OVERTHROW OF THE REPUBLICAN STATE GOVERNMENT IN MISSISSIPPI In the last preceding chapter it was stated that the reason for the sanguinary revolution, which resulted in the overthrow of the Republican state government in the State of Mississippi in 1875, would be given in a subsequent chapter.

What was true of Mississippi at that time was largely true of the other Reconstructed States where similar results subsequently followed.

When the War of the Rebellion came to an end it was believed by some, and apprehended by others, that serious and radical changes in the previous order of things would necessarily follow.
But when what was known as the Johnson Plan of Reconstruction was disclosed it was soon made plain that if that plan should be accepted by the country no material change would follow, for the reason, chiefly, that the abolition of slavery would have been abolition only in name.
While physical slavery would have been abolished, yet a sort of feudal or peonage system would have been established in its place, the effect of which would have been practically the same as the system which had been abolished.

The former slaves would have been held in a state of servitude through the medium of labor-contracts which they would have been obliged to sign,--or to have signed for them,--from which they, and their children, and, perhaps, their children's children could never have been released.

This would have left the old order of things practically unchanged.