16. O[liver] P. Morton, Speech of Hon. O. P. Morton, Delivered in the United States Senate, January 19, 1876, on the Mississippi Election (N.p., [1876?]). (22 p.)


Speech condemning violence and fraud associated with the state-wide elections in Mississippi in 1875. Senator Morton begins his speech as follows. “If the information I have received from very many sources is substantially true, the late pretended election in Mississippi was an armed revolution, characterized by fraud, murder and violence in almost every form. It was carried on in some respects under the forms of law, but its real nature was that of force, the violation of law, and the trampling under foot of the dearest rights of great masses of men.” (The strategy white Democrats used in suppressing the African American vote became known as the “Mississippi Plan” and was adopted with success by Democratic candidates in other Southern states.)