Was the Battle of Liberty Place a “Race Riot”?

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Was the Battle of Liberty Place a “Race Riot”?By Philip Leigh July 22, 2021

 Although commonly portrayed as one of the largest mob attacks on blacks by white racists during Reconstruction, the so-called 1874 Battle of Liberty Place in New Orleans was really a conflict between the militias of two competing state governments.

 The story begins in 1868 with the election of Carpetbagger Henry Warmoth as Louisiana’s first elected Republican governor. To ensure future Republican victories at the polls, in 1870 his legislature established a five-man Election Returning Board, which had final authority to determine the outcome of all major elections. It is perhaps the most egregious example of how Reconstruction-era Republican Puppet Regimes used control of the election machinery to force their will on the people.

 At the end of Warmoth’s four-year term in 1872 the state’s Republican Party split for two reasons. First was an internecine fight over the distribution of political patronage within the state. Second, was a consequence of a split in the national Party between “stalwarts” and “liberals.” The stalwarts backed President Ulysses Grant whereas the liberals wanted civil service reform to minimize patronage corruption. Nationally, the Democrats joined the Republican liberals in backing Horace Greeley for President.

 Similarly, in Louisiana Henry Warmoth’s liberal Republicans backed Democrat John McEnery for governor and David Penn for Lieutenant Governor.       https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/was-the-battle-of-liberty-place-a-race-riot/