the cotton regions of North Louisiana and the marginally superior wage-based crop-lien system of gang labor for the sugar regions of South Louisiana where they found working conditions no better than those under slavery. Whites who desperately needed better land, fair loans, and increased government assistance for raising enough crops to making a living off of saw homestead laws intended to help them exploited by lumber companies, high loans from bankers and merchants, Bourbon apathy, and no help.
"By 1900, Louisiana would contain more plantations and fewer smaller farms than in 1860." (53)
The blurb on the back of my copy says: Louisiana's "political history has generally been characterized by drama, excessive violence, and a freewheeling style." This is a rather succinct way of describing the politics related by Hair in this book. The Bourbons certainly were certainly dramatic in their creative attacks on their opponents and constantly raising fears of black social equality. They were also carried over much of the violent terror tactics they used against the Reconstruction governments to use against the agrarian reforms as well, white or black. They were freewheeling in how they committed fraud that could make Vladimir Putin proud: counting stuffed ballots, selectively registering voters, dismissing precinct returns, voter intimidation, abusing the black vote. Oh, and disenfranchising the poor with the Constitution of 1898. Hell, one of the chapter titles is a direct quote from a Bourbon newspaper: "Rob Them! You Bet!" (260)
"As a Republican had grimly observed earlier, the state's Democratic rulers had devised a cunning substitute for representative government. It was, he said, 'an oligarchy by arithmetic.'" (229)
I found this book to be an eminently readable and quite entertaining account of Louisiana Bourbonism and Agrarian Populism, despite the fact that I also find it terribly depressing. I think it has value to anyone interested in the time period, government misrule, Populism, or Louisiana history and especially if they are not already familiar with the time period (I certainly wasn't). I generally give three stars to history that is good yet dry and engaging. Since this book is neither dry nor unengaging I have chosen to add a star.
Ultimately, the picture Hair paints of the state of Louisiana politics and government during this timer period is exceptionally bleak. It's so bleak that the benefits of Huey Long begin to look like they outweigh the threat to democracy in Louisiana he represented. At least, any threat he might have represented if Louisiana actually had a functioning democracy, which it does not appear to have had if this book is to be believed. Certainly, this book will provide those interested a greater understanding of just why Huey P. Long was so popular and just why he was given so much power by the people of Louisiana.
Starting with the end of Reconstruction with the election of Francis T. Nicholls as governor and the Compromise of 1877 Hair relates how the Bourbons initially worked with other factions of the Democratic Party to reestablish Democrat rule and send the Republicans packing, then immediately work to undermine their own governor for being too close to the center for their liking.
Once in control of the government (esp. under governors Wiltz and McEnery) the Bourbons underfunded, abused, and neglected all types of public institutions from the public school system to the levees. They refused to tax the propertied interests (themselves) or any rich person or successful business with money at all, unless as punishment for deviation from orthodox Democrat politics (like the Sugar planters did in the 1896 gubernatorial election). It became a trend among the Bourbons to oppose the most moderate of reforms. They opposed anything that might be even slightly onerous to them actually, no matter how much good it might to the state, or themselves in the long run. Often they did so by successful racist appeals to maintain white supremacy, to the great detriment of the state.
"Here, in fact, lay the supreme tragedy of McEnery Bourbonism: that men who must have possessed the intelligence and capacity to give Louisiana enlightened government were so blinded by the memories of Civil War and Reconstruction, and race hatred, as to give unthinking allegiance to whoever trumpeted loudest the shibboleths of States' rights and white supremacy." (110)
The greatest part of the cost of the Bourbon's obstinacy was borne by the poor black and whites who suffered the most from the lack of reform measures. The blacks were forced into sharecropping for the cotton regions of North Louisiana and the marginally superior wage-based crop-lien system of gang labor for the sugar regions of South Louisiana where they found working conditions no better than those under slavery. Whites who desperately needed better land, fair loans, and increased government assistance for raising enough crops to making a living off of saw homestead laws intended to help them exploited by lumber companies, high loans from bankers and merchants, Bourbon apathy, and no help.
"By 1900, Louisiana would contain more plantations and fewer smaller farms than in 1860." (53)
The blurb on the back of my copy says: Louisiana's "political history has generally been characterized by drama, excessive violence, and a freewheeling style." This is a rather succinct way of describing the politics related by Hair in this book. The Bourbons certainly were certainly dramatic in their creative attacks on their opponents and constantly raising fears of black social equality. They were also carried over much of the violent terror tactics they used against the Reconstruction governments to use against the agrarian reforms as well, white or black. They were freewheeling in how they committed fraud that could make Vladimir Putin proud: counting stuffed ballots, selectively registering voters, dismissing precinct returns, voter intimidation, abusing the black vote. Oh, and disenfranchising the poor with the Constitution of 1898. Hell, one of the chapter titles is a direct quote from a Bourbon newspaper: "Rob Them! You Bet!" (260)
"As a Republican had grimly observed earlier, the state's Democratic rulers had devised a cunning substitute for representative government. It was, he said, 'an oligarchy by arithmetic.'" (229)
I found this book to be an eminently readable and quite entertaining account of Louisiana Bourbonism and Agrarian Populism, despite the fact that I also find it terribly depressing. I think it has value to anyone interested in the time period, government misrule, Populism, or Louisiana history and especially if they are not already familiar with the time period (I certainly wasn't). I generally give three stars to history that is good yet dry and engaging. Since this book is neither dry nor unengaging I have chosen to add a star.
Ultimately, the picture Hair paints of the state of Louisiana politics and government during this timer period is exceptionally bleak. It's so bleak that the benefits of Huey Long begin to look like they outweigh the threat to democracy in Louisiana he represented. At least, any threat he might have represented if Louisiana actually had a functioning democracy, which it does not appear to have had if this book is to be believed. Certainly, this book will provide those interested a greater understanding of just why Huey P. Long was so popular and just why he was given so much power by the people of Louisiana.
August 12, 2011
An easy read with some interesting implications for the Woodward/Cash debate, but a little light on the evidence.
January 21, 2021
This book details the fallout in Louisiana from the The Compromise of 1877 that settled the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and ending the Reconstruction Era. In the Pelican State this resulted in "bulldozing" terrorism of the black population and the rise of the criminal, racists, and regressive Bourbonists. Among the many responses was emigration by "exodusters" to "Kansas Fever", a failed third party populist People's Party, also known as the Populist Party met with voting fraud, and a foundation laid for an abused and disenfranchised black (and poor white) population stumbling toward the Jim Crow era.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews