Editing Reconstruction era (section)

====The Republican coalition splinters in the South====
In the South, political and racial tensions built up inside the Republican Party as they were attacked by the Democrats. In 1868, Georgia Democrats, with support from some Republicans, expelled all 28 Black Republican members from the state house, arguing Blacks were eligible to vote but not to hold office. In most states, the more Whiggish Republicans fought for control with the more Radical Republicans and their Black allies. Most of the 430 Republican newspapers in the South were edited by native Southerners—only 20 percent were edited by northerners. White businessmen generally boycotted Republican papers, which survived through government patronage.<ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of American Journalism |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415969505 |editor-last=Vaughn |editor-first=Stephen L. |location=London |page=441}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Abbott |first=Richard H. |title=For Free Press and Equal Rights: Republican Newspapers in the Reconstruction South |date=2004 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=9780820325279 |location=Athens, Georgia}}</ref> Nevertheless, in the increasingly bitter battles inside the Republican Party, those who supported Reconstruction usually lost; many of the disgruntled losers switched over to the Whig-leaning or Democratic side. In Mississippi, the Whiggish faction led by [[James Lusk Alcorn]] was decisively defeated by the Radical faction led by [[Adelbert Ames]]. The party lost support steadily as many supporters of Reconstruction left it; few recruits were acquired. The most bitter contest took place inside the Republican Party in Arkansas, where the two sides armed their forces and confronted each other in the streets; no actual combat took place in the [[Brooks–Baxter War]]. The faction led by [[Elisha Baxter]] finally prevailed when the White House intervened, but both sides were badly weakened, and the Democrats soon came to power.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Woodward |first=Earl F. |date=1971 |title=The Brooks and Baxter War in Arkansas, 1872–1874 |journal=[[Arkansas Historical Quarterly]] |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=315–336 |doi=10.2307/40038083 |jstor=40038083}}</ref>

Meanwhile, in state after state the freedmen were demanding a bigger share of the offices and patronage, squeezing out white allies but never commanding the numbers equivalent to their population proportion. By the mid-1870s: "The hard realities of Southern political life had taught the lesson that black constituents needed to be represented by black officials."{{sfnp|Foner|1988|p=537–541}} The financial depression increased the pressure on Reconstruction governments, dissolving progress.

Finally, some of the more prosperous freedmen were joining the Democrats, as they were angered at the failure of the Republicans to help them acquire land. The South was "sparsely settled"; only 10 percent of Louisiana was cultivated, and 90 percent of Mississippi bottom land was undeveloped in areas away from the river fronts, but freedmen often did not have the stake to get started. They hoped that the government would help them acquire land which they could work. Only South Carolina created any land redistribution, establishing a land commission and resettling about 14,000 freedmen families and some poor Whites on land purchased by the state.{{sfnp|Foner|1988|pp=374–375}}

Although historians such as [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] celebrated a cross-racial coalition of poor Whites and Blacks, such coalitions rarely formed in these years. Writing in 1913, former Congressman Lynch, recalling his experience as a Black leader in Mississippi, explained that:{{sfnp|Lynch|1913|pp=107–108}}
{{blockquote|1=While the colored men did not look with favor upon a political alliance with the poor whites, it must be admitted that, with very few exceptions, that class of whites did not seek, and did not seem to desire such an alliance.}}

Lynch reported that poor Whites resented the job competition from freedmen. Furthermore, the poor Whites:{{sfnp|Lynch|1913|pp=108–109}}
{{blockquote|1=with a few exceptions, were less efficient, less capable, and knew less about matters of state and governmental administration than many of the former slaves.... As a rule, therefore, the Whites that came into the leadership of the Republican Party between 1872 and 1875 were representatives of the most substantial families of the land.}}