Rainey Won A Fourth Term, But…
In 1876, Rainey won re-election from the Charleston against Democrat John Smith Richardson. But Richardson challenged the results on the grounds of intimidation. He claimed federal soldiers and Black militia groups were at the polling places. That year, Democrats took control of the state government, and the next year the federal government withdrew its troops from the South as part of a national compromise; Reconstruction was ended. And in 1878, Rainey, who warned President Rutherford Hayes of increasing terrorism and violence meant to prevent the Black vote in South Carolina, was defeated by Richardson. White Democrats used their dominance of the state legislature to pass laws for segregation and Jim Crow and poll taxes and other voter suppression tactics. By 1895, a new state constitution stripped most Blacks of voting rights and political power, which would be upheld until the 1960s.
