View source for James L. Alcorn

{{Short description|American politician (1816–1894)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{more citations needed|date=July 2021}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|image        = JLAlcorn.jpg
|caption      = Alcorn, {{circa}} 1860–1875
|office1      = [[United States Senate|United States Senator]]<br />from [[Mississippi]]
|term1        = December 1, 1871 – March 3, 1877
|preceded1    = [[Hiram Rhodes Revels|Hiram R. Revels]]
|succeeded1   = [[Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (II)|Lucius Q. C. Lamar]]
|order2       = 28th [[List of Governors of Mississippi|Governor of Mississippi]]
|term2        = March 10, 1870 – November 30, 1871
|lieutenant2  = [[Ridgley C. Powers]]
|predecessor2 = [[Adelbert Ames]]
|successor2   = [[Ridgley C. Powers]]
|office3      = Member of the [[Mississippi Senate]]
|term3        = 1848–1854
|office4      = Member of the [[Mississippi House of Representatives]]
|term4        = 1846, 1856–1857
|office5      = Member of the [[Kentucky House of Representatives]]
|term5        = 1843
|birth_name   = James Lusk Alcorn
|birth_date   = {{birth date|1816|11|4}}
|birth_place  = [[Golconda, Illinois|Golconda]], Illinois Territory
|death_date   = {{death date and age|1894|12|19|1816|11|4}} 
|death_place  = [[Friars Point, Mississippi]], US
|resting_place= Alcorn Cemetery, Friars Point, Mississippi, US
|spouse       = 
|party        = [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]], [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]
|alma_mater   = [[Cumberland College (Princeton, Kentucky)|Cumberland College]]
|profession   = Politician, lawyer
|allegiance   = [[Confederate States of America]]
|branch       = Mississippi Militia
|branch_label = [[Military branch|Branch]]
|serviceyears = 1861–1862
|rank         = [[Brigadier general|Brigadier-General]]
|battles      = [[American Civil War]]
|battles_label= Wars
|signature    = Signature of James Lusk Alcorn.png
}}

'''James Lusk Alcorn''' (November 4, 1816{{spaced ndash}}December 19, 1894) was a [[Governor of Mississippi|governor]], and [[United States Senate|U.S. senator]] during the [[Reconstruction era]] in [[Mississippi]]. A [[Moderate Republicans (Reconstruction era)|Moderate Republican]] and [[Whig Party (United States)|Whiggish]] "[[scalawag]]",<ref name=msencyclopediabio>[[Sansing, David G.]] (July 10, 2017). [https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/james-lusk-alcorn/ James Lusk Alcorn]. ''Mississippi Encyclopedia''. Retrieved March 13, 2022.</ref> he engaged in a bitter rivalry with [[Radical Republican]] [[Adelbert Ames]], who defeated him in the [[1873 Mississippi gubernatorial election|1873 gubernatorial race]]. Alcorn was the first elected Republican governor of Mississippi.<ref name=msencyclopediabio/>

Although a Unionist,<ref>[https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/james-lusk-alcorn James Lusk Alcorn]. ''Encyclopedia.com''. Retrieved March 13, 2022.</ref> Alcorn briefly served as a [[Confederate States Army|Confederate]] [[Brigadier general|brigadier-general]] of the [[Mississippi State Troops#Mississippi militia and predecessor units|Mississippi Militia]]. Among former Confederates who joined the postbellum Republican Party, only [[James Longstreet]] had been of higher rank than Alcorn.

==Early life and career==
Alcorn was born near [[Golconda, Illinois|Golconda]], Illinois Territory,<ref name="BDA1906" /> to James Alcorn and Hanna Lusk, a [[Scotch-Irish American|Scots-Irish]] family. He attended [[Cumberland College (Princeton, Kentucky)|Cumberland College]] in [[Princeton, Kentucky]],<ref name="BDA1906" /> and from 1839 to 1844 served as deputy sheriff of [[Livingston County, Kentucky]]. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1838 and for six years practicing law in [[Salem, Kentucky]]. He served in the [[Kentucky House of Representatives]] in 1843 before moving to Mississippi the following year.

Alcorn set up a law office in [[Coahoma County, Mississippi]].<ref>Pereyra, Lillian A. ''James Lusk Alcorn, Persistent Whig'', Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966, p. 19.</ref> As his law practice flourished and his property holdings in the [[Mississippi Delta]] increased, he became a wealthy man. In 1850, he built a three-story house at his [[Roseacres, Mississippi|Mound Place Plantation]] in Coahoma County, where he resided with his family. By 1860, he [[slavery in the United States|enslaved]] nearly one hundred people and held lands valued at a quarter of a million dollars. Alcorn served in the [[Mississippi House of Representatives]] and [[Mississippi Senate]] during the 1840s and 1850s being one of the leaders of the then [[Whig Party (United States)|Whigs]] in the state.

He founded the levee system and was chosen president of the levee board.<ref name="BDA1906" /> In the Mississippi legislature, Alcorn pushed for the construction of levees to protect Delta counties from flooding. A levee district was established in 1858 through his efforts.<ref>[http://www.msleveeboard.com/index.php/about/history Mississippi Levee Board: History]</ref> He ran for [[U.S. Congress|Congress]] in 1856 but was defeated. In 1857, Alcorn was nominated for governor by the Whigs but declined.<ref name="BDA1906" />

Alcorn was a delegate to the special Mississippi convention of 1851 called by [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] governor [[John A. Quitman]], who, as an opponent of [[Henry Clay]]'s [[Compromise of 1850]] advocated  [[secession]].<ref>Clay Williams. [http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/206/the-road-to-war-1846-1860 ''The Road to War (1846–1860)''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104142310/http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/206/the-road-to-war-1846-1860 |date=November 4, 2016 }}. Mississippi History Now, Mississippi Historical Society.</ref> Alcorn joined the Mississippi Unionists to thwart Quitman's plans. Like many other Whig planters, Alcorn opposed secession, pleading with the secessionists to reflect on the realities of the national balance of power. He foretold a horrific picture of a beaten [[Southern United States]], "when the northern soldier would tread her [[cotton]] fields, when the slave should be made free and the proud Southerner stricken to the dust in his presence."<ref>James L. Roark. ''Masters without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction'', 1977, [[New York City]]: W. W. Norton, 1977, p. 3.</ref> However, in January 1861, at the Mississippi state convention, he joined the secessionists and was elected to the ''Committee of Fifteen'' to prepare the [[Mississippi Secession Ordinance|Ordinance of Secession]].<ref>''[http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/missconv/missconv.html Proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention, Held January 7th to 26th, A. D. 1861. Including the Ordinances, as Finally Adopted, Important Speeches, and a List of Members, Showing the Postoffice, Profession, Nativity, Politics, Age, Religious Preference, and Social Relations of Each, by J. L. Power, convention reporter].'' Mississippi, 1861.</ref>

==American Civil War==
When secession was declared, Alcorn, although born in what became in 1818 the free, pro-U.S. state of [[Illinois]], joined the [[Confederate States of America]] and was appointed by the Mississippi secession convention as a militia brigadier-general. However, when his brigade entered the [[Confederate States Army]], [[Jefferson Davis]] refused to commission him on account of political differences.<ref name="BDA1906" /> Alcorn, during the war, was in uniform for about eighteen months of inconspicuous field service, mainly in raising troops and in garrison duty. After the resignation of several major generals of the [[Mississippi State Troops]], including Davis, [[Earl Van Dorn]], and [[Charles Clark (governor)|Charles Clark]], Alcorn became eligible for promotion in rank but was passed over because his political foe, [[John J. Pettus]], was the governor of Mississippi at the time.

At the start of the Civil War, Alcorn was ordered to proceed with his troops to central Kentucky; then, he was stationed at [[Fort Donelson]], [[Tennessee]]. In October 1861, Alcorn raised three regiments of militia troops, designated as the [[Army of 10,000]], committed to sixty days of service in Mississippi and led his brigade to [[Camp Beauregard Memorial|Camp Beauregard]], Kentucky, at which he served under General [[Leonidas Polk]]. His field service ended after his brigade was disbanded in January 1862. Alcorn was taken prisoner in [[Arkansas]] in 1862, was paroled later in the year, and returned to his [[Roseacres, Mississippi|Mound Place Plantation]] in Mississippi. In 1863, he was elected to the Mississippi state legislature, where he joined critics of [[President of the Confederate States of America|Confederate President]] [[Jefferson Davis]].<ref>Allardice, Bruce S. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=d7kKuAZFDu0C&dq=Alcorn%20was%20taken%20prisoner%20in%20Arkansas%20in%201862&pg=PA17 More Generals in Gray, A Companion Volume to Generals in Gray.]'' Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 1995, p. 17.</ref>

During the war, Alcorn spent a fortune raising and supplying troops. Additionally, in 1863 his plantation was raided by General [[Leonard Fulton Ross|Leonard Ross']] troops during the [[Yazoo Pass Expedition]], part of the [[Vicksburg Campaign]].<ref>{{cite book | last = Miller | first = Mary Carol | title = Lost Mansions of Mississippi: Volume II | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 2010 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=a2niviowphQC&pg=PP1 | pages = 116| isbn = 9781604737875 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Dumas | first = David | title = Yazoo Pass Expedition, a Driving Tour Guide | publisher = AuthorHouse | year = 2012 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=SPWxdOsnm7YC&pg=PP1 | pages = 22| isbn = 9781477275351 }}</ref> However, he managed to preserve part of his wealth during the war by trading cotton with the [[Northern United States|North]].<ref>Woodman,  	Harold D. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5miElUnk_bYC&dq=Alcorn's%20Mound%20Place%20Plantation&pg=PA219 King Cotton & His Retainers: Financing & Marketing the Cotton Crop of the South, 1800–1925.]'' Lexington, University of Kentucky Press, 1968, p. 219.</ref> In November 1863, Alcorn wrote to his wife: "I have been very busy hiding & selling my cotton. I have sold in all one hundred & eleven bales, I have now here ten thousand dollars in paper (Green backs) and one thousand dollars in gold."<ref>Robinson, Armstead L. [https://books.google.com/books?id=h3qop2781qcC&dq=I%20have%20been%20very%20busy%20hiding%20%26%20selling%20my%20cotton.%20I%20have%20sold%20in%20all%20one%20hundred%20%26%20eleven%20bales&pg=PA126 ''Bitter Fruits of Bondage: The Demise of Slavery and the Collapse of the Confederacy, 1861–1865.''] Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005, p. 126.</ref> After the war, he was estimated to be among the fifty wealthiest men in the South.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}}

Alcorn lost two sons to the war. His older son, Milton Stewart Alcorn, committed suicide in 1879 after returning home from the war partially deaf and a [[Alcoholism|drunkard]]. An inscription on the monument at the family cemetery attributes James' death to the "insane war of rebellion" (apparently his father's words). Seventeen-year-old Henry "Hal" Alcorn ran away during the war to join the military against his father's wishes, became ill, and was left behind and captured. He was held in [[Camp Chase]] and made his way to [[Richmond, Virginia]] after the surrender. He died of [[typhoid fever]] en route to Mississippi.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}}

==Postbellum career==
[[File:James L. Alcorn - Brady-Handy.jpg|thumb|upright|Senator James L. Alcorn]]
[[File:Grave of James Lusk Alcorn.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Alcorn's grave in Coahoma County, Mississippi]]

Alcorn was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1865. However, he was prohibited from being seated in Congress, like all those disqualified from office for insurrection or rebellion against the United States for their participation in the Confederacy.<ref name="BDA1906" /> He supported [[suffrage]] for [[freedman|freedmen]] and endorsed the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]]. Alcorn became the leader of the [[scalawags]], who comprised about a fourth of the Republican officials in the state, in coalition with [[carpetbaggers]], African-Americans who had been free before the outbreak of the Civil War, and freedmen. Mississippi had a majority of African-Americans, the overwhelming majority of whom were freedmen. They had no desire to vote for the Democratic Party, which had carried the 1868 elections by intimidation and violence against blacks.

Thus the vast majority of votes for Republican candidates came from African-Americans, even though most of the Republican state officeholders in Mississippi were whites. In the [[1869 Mississippi gubernatorial election|1869 election]], James Alcorn was elected governor of Mississippi, defeating [[Ulysses S. Grant]]'s brother-in-law [[Lewis Dent]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Abbott |first1=Richard |title=For Free Press and Equal Rights: Republican Newspapers in the Reconstruction South |date=2004 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=0820325279 |page=138}}</ref> Alcorn served as governor until 1871.<ref name="BDA1906" /> As a modernizer, he appointed many like-minded former Whigs, some since Democrats. He strongly supported [[State school|public schools]] for all and a new college exclusively for blacks, now known as [[Alcorn State University]]. He maneuvered to make his ally, [[Hiram Rhodes Revels|Hiram Revels]], the institution's president. Irritated at his patronage policy, many Republicans opposed Alcorn. They were concerned as well over his understanding of African-American interests. His hostility to a state civil rights bill was well known; so was his unwillingness to appoint local black officers where a white alternative could be found. One complained that Alcorn's policy was to see "the old civilization of the South ''modernized''" rather than lead a total political, social, and economic revolution.<ref>Quoted in Eric Foner. (1988) ''Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877'', p. 298.</ref>

Alcorn resigned from the governorship to become a U.S. senator, with service from 1871 to 1877, when he was succeeded by [[L. Q. C. Lamar]].<ref name="BDA1906" /> He succeeded his ally, Hiram Revels, the first African American senator.  Senator Alcorn urged the removal of the political disabilities of white southerners and rejected Republican proposals to end segregation in hotels, restaurants, and railroad cars by federal legislation;<ref>See ''Congressional Globe'', 42 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 246–47</ref> he denounced the federal cotton tax as robbery,<ref>See ''Congressional Globe'', 42 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 2730–33</ref> and defended separate schools for both races in Mississippi. Although a former enslaver, he characterized slavery as "a cancer upon the body of the nation" and expressed the gratification he and many other Southerners felt over its destruction.<ref>See ''Congressional Globe'', 42 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 3424</ref>

===New South politics===
{{further|New South}}
Alcorn's estrangement from Senator Adelbert Ames, his northern-born colleague, deepened in 1871, as African-Americans became convinced that the former governor was not taking the problem of white terrorism seriously enough. Alcorn resisted federal action to suppress the [[Ku Klux Klan]], instead contending that state authorities were sufficient to handle the task. By 1873, the quarrel had deepened into an intense animosity. Both men ran for governor. Ames was supported by the Radicals and most African Americans, while Alcorn won the votes of most of the [[scalawag]]s, moderately Whiggish whites. Ames won by a vote of 69,870 to 50,490. Alcorn withdrew from active politics in the state and accused the new governor of being incapable and an enemy of the people.  When a second African-American senator, [[Blanche Bruce]], was elected in 1874, Alcorn refused to follow the customary procedure of introducing his new colleague to the Senate.<ref>March 5, 1875. [https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Alcorns_Great_Insult.htm Alcorn's Great Insult]. ''United States Senate''. Retrieved March 13, 2022.</ref> Bruce was instead welcomed by New York senator [[Roscoe Conkling]], the leader of the congressional "[[Stalwarts (politics)|Stalwart]]" wing.

In 1875, when Reconstruction was fighting for its life against a campaign of violence from the Democrats, Alcorn emerged and led a white force against black Republicans at [[Friars Point, Mississippi|Friar's Point]]. The aftermath led to at least five black people being killed.

During the Reconstruction period, Alcorn was an advocate of modernizing the South. Although a believer in [[white supremacy]], he supported civil and political rights for African-Americans. In a letter to his wife (Amelia Alcorn, née Glover, of [[Rosemount (Forkland, Alabama)|Rosemount Plantation]] in southern [[Alabama]]), he states that white Southerners must make African Americans their friend or the path ahead will be "red with blood and damp with tears."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RfXGJBB1HvoC&q=%22path+ahead%22+%22be+red+with+blood+and+damp+with+tears.%22&pg=PA7|title=Lives of Mississippi Authors, 1817–1967|year=1981|page=7|access-date=September 14, 2015|isbn=9781617034183}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7SNNPRRnToC&q=%22red+with+blood+and+damp+with+tears.%22&pg=PA28|title=After Appomattox: How the South Won the War|first=Stetson|last=Kennedy|page=28|access-date=September 14, 2015|quote=We must make the Negro our friend. We can do this if we will. Should we make him our enemy under the prompting of the Yankees, whose aim is to force us to recognize him on a basis of equality, then our path lies through a way red with blood and damp with tears.|isbn=9780813013411|year=1995}}</ref> Alcorn founded the Mississippi levee system and was instrumental in rebuilding the structures after the Civil War.

After he retired from politics, he was active in levee affairs. He was a delegate to the Mississippian constitutional convention of 1890,<ref name="BDA1906" /> in which he supported the black disenfranchisement clause that the state's Democrats had introduced in the new constitution. He was twice married: in 1839 to Mary C. Stewart of Kentucky, who died in 1849; and in 1850 to Amelia Walton Glover of Alabama. In his later life, Alcorn practiced law in [[Friars Point, Mississippi|Friars Point]], Mississippi, and lived quietly at his home, [[Eagles Nest, Mississippi|''Eagle's Nest'']], in [[Coahoma County]]. He was interred upon his death in 1894 in Eagle's Nest at the Alcorn Cemetery in Friars Point.<ref name="BDA1906" /><ref>Riley, Franklin Lafayette. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=rEgTAAAAYAAJ&dq=Alcorn+had+a+statue+made+of+himself+and+after+his+death+it+was+put+on+his+grave&pg=PA250 Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society]'', Volume 6.</ref> Alcorn commissioned a statue of himself, and after his death, it was placed on his grave.

==Honors==
[[Alcorn County, Mississippi]] is named in his honor, as is the [[Historically black colleges and universities|historically black]] Alcorn State University, the first black [[land-grant university]].

==See also==
*[[List of American Civil War Generals (Acting Confederate)]]

==References==
{{reflist|30em|refs=
<ref name="BDA1906">{{harvnb|Johnson|1906|p=67}}</ref>
}}

==Sources==
{{CongBio|A000079|accessdate=2008-08-12}}
* {{BDA1906 |wstitle= Alcorn, James Lusk |volume= 1 |page=67 |short=}}
* Harris, William C. (1979), ''[https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=61592900 The Day of the Carpetbagger: Republican Reconstruction in Mississippi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110326025315/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=61592900 |date=March 26, 2011 }}''.
* Harris, William C. (1967), ''Presidential Reconstruction in Mississippi''. Louisiana State University Press.
* Pereyra, Lillian A. (1966), ''James Lusk Alcorn: Persistent Whig''. LSU Press, the standard scholarly biography.
* Riley, Franklin Lafayette (1928), "Alcorn, James Lusk" in ''[[Dictionary of American Biography]]'', Volume 1.

==External links==
*{{commons category-inline}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-ppo}}
{{s-bef|before=Beriah B. Eggleston}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] nominee for [[List of Governors of Mississippi|Governor of Mississippi]]|years=[[1869 Mississippi gubernatorial election|1869]]}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Adelbert Ames]]}}
{{s-off}}
{{succession box
|title=[[List of Governors of Mississippi|Governor of Mississippi]]
|before=[[Adelbert Ames]]
|after=[[Ridgley C. Powers]]
|years=March 10, 1870{{spaced ndash}}November 30, 1871
}}
{{s-par|us-sen}}
{{U.S. Senator box
|state=Mississippi
|class=2
|before=[[Hiram Rhodes Revels|Hiram R. Revels]]
|after=[[Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (II)|Lucius Q. C. Lamar]]
|alongside=[[Adelbert Ames]], [[Henry R. Pease]] and [[Blanche Bruce|Blanche K. Bruce]]
|years=March 4, 1871{{spaced ndash}}March 3, 1877
}}
{{s-end}}

{{Governors of Mississippi}}
{{USSenMS}}
{{Mississippi Constitution signatories|state=collapsed}}
{{Portal bar|Biography|American Civil War|Mississippi|Politics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alcorn, James L.}}
[[Category:1816 births]]
[[Category:1894 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Golconda, Illinois]]
[[Category:Cumberland College (Princeton, Kentucky) alumni]]
[[Category:Governors of Mississippi]]
[[Category:Mississippi state senators]]
[[Category:Members of the Mississippi House of Representatives]]
[[Category:Whig Party members of the Kentucky House of Representatives]]
[[Category:Mississippi Republicans]]
[[Category:Mississippi lawyers]]
[[Category:Kentucky sheriffs]]
[[Category:Confederate militia generals]]
[[Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent]]
[[Category:People of Mississippi in the American Civil War]]
[[Category:Republican Party United States senators from Mississippi]]
[[Category:Republican Party governors of Mississippi]]
[[Category:People from Coahoma County, Mississippi]]
[[Category:19th-century American lawyers]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Illinois]]
[[Category:United States senators who owned slaves]]
[[Category:19th-century United States senators]]
[[Category:19th-century members of the Kentucky General Assembly]]
[[Category:19th-century members of the Mississippi Legislature]]