PERHAPS NO STATE EXPOSED more graphically the irremediable clash between the old South and Republican rule than Mississippi. The state legislature’s composition was shockingly alien to many Mississippi whites—55 of 115 state representatives were black, as were 9 of 37 senators. In the summer of 1874, Grant received a steady flow of warnings that white agitators, operating under the People’s Party or White Man’s Party banner, would attempt to purge the legislature by intimidating black voters and officeholders. Especially alarming was violence predicted in Vicksburg, where armed whites prowled
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