"C" is for Conservative Party

"C" is for Conservative Party. The term “Conservative Party” has a distinct meaning in southern history in general and in South Carolina history in particular. It refers to the organization that led to the overthrow of Republican Reconstruction and dominated southern politics until the agrarian revolt of the 1890s. In South Carolina it began specifically with the election of Confederate hero Wade Hampton III as governor in 1876 and ending with the election of Benjamin R. Tillman in 1890. South Carolina Conservatives saw themselves as redeeming their state from alien forces. Although the Conservatives led their state for only fourteen years, the South Carolina they constructed—of white supremacy, of the holiness of the Democratic Party, of reverence for the Confederacy—predominated until well into the second half of the twentieth century.