Don't Forget Solidarity

In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Volume 59, Issue 2, p. 70-71

Abstract

A prominent northern congressman and chair of the Democratic National Committee, Abram Hewitt played a central role in negotiating the notorious Compromise of 1877, which conceded victory in a contested presidential election to the Republican Party in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops that had occupied the former Confederacy since the Civil War. The arrangement freed Southern Democrats to use fraud, intimidation, and outright terrorism to deprive most African Americans and many poor whites of the right to vote; it also gave wealthy landowners and industrialists unchallenged hegemony in the South and tremendous influence in the nation as a whole. Adapted from the source document.