1870 Alabama gubernatorial election

1870 Alabama gubernatorial election

← 1868 November 8, 1870 1872 →

Nominee Robert B. Lindsay William Hugh Smith Party Democratic Republican Popular vote 77,723 76,282 Percentage 50.47% 49.53%

County results Lindsay:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%      >90% Smith:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%

Governor before election William Hugh Smith Republican Elected Governor Robert B. Lindsay Democratic

The run-up to the election was marred by political and racist terrorism by the Ku Klux Klan, in support of Lindsay. This violence included the lynching of four blacks and a white in Calhoun County, the murder of two blacks (one a Republican politician) in Greene County, and the October Eutaw massacre.^[1] In Greene County, for instance, the violence in Eutaw is credited with swaying the vote in that county toward Lindsay: in the 1868 presidential election, Greene County had voted for Ulysses S. Grant by a margin of 2,000 votes; in the 1870 gubernatorial election it voted for Robert B. Lindsay by a margin of 43.^[2]

Languages