Editing Caswell County, North Carolina (section)

===Reconstruction era===
After the Civil War during [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]], the pattern of daily life in Caswell County dramatically changed. [[Antebellum South|The previous plantation way of life]] had disappeared. Small farmers fell into deeper poverty. Abandoned land and eroded soil permeated the landscape. The area faced a decreased standard of living and insufficient public revenue for services that governments ordinarily provided.<ref name="auto6" />{{sfn|Powell|1977}}

Many whites in the county resented the war's outcome as did others in the North Carolina [[Piedmont (United States)|Piedmont]] area. Regional newspapers actively fomented their bitterness. When Congressional Reconstruction was established in 1867,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ncpedia.org/reconstruction-part-2-fourteenth|title=Reconstruction, by Allen W. Trelease, 2006|access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref> a large segment of residents characterized it as an effort by [[Radical Republicans]] to force Black [[suffrage]] upon them. A significant number began flocking to the Conservative Party, which was a coalition of the prewar [[North Carolina Democratic Party|Democratic Party]] and old-line [[Whig Party (United States)|Whigs]].<ref name="auto13">{{cite web|title=The Kirk-Holden War of 1870 and the Failure of Reconstruction in North Carolina|url=http://dl.uncw.edu/Etd/2010-3/brissonj/jimbrisson.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170808211700/http://dl.uncw.edu/etd/2010-3/brissonj/jimbrisson.pdf |archive-date=August 8, 2017 |url-status=live|access-date=August 7, 2021}}</ref>

African Americans in the area had experienced immense jubilation when informed of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Their freedom was then safeguarded by Union troops, the [[Freedmen's Bureau]], and the protection of the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]]. However, in 1866 restrictive state laws called [[Black Codes (United States)|"Black Codes"]] were passed in North Carolina by former Confederate legislators who had returned to power as Conservatives.<ref>{{cite web|title=Black Codes |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/black-codes|access-date=August 7, 2021}}</ref> Enacted to regain control over African Americans, these laws were nullified by congressional [[Civil Rights Act of 1866|civil rights legislation]] later in 1866.<ref>{{cite web|title=Black Codes in North Carolina, 1866 |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/primary-source-black-codes|access-date=November 13, 2022}}</ref>

In 1868 and 1869, the [[North Carolina General Assembly of 1868–1869|Republican-controlled General Assembly]] ratified the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth]] and [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth]] Amendments respectively.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ncpedia.org/reconstruction-part-3-statewide-c|title=Reconstruction|access-date=July 7, 2022}}</ref> Ensuring the right to vote regardless of race, [[Discrimination based on skin color|color]], or previous condition of servitude, the Fifteenth Amendment became a part of the [[U.S. Constitution]] in February 1870.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/education/all_amendments_usconst.htm|work=University of Minnesota Human Rights Library|title=All Amendments to the United States Constitution}}</ref> In [[1870 United States census|that year's U.S. census]], African Americans represented approximately 59 percent of Caswell County's population.<ref>{{cite web|title=North Carolina Counties – U.S. Census Bureau, 1870|url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1870/population/1870a-22.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190224062626/https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1870/population/1870a-22.pdf |archive-date=February 24, 2019 |url-status=live|access-date=July 3, 2022}}</ref> Over a span of five years from 1865 to 1870, they had gained constitutional protection from slavery and voting rights. They could seek employment, use public accommodations, acquire land, and participate in the political process.<ref>{{cite web|title=The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship|website=[[Library of Congress]] |date=February 9, 1998 |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html|access-date=July 3, 2022}}</ref>

In January 1868, thirteen African American delegates representing 19 majority-Black counties attended the state's constitutional convention in [[Raleigh, North Carolina|Raleigh]]. They were North Carolina's first Black Caucus. Their members included a Republican legislator from Caswell County named Wilson Carey. At the convention, he spoke out against Conservative proposals to attract white immigrants to North Carolina. Carey felt the focus should instead be on African American North Carolinians who had built up the state.<ref>{{cite web|title=Constitutional Convention, 1868: "Black Caucus"
|url=https://ncpedia.org/history/cw-1900/black-caucus|access-date=August 9, 2021}}</ref>

The 1868 constitutional convention passed resolutions that included the abolition of slavery, the adoption of universal male suffrage, the removal of property and religious qualifications for voting and office holding, and the establishment of a uniform public school system. Because the convention gave North Carolina a new constitution in 1868 that protected the rights of African Americans, the state was readmitted to the Union that same year on [[Independence Day (United States)|July 4]] upon ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.<ref name="Reconstruction"/>

Enfranchising African Americans with the right to vote in elections was anathema to county and statewide Conservative Party members. This was not only due to their [[white supremacy]] but also because it threatened their power. Their animosity toward white and Black [[North Carolina Republican Party|Republicans]] had begun to skyrocket when Republican gubernatorial candidate [[William W. Holden]] endorsed universal male suffrage at the party's state convention in March 1867.<ref name="auto13" /> The suffrage resolution's passage and Holden's victory in 1868 substantially added to the continuing friction. This growing tension helped make Caswell County and the region a hotbed of [[Ku Klux Klan]] activity that same year. African Americans and their supporters in the area were subsequently subjected to a heinous campaign of violence, intimidation, and murder to prevent them from voting.<ref name="auto13" />

As Klan violence in Caswell County escalated in 1870, the Republican state senator of the area, [[John W. Stephens]], became increasingly fearful of attack.{{sfn|Brisson|2011|pp=137–139}} On May 21, he went to the courthouse in Yanceyville to convince the former Democratic county sheriff, Frank A. Wiley, to seek re-election as a Republican with his support and thus achieve a political reconciliation in the county.{{sfn|Brisson|2011|p=139}} Wiley had secretly agreed to work with the Klan and lured Stephens into a trap, whereby he was choked with a rope and stabbed to death by Klansmen in a vacant courthouse room. The county’s sheriff, Jessie C. Griffith, himself a Klansman and prominent Conservative, made little effort to investigate the assassination.{{sfn|Brisson|2011|pp=139–140}}

Holden was disgusted by the murder of Stephens.{{sfn|Brisson|2011|p=141}} Conferring with his advisers, he decided to [[Kirk–Holden war|raise a militia to combat the Klan]] in Caswell and nearby [[Alamance County]].{{sfn|Brisson|2011|p=143}} On July 8, he declared Caswell County to be in a state of insurrection.{{sfn|Ashe|1925|p=1114}} About 350 militiamen, led by Colonel [[George Washington Kirk]], arrived on July 18 and established headquarters in Yanceyville.{{sfn|Brisson|2011|p=146}} The militia arrested 19 men in the county as well as several dozen more in Alamance County, and Klan activities in both counties promptly ceased.{{sfn|Brisson|2011|pp=146–147}} The prisoners were initially denied ''[[habeas corpus]]'' before being turned over to local courts, which did not convict any of the accused.{{sfn|Brisson|2011|pp=148–152}} On November 10, Holden declared that there was no longer a state of insurrection in Alamance and Caswell counties.{{sfn|Brisson|2011|p=152}}

In December 1870, the state legislature, which had a Conservative majority that had come into power on the heels of the political backlash they had spearheaded against Holden over the incident, impeached him on eight charges. He was convicted on six of them and removed from office in March 1871. Holden's departure severely weakened the Republican Party in the state.<ref name="auto13"/>

The Conservative Party proceeded to institute white supremacy in state government in 1876.<ref name="Reconstruction"/> They dropped the name "Conservative" that same year to become the Democratic Party of North Carolina.<ref>{{cite web|title=Conservative Party|url=https://www.ncpedia.org/conservative-party|access-date=August 8, 2021}}</ref> When federal troops left the next year, ending Reconstruction, the stage was set for the passage of [[Jim Crow laws]].<ref name="Reconstruction">{{cite web|title=Reconstruction in North Carolina|url=https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/reconstruction-north|access-date=August 4, 2021}}</ref>