Public Opinion Topic Option 1: Texas Grange (Patrons of Husbandry) Topic Option 2: Texas and the post-Civil War Reconstruction era
• The Patrons of Husbandry (also known as the Grange) voiced opposition against the government’s system of patronage, which granted jobs to political favorites instead of based on merit (Corbett, et al., 2016, p. 589).
• Many of the farmers who joined the Patrons of Husbandry had settled in the relatively western portion of the U.S. (including Texas), and they were critical of the fact that industrial consumer goods and capital goods received protective tariffs from the government, yet the land-intensive goods that they produced had little economic worth (Corbett, et al., 2016, pp. 588-589).
• After the Civil War, Caucasian farmers were disconcerted with having to work extra hours due to the lack of slave labor, and the declining market prices of cotton due to overproduction coupled with the rising fees of capital goods angered them further (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 41).
• Texan counties that had relatively high numbers of Grange members cultivated more that 67% of their state’s cotton bales in 1880 even though they had made less cotton twenty years before then, which could have indicated that their agricultural efficiency drove some of them to wish to continue their prosperity in this field (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 41).
• The Texas Grange’s support of federal fiscal conservatism, which was formally declared during their first meeting in April 1874, was lauded by several local newspapers and party leaders (Smith, 1939, p. 297-298)
• Ranchers who operated in the western region of Texas looked upon the Patrons of Husbandry’s actions with suspicion, as they did not all support erecting fences that would make it difficult for their herds to reach food and water (Smith, 1939, p. 300).
• Some Texans believed that the Grange aimed to turn working-class farmers and political elites utterly against each other, which could have effectively fostered Grangers’ support of communism if this was so (Smith, 1939, p. 300). • Although many northerners believed that southerners who had supported the Confederacy inspired the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and that southern layman generally approved of his death, several southerners dreaded the murder’s occurrence because the northern backlash against the south would have been seen as the allowance of former slaves to usurp Caucasians’ property and vote in favor of Republican candidates whom southerners generally did not support (Wood, 1906, p. 263).
• Some Texan Caucasian southerners saw the rise of the Ku Klux Klan as a sign of God’s disapproval of the north’s approval of African American’s right to vote (Wood, 1906, p. 263)
• Several southerners (including Texans) frowned upon what they saw as the superstitious thoughts of African Americans’ ancestors, which they saw as justification for barring the latter group of the right ot vote (Wood, 1906, p. 264).
Interest Groups • The Patrons of Husbandry/Grange was founded in 1867 by Oliver Hudson Kelly (Corbett, et al., 2016, p. 589).
• Due to the increasing pressure of small profits gained by farmers, the Grange’s membership swelled to over 1.5 million people in less than 10 years (Corbett, et al., 2016, p. 589).
• In 1873, the Patrons of Husbandry first came to Texas when a National Grange organizer named R. A. Baird met with fellow organizers in Salado (Smith, 1939, p. 297).
• By 1876, the Texas Grange’s numbers had swelled to 40,000 male members in over 1,000 local or minor camps, making the Grange’s Texan division the largest within the southern states (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 37). • Many newly freed slaves took advantage of their voting rights in Texas during the Reconstruction era, their progressive-minded efforts won appointments for five African American men who would enter the military, and three black men (Squire Rogers, E.J. Brown, and Walter Wormley) won Texan offices between 1869 and 1876 (Campbell, 1992, pp. 107, 111).
• Members of the Loyal Union League sought to have the holders of local Texan offices replaced by issuing petitions and giving opinions on who would be more suitable for those positions (Ramsdell, 1910, p. 173).
Political Parties • The Grange movement spawned the Greenback Party (which owned its named to its members’ desire for paper money that was not connected to the gold standard so that the prices of land-intensive goods would increase and hopefully turn out economic profits) (Corbett, et al., 2016, p. 590).
• The 1877 introduction of the Greenback party in Texas had leaders who originated from the Patrons of Husbandry, though not all Grange members transferred their support to this party (Baum & Calvert, 1989, pp. 52-53).
• John H. Reagan served as a postmaster general for the Confederacy and eventually joined the Patrons of Husbandry (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 49).
• Archibald J. Rose was a Democrat who supported the Texas Grange while he served as the Commissioner of Agriculture, Insurance, Statistics, and History (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 38).
• John B. Long was a Democratic congressman and news editor who joined the Texas Grange (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 38). • When Texans initially elected persons who went against Unionism and supported the stifling of rights of newly freed slaves, Republicans from the federal congress retaliated by taking more initiative concerning Reconstruction during the early months of 1867 (Campbell, 1992, p. 101). This was accomplished by removing scores of elected Texan officials and instating politicians who supported Congress’ civil rights agenda of expanding freedmens’ rights, as well as sending soldiers to overlook voters who attempted to register to vote, yet had not officially agreed to support the federal Constitution (Campbell, 1992, p. 101).
• Richard Coke, a Democrat who closely subscribed to the attitudes of the Old South, defeated Republican incumbent Edmund J. Davis in the race for Texas’ office of governor, thus ushering in a period that sought to take back control from federally-backed Republicans (Campbell, 1992, p. 101).
State/local Elections • Most Texan members of the Grange voted in favor of the 1876 version of the Texan constitution and during the 1880 election of their state’s governor (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 52).
• About 50% of the delegates of Texas’ constitutional convention of 1875 were supporters of the Texas Grange (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 49).
• During the 1892 election for Texas governor, the bulk of the Grange’s membership supported James S. Hogg, a Democrat who already held that position (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 54).
• Richard Coke was a U.S. Senator from Texas who had once served as his home state’s governor and supported the Grange’s goals of state and federal-level reform (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 51). • Andrew Jackson Hamilton, who was chosen by president Andrew Johnson to temporarily govern Texas during Reconstruction, presided over the 1866 election of constitutional convention delegates and made voters swear their loyalty towards the Union (Campbell, 1992, p. 100).
• After the 1866 Texas constitution was ratified, several of the subsequently elected people who held local and state offices were allegedly former supporters of the Confederacy (Campbell, 1992, p. 100).
• In 1869, Texans chose to elect Edmund J. Davis over his relatively centrist Republican rival, Andrew Jackson Hamilton, and he was able to keep his position for approximately 48 months (Campbell, 1992, p. 101).
Rights/Responsibilities of citizens • Through the power of their numbers, the Texan Patrons of Husbandry successfully introduced articles into their state’s constitution that cut taxes, slashed the rate of state spending, and placed restrictions on relevant corporations who used railroads for transporting goods (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 51).
• Despite the Grange’s Democratic leanings, some members who supported some voting reform partially allied themselves with the Republicans in defeating a measure that would require paying a tax upon voting, which they thought would keep destitute Caucasian and African American voters from casting their ballots (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 49).
• The Texan Grange sought to improve educational opportunities for children by turning regular meeting places that were used by Grange members into elementary schools and lobbying for the introduction of general scientific protocols of agriculture be introduced into the public curriculum (Smith, 1939, p. 314) • While Andrew Jackson Hamilton was the governor of Texas, he saw it fit to issue a public address to Texans which stated that slavery could not be revived, and African Americans should be allowed to give testimony during legal proceedings (Ramsdell, 1910, pp. 63-64).
• Without the presence of regular law enforcement during Reconstruction, Texans faced the heightened chance of being robbed or beaten by those who were bitter about the outcome of the war, which prompted citizens to send petitions to Governor Hamilton that requested the aid of federal troops or the creation of local police forces (Ramsdell, 1910, pp. 66-67)
Policies • In 1874, Texan Grange members opposed African Americans’ right to vote (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 37)
• A. J. Rose was one of several Texas Grange members who spread word of the group’s policies in person, and he encouraged farmers to plant less cotton than usual to curb the negative monetary impact of the crop’s overproduction and to grow more than one type of cash crop (Smith, 1939, p. 298).
• The Texas Grange called for the elimination of protective tariffs, the enactment of a federal organization that would regulate commerce between the states, and a federal Constitutional amendment that would leave the selection of U.S. senators up to voters during popular elections (Smith, 1939, p. 313). • During the 1866 constitutional convention, Texas voters were required to pass a measure that struck down slavery before their state could reunite with the union (Campbell, 1992, p. 100).
• As partial compensation for their treatment before and during the American Civil War, many African American men who lived in former Confederate states (including Texas) were eligible for a federal government policy that granted each of them one mule and nearly four dozen acres of land; this transaction had been proposed by federal congressman Thaddeus Stevens (Wood, 1906, p. 262).
Political Cultures • Most Grange members who attended church services were evangelical Protestants, and most of them prescribed to Methodism; other denominations within the Texas Patrons of Husbandry’s numbers included Disciples of Christ, Baptism, and Presbyterianism (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 42).
• The Patrons of Husbandry tried to recruit German farmers who lived in the U.S. by sending promotional leaflets that were written in their language, though foreign-born agriculturalists remained virtually absent from the Grange’s ranks because they suspected the former of being too nativist in their views (Baum & Calvert, 1989, pp. 41-42).
• Some Texan Grangers advocated for cultivating more than one kind of crop to offset the debt accrued from growing non-profitable cotton, which showed that they valued economic prosperity over some traditional agricultural practices (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 41).
• Texan Grange members did not support election bills that would have sent federal agents as supervisors to elections to ensure that African Americans could vote (Baum & Calvert, 1989, p. 37).
• The Texas Grange believed that the best people to cultivate Texas’ western sector relatively untouched land were farmers from Europe and the eastern portion of the United States, and their literary promotion of immigration from Europe indicated the sentiment that Caucasians were among the most potentially proficient people to carry the duty of providing food for millions of people (Smith, 1939, p. 313)
• Per the election results of June 1866, although Texans agreed to admit that the war had ended in the Confederacy’s disfavor, many of the Union sympathizers that were chosen by Andrew Jackson Hamilton to take state and local offices were later rejected by voters in favor of persons who had sided with the Confederacy, which indicated that Texan voters still valued the ways of the Old South (Campbell, 1992, pp. 112-113).
References
Baum, D., & Calvert, R. (1989). Texas Patrons of Husbandry: Geography, Social Contexts, and Voting Behavior. Agricultural History, 63(4), 36-55. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3743329
Brown, L. C., Langenegger, A. J., Garcia, S. R., Lewis, T. A., Biles, R. E., Rynbrandt, R., & Reyna, V. (2016). Practicing Texas Politics. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Campbell, R. B. (1992). Grass Roots Reconstruction: The Personnel of County Government in Texas, 1865-1876. The Journal of Southern History, 58(1), 99-116. doi:10.2307/2210476
Corbett, S. P., Janssen, V., Lund, J. M., Pfannestial, T., Vickery, P., & Waskiewicz. (2016). U.S. History. Houston, TX: OpenStax.
Ramsdell, C. W. (1910). Reconstruction in Texas. Columbia University.
Smith, R. (1939). The Grange Movement in Texas, 1973-1900. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 42(4), 297-315. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30237315
Wood, W. D. (1906). The Ku Klux Klan. The Quarterly of the Texan State Historical Association, 9(4), 262-268. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30242735