All the grand pronouncements about elections that you hear every campaign season about how fundamental they are to a free society are all true: elections are the lifeblood of democracy, the heartbeat of freedom. An election is the structure through which a free people can determine their future, and usher in a peaceful and civilized transfer of power.
It is also true that we cannot take any of that for granted.
We in modern America are painfully aware of this now, but there have been other times in US history when elections were flagrantly undermined and manipulated by the very people asking citizens for the honor to lead them.
This is the story of one of those elections and how it changed American history.
When I first caught the political bug while attending The George Washington University in the early 1990s, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to participate or report on them. I quickly realized that my passion was not any one ideology or political philosophy, but rather learning about all of it. I was deeply curious about the different points of view about government and how big or small it should be, and also the fascinating characters running for and holding elected office.
Since then, I’ve reported on campaigns and elections—mostly for national government but also countless gubernatorial and mayoral races across the country.
I have witnessed the best and the worst of the process, from standing on the press riser and watching the nobility of John McCain’s 2008 concession speech, to the chaos of 2020. I’ve been privileged to interview a great number of notable candidates, serve as a moderator for multiple significant debates over the years, and now anchor and coanchor two programs on CNN.
My feelings about covering elections haven’t changed at all. I still love it. Maybe even more than ever before. That is certainly one reason the election we write about in this book resonated so strongly with me.
While the structure is the same, every election has its own set of issues that appeal to or repel voters, personalities that captivate the public, and general rhythms and cadences defined by both the calendar and the world around us.
But few elections are as unique or have had the lasting impact on America as Louisiana’s 1872 gubernatorial election.
Until we began our research, I am embarrassed to say that I knew virtually nothing about this incredibly consequential election that took place a century and a half ago. It turns out that few people do. But as I began learning the details, it brought me new understanding to the most memorable interview I have ever done.
In 2018, I spoke with legendary civil rights leader John Lewis as we stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. On that bridge more than fifty years earlier, Lewis was beaten almost to death during the historic march to Montgomery in a quest to earn the most basic fundamental right for African Americans—the right to vote.
While I certainly didn’t know it at that time, there exists a direct connection between this long-forgotten 1872 election in Louisiana and the inspirational life of John Lewis. The election in question had a negative impact on the lives of Black voters all across the South who had a chance for real freedom after the Civil War and Reconstruction that followed, but instead became disenfranchised and systemically discriminated against for more than a century.
Its echoes are still felt today.
Louisiana’s 1872 gubernatorial election is also a cautionary tale because of the astonishing parallels between that election and some of the events, players and words used in American politics today.
There are direct quotes on these pages, statements made more than a hundred and fifty years ago, that easily could have been spoken by today’s politicians. But those parallels only tell half the story; it is what happened afterward that is chilling.
The events that took place in the four years following the 1872 election not only escalated into a national dispute that resulted in the controversial presidential election of 1876, an election literally decided by one man, it also led to the Supreme Court decision that essentially ended Reconstruction and legalized the segregated society that would bring John Lewis to the Edmund Pettus Bridge more than a century later.
Democracy has often been referred to as an experiment. This is the story of what happened—and what can happen again—when that experiment fails.
Dana Bash