| Founded: | April 28, 1886 |
| Dissolved: | September 15, 1890 |
| Merged into: | Confederate Party |
| Ideology: | Voter enfranchisement, industrialism, modernization |
The Reform Party was a short-lived political party in the Confederate States which was founded by former President G.T. Beauregard. The party advocated for the extension of voting rights to all free citizens in the Confederacy and for general modernization of the country, particularly cities and industry.
History[]
G.T. Beauregard was a famous Creole general during the Southern War of Independence. He had run for Mayor of New Orleans before the war and continued his political pursuits after its end, becoming Governor of Louisiana in 1877. He was elected by a nonpartisan coalition of plantation owners and business leaders who respected his wartime fame. As governor, he worked to modernize the state, particularly New Orleans. Louisiana had restrictive voting laws which prevented poor whites from voting. The wealthy establishment was unwilling to change this and resisted Beauregard's efforts as governor to expand the voting franchise to all white males.
President G.T. Beauregard, founder of the Reform Party
In 1879, Beauregard was elected Vice President on the Southern Party ticket with Alexander H. Stephens. The party selected him because he was the only high profile military man who would accept. Beauregard warmed to the party because he viewed it as the party of the common people and peace abroad. He wished to serve diligently as vice president and then win election as president in 1885. To his disappointment, President Stephens died and lifted Beauregard to the presidency with less than three years remaining in the term. The Confederate Constitution was unclear on whether Beauregard could run for reelection in such a case. He still hoped to do so and tried to win over politicians from his party by diligently supporting the party platform. He failed in becoming a party leader for several reasons- his weak commitment to party values, his weak political position as Stephens' successor, and his Frenchness. He was passed over for the party's presidential nomination and for him, that was the last straw. He broke from the Southern Party, becoming an independent, and served the rest of his term as president pursuing his own policies.
Beauregard attempted to build his own base of support among the voters, advocating for modernization of the country to make it strong for future generations. He criticized both the Southern Party and its new rival the Confederate Party for looking too much to the past and bowing to nostalgia. Beauregard had always seen Confederate society as unjust for the way it ostracized him simply for not having Anglo heritage. He aimed to change this, although he still maintained his support of slavery.
Without any political allies, Beauregard was the ultimate lame duck in office and was unable to get any of his proposals passed. The mainstream parties ridiculed him as self-important and fanciful, a bitter president resigned to causing a public ruckus before unceremoniously leaving office. Beauregard considered running in 1885 as an independent or endorsing another candidate to do so, but ultimately he decided such an endeavor would work against his goals.
As soon as he left office in February 1886, Beauregard began organizing his own political force to rival the other two parties which had rejected him. He reached out to personal contacts- some old military colleagues, political colleagues, and local businessmen, mainly. Slowly, he secured funding and support for what he named the Reform Party. He officially founded it on the Confederate independence date of April 28th.
The Reform Party advocated extending the vote to all free citizens. Beauregard hoped to make it a popular political force with support among the poorer classes in the Confederacy. He also advocated his personal wish for further industrialization of the Confederacy as well as a more favorable environment to do business outside of the plantations. He found that the party quickly attracted support from the Confederate business community, particularly that of New Orleans. It also attracted urban voters who had continually felt sidelined by the mainstream parties who tried to keep an agrarian lean. The Reform Party, bolstered by Beauregard's fame, immediately became a competitive force in Louisiana politics.
On the national stage, Beauregard focused on advocating for a constitutional amendment which would grant all free adult citizens the right to vote. His proposal naturally won support from the common citizenry, although to Beauregard's surprise the party's support base was mostly concentrated in the cities. National political leaders soon took notice of the growing movement and tried to scheme ways to stop it. The Southern Party was particularly opposed, viewing the movement as fundamentally threatening to the agrarian South.
By 1888, the party had begun to win or nearly win elections across the Confederacy. Some representatives from the party were elected to Congress, mainly from urban districts. They came to control a plurality in the Louisiana legislature. Confederate Party leadership came to see the party as particularly threatening to their existence, as their party had typically drawn from the urban support that the Reform Party was now siphoning. They wished to avoid allowing the party to contest a presidential election, fearful that a strong showing would allow them to supplant the Confederate Party as a national political force.
Beauregard was contacted about a merger with the Confederate Party and he became increasingly receptive to the idea. Negotiations started in earnest in 1889, with Beauregard demanding that the Confederate Party adopt major policy planks from his party in order for the merger to go through. The Confederates promised to immediately begin pushing for the ratification of a voting rights amendment as well as more openly supporting urban business interests. Beauregard found these terms acceptable.
The Reform Party officially merged with the Confederate Party in September 1890, about a year before the 1891 presidential election. Beauregard had now joined the Confederate Party just five years after serving as a president from its paramount rival faction. He finally felt that he had achieved some measure of acceptance and respect in wider Confederate society. President Garland joined Beauregard in calling for a constitutional convention (the only way to pass constitutional amendments in the Confederacy). This effort was successful- the convention was scheduled for 1892 with voting for delegates alongside the regular elections in 1891. The constitution passed an amendment to protect the right to vote for all free citizens. It was ratified by the requisite number of states shortly after Beauregard's death in early 1893.
Former Reformers remained an influential faction in the Confederate Party, although there were splits between them over how fervently they supported the imperialism of President John Tyler Morgan. The Confederate Party as a whole embraced industrialization and modernization in the early 20th Century.
Ideology[]
New Orleans, a model city for the industrial and infrastructural improvements pushed for by the Reform Party
The Reform Party has been identified by historians as the first political manifestation in the Confederacy of urban and industrial influence. Previously, mainstream political thought had held that the Confederacy was a firmly agrarian nation fundamentally opposed to widespread industrialization as had happened in the North. This led to the marginalization of urban interests and a somewhat unfavorable business environment which alienated investors. The Reform Party provided a vehicle for these groups to advocate for their needs.
The main stated reason for the existence of the party was extending the vote to all free adult citizens. This was to be accomplished through a constitutional amendment which would prevent individual states from making restrictive, exclusionary, and confusing voter laws that prevented certain groups from voting based on socioeconomic status. Although the party openly supported the continued existence of slavery, it was vague on its potential plans for extending the vote to free Blacks. When the constitutional convention finally came around, Beauregard and close allies pushed for a clause that would guarantee citizenship for all non-slaves regardless of race or any other factor. The version of the amendment which passed omitted such language, instead allowing states to make their own determinations of who was a citizen and thus allowed to vote.
Other main goals of the party were support for industrialization, modernization, and business interests. The support of businessmen for the party made these issues slowly become more emphasized over time. The party advocated for loosening of industrial restrictions such as where new businesses could build and how slaves could be used in the industrial workforce. It proposed a more stable financial system with more robust support for banks and a currency backed more strongly by gold than silver. It pushed for a wholesale modernization of Confederate legal code and political structures which, on a state-by-state basis, had not been significantly updated since the time of Andrew Jackson. Locally, the party pushed for improvements to infrastructure, particularly in rapidly growing cities which had trouble supporting their ballooning population. Many of these aims were adopted by the Confederate Party during the presidency of James D. Richardson.
President James D. Richardson, who carried on the legacy of the Reform Party
Legacy[]
Despite its short existence, the Reform Party is considered to have had a lasting impact on Confederate politics and society. It represented the beginning of significant influence in government by industrialists and businessmen. In some ways, it broke the taboo of discussing the benefits of industrialization for the Confederacy, with party members asserting that the country could modernize without losing its unique character or harming agrarian interests. It permanently expanded the vote to all free citizens, increasing participation by the poorer classes in the democratic process and opening new potential bases of support for the two major parties. The party's character in many ways was passed onto the Confederate Party, which soon enough began advocating for industrialization and modernization in the same vein as the Reform Party had. Beauregard's movement is thus seen as a somewhat revolutionary force which saw its ideals win out in the end.
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