Bourbon Democrats
The democrats who held obstinately to the old ways — Hard-shell Hunkerism, Peace at any Price, and no "new departure" or fusion with any parties - were called Bourbons. The name was used in reference to the declaration in regard to the three Bourbon dynasties of Europe — they forgot nothing and learned nothing.
James Shepherd Pike authored one of the earliest references to "Bourbons" in 1874 when he wrote "It lies prostrate in the dust, ruled over by this strange conglomerate, gathered from the ranks of its own servile population. It is the spectacle of a society suddenly turned bottomside up. The wealth, the intelligence, the culture, the wisdom of the State, have broken through the crust of that social volcano on which they were contentedly reposing, and have sunk out of sight, consumed by the subterranean fires they had with such temerity braved and defied....
"In the place of this old aristocratic Society stands the rude form of the most ignorant democracy that mankind ever saw, invested with the functions of government. It is the dregs of the population habilitated in the robes of their intelligent predecessors, and asserting over them the rule of ignorance and corruption, through the inexorable machinery of a majority of numbers. It is barbarism overwhelming civilization by physical force. It is the slave rioting in the halls of his master, and putting that master under his feet. And, though it is done without. ....
"The frosts of sixty and seventy winters whiten the heads of some among them. There they sit, grim and silent. They feel themselves to be but loose stones, thrown in to partially obstruct a current they are powerless to resist. They say little and do little as the days go by. They simply watch the rising tide, and mark the progressive, steps of the inundation. malice and without vengeance, it is nevertheless none the less completely and absolutely done....
"In this crucial trial of his pride, his manhood, his prejudices, his spirit, it must be said of the Southern Bourbon of the Legislature that he comports himself with a dignity, a reserve, and a decorum, that command admiration. He feels that the iron hand of Destiny is upon him. He is gloomy, disconsolate, hopeless. The gray heads of this generation openly profess that they look for no relief. They see no way of escape. The recovery of influence, of position, of control in the State, is felt hy them to be impossible. They accept their position with a stoicism that promises no reward here or hereafter. They are the types of a conquered race. They staked all and lost all. Their lives remain, their property and their children do not. War, emancipation, and grinding taxation, have consumed them. Their struggle now is against complete confiscation. They endure, and wait for the night."
The term Bourbon was used nationally to describe conservative Democrats active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the South. It was also been used to identify conservative Democrats who wanted to end Reconstruction and restore as much of the pre-Civil War order that was practical given the defeat of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery. The term also included other conservative Democrats (sometimes called "Redeemers") who, in addition to ending Reconstruction, wanted to create a "New South" in which business and industry would flourish.
Although they differed on many issues, these Bourbon factions agreed that taxes should be kept low, state services should be minimal, and mine, mill, and field labor should be under their control. Critical to achieving these goals was the dominance of the Democratic Party, which they controlled and through which they intended to maintain white, upper-class supremacy. Coming to power in the mid-1870s at the end of Reconstruction—an end they hastened through violence and electoral fraud, had there been no black vote when Bourbon dominance was challenged by the Populist movement that arose in the late 1880s, planters in the Black Belt would have had no votes to steal and thus no way to defend their position and the prerogatives that came with it.
In the beginning the Independent Democrats did not constitute a party. Seeing no possibility of success in the Republican party, they merely revolted to oppose one-party rule as independent candidates. In some cases they were Democrats who had become disgruntled because of failure to obtain nomination under the two-thirds rule of Democratic conventions. The Democrats who remained loyal to the party were referred to as Bourbon Democrats, Regular Democrats, Organized Democrats, or Orthodox Democrats. Labeled “Bourbons” (called Redeemers by some) by their opponents, the leaders championed railroad and corporate interests, and, in the eyes of farmers, favored the industrialization at the expense of agriculture.
For the very best reason in the world certain old-time Democrats were called “Bourbons.” The French house of that name had always had the reputation of never learning anything and never forgetting anything; in other words, of standing still while the nation took lone steps of progress. So it had been with Democrats of the State rights order and the slavery stripe: they claim these issues are just where they were half a century earlier.
Bourbons had seen how states, Mississippi in particular, had used carefully crafted voter qualifications, including literacy tests, poll taxes, ownership of property, and "good character" tests, to disfranchise black voters on the basis of something other than race and thus bypass the 15th Amendment altogether. The Populist movement revealed that the small farmers were not dependable supporters of the rest of the Bourbon platform, so conservatives began looking for ways to disfranchise these opponents. The Bourbons disfranchised not only African Americans but in time a large number of poor whites as well.
The history of nicknames both of persons and political parties is curious and interesting. They are generally nicknamed from some striking mental or physical peculiarity or characteristic. Indeed, they may be said to nickname themselves, and the name is so apt and appropriate that it clings like a burr. Of such is the nickname — the Unholy Alliance — was first applied by Senator Phelan of California to that combination of eastern Republican and southern Bourbon Democrats who united to defeat the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment in the US Senate in spite of the fact that President Wilson, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, had implored them to pass it.
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