Tennessee Constitutional
Convention of 1870
Poll Taxes
Segregation
Funds for Public Education
What does the Tennessee Constitution of
1870 say about….
 poll taxes: enacted to prevent African Americans
from voting; evidence that poll taxes paid was
required
 segregation: legal segregation of the races
through Jim Crow laws (buses, restaurants, public
libraries, public parks, waiting rooms, bathrooms,
telephone booths, drinking fountains, and schools
 funds for public education – against the law to
integrate schools so funds went to white schools
primarily with only minimal funds given to black
schools
Election of Rutherford B
Hayes
Compromise of 1877
 Election of 1876: Republican Rutherford Hayes v.
Democrat Samuel Tilden
 Tilden had a reputation as a reformer
 Southerners (whites) would definitely vote for the
Democrat but 3 southern states – LA, FL, SC –
returned duplicate sets of electoral returns.
 One set of returns gave all the votes to Tilden and
one gave them all to Hayes. Tilden was short
ONE vote to win the Presidency so all he needed
from the disputed returns was ONE electoral vote.
 Congress resolved by appointing an Electoral
Commission to investigate the duplicate returns
and to settle whom the votes belonged to.
 15-member commission – 7 Republicans, 7
Democrats, and 1 Independent (who would break
tie votes). Right before vote of the Commission,
the Independent was offered a Supreme Court
seat by President Grant (Republican) and he
accepted. A Republican was selected to replace
the Independent, giving the Republicans 8 votes
on the Commission to the Democrats 7.
 The vote went 8 to 7 to give ALL the contested
electoral votes to Hayes and he got the
Presidency.
Why would the Democrats allow the
Presidency to be stolen from them?
 Knowing that the party vote of 8 – 7 would
be divisive to the nation, the Republicans
back-roomed a deal with the Democrats to
remove the last of the federal troops from
southern states and end military
Reconstruction. The Democrats took the
deal – Reconstruction ended, Tilden lost the
Presidency, and Hayes served one long
unpopular term often called “His
Fraudulency” or “Old 8 to 7” in derision.
Yellow Fever in Middle
Tennessee
 What is yellow fever?
 What was the impact of yellow fever during
the 1870s?
 Why was it particularly deadly in West
Tennessee?
 For residents of West Tennessee, and particularly
Memphis, yellow fever posed the greatest threat. The
disease caused fevers, chills, hemorrhaging, severe
pains, and sometimes a jaundicing of the skin, which
gave yellow fever its name. The trademark of the
disease, however, was the victim's black vomit,
composed of blood and stomach acids. Although its
cause was unknown until 1900, yellow fever was
transmitted from person to person by female
mosquitoes. Sailors on ships from the Caribbean or
West Africa, from which the disease most likely
originated, docked in New Orleans, where mosquitoes
spread the disease from the infected person to the local
population. River traffic carried yellow fever up the
Mississippi Valley as long as mosquitoes were available
to transmit the disease from human to human. Reprieve
came only with the first frost.
 1873: 2,000 in Memphis, the most yellow fever victims in
an inland city.
 1878: mild winter, long spring, torrid summer produced
favorable conditions for breeding of mosquitoes and
spread the fever.
 By August 13 the first death was reported in the city itself.
 roughly 25,000 residents fled the city within two weeks.
 fever raged in Memphis until mid-October, infecting over
17,000 and killing 5,150.
 Over 90 percent of whites who remained contracted yellow
fever, and roughly 70 percent of these died.
 Long thought to be immune to the disease, blacks
contracted the fever in large numbers as well in 1878,
although only 7 percent of infected blacks died.
African Americans Elected to
General Assembly
 Despite poll tax and KKK intimidation,
African-American legislators were elected in
the 1870s. Through much of the 1880s,
there were four African-Americans in the
Tennessee House.
 Voting laws were changed in the late 1800s
which made it impossible for blacks to be
elected to public office

SAMPSON W. KEEBLE . . . . . . Davidson County . . . . . . . 1873-1874

JOHN W. BOYD . . . . . . . . . . . . .Tipton County . . . . . . . . . . 1881-1884 (2 terms)

THOMAS F. CASSELS . . . . . . . Shelby County . . . . . . . . . .1881-1882

ISAAC F. NORRIS . . . . . . . . . . .Shelby County . . . . . . . . . 1881-1882

THOMAS A. SYKES . . . . . . . . . Davidson County . . . . . . .1881-1882

LEON HOWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . Shelby County . . . . . . . . . 1883-1884

SAMUEL A. McELWEE . . . . . . Haywood County . . . . . . .1883-1888 * (3 terms)

DAVID F. RIVERS . . . . . . . . . . Fayette County . . . . . . . . . . 1883-1884 *

GREENE E. EVANS . . . . . . . . . Shelby County . . . . . . . . . 1885-1886

WILLIAM FEILDS . . . . . . . . . . . .Shelby County . . . . . . . . .1885-1886

WILLIAM C. HODGE . . . . . . . . Hamilton County . . . . . . .1885-1886

MONROE W. GOODEN . . . . . . Fayette County . . . . . . . . .1887-1888

STYLES L. HUTCHINS . . . . . . .Hamilton County . . . . . . . .1887-1888

JESSE M. H. GRAHAM . . . . . . .Montgomery County . . . .1897 (unseated)
*Both Rivers and McElwee were prevented by white supremacists from serving a later term to which they had been elected.
No other African Americans served in the TN General Assembly until
1965