Murphy J. Foster
Murphy J. Foster | |
---|---|
United States Senator from Louisiana | |
In office March 4, 1901 – March 3, 1913 | |
Preceded by | Donelson Caffery |
Succeeded by | Joseph E. Ransdell |
31st Governor of Louisiana | |
In office May 10, 1892 – May 8, 1900 | |
Lieutenant | |
Preceded by | Francis T. Nicholls |
Succeeded by | William Wright Heard |
Member of the Louisiana State Senate from the 10th district | |
In office 1880–1892 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Murphy James Foster January 12, 1849 Franklin, Louisiana |
Died | June 12, 1921 Franklin, Louisiana | (aged 72)
Political party | Democratic |
Spouses | Florence Daisy Hine Foster
(m. 1877; died 1877)Rose Routh Ker Foster
(m. 1881) |
Children | 10 |
Parent(s) | Thomas J. and Martha P. Murphy Foster |
Relatives | Mike Foster (grandson) |
Alma mater |
|
Signature | |
Murphy James Foster (January 12, 1849 – June 12, 1921) was the
Louisiana followed Mississippi (1890) and other southern states in adopting a new constitution with devices to disfranchise blacks, then a majority in the state, chiefly by making voter registration more difficult. This situation of discriminatory political exclusion was not corrected until after enforcement of constitutional rights by the federal government under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Early life
Foster was born in 1849 on his family's sugar cane plantation near
In 1879, Foster "was elected member of the John McEnery legislature, but owing to the fact that this government was never recognized and that the Kellogg government was, did not take his seat."[4]
On May 15, 1877, Foster married Florence Daisy Hine, the daughter of Franklin merchant T.D. Hine. She died on August 26, 1877, at age 19. In 1881, he married Rose Routh Ker, daughter of Captain John Ker and the former Rose Routh of Ouida Plantation in
Road to governorship
Prior to being elected and serving as governor, Foster served as a state senator from 1880 to 1892. In 1892, he was elected governor as the
First term as governor
His
Foster appointed Thomas M. Wade of Newellton, another Tensas Parish legislator, to the state board of education. Wade later served as the long-term Tensas Parish school superintendent.[6]
Foster appointed
In 1896, Foster directed state troopers to forcefully overthrow Louisiana's last enclave of Republican and African-American office holders in St. John the Baptist Parish.[8]
Challenge by John N. Pharr and second term
In the 1896 general election, Foster was re-elected as the incumbent. He defeated the
With the assistance of the Regular Democratic Organization political machine based in New Orleans,[11] Foster officially received 116,116 votes (57 percent) to Pharr's 87,698 ballots (43 percent). The election, however, suffered heavily from fraud which benefited Foster, and widespread violence to suppress black Republican voting. A clear accounting of the election results is probably not possible.[12]
Subsequently, as governor, Foster signed off on the new Louisiana Constitution of 1898, establishing a variety of voter registration requirements that would "disenfranchise blacks, Republicans, and white Populists."[13] (All of these categories of voters had voted overwhelmingly for John N. Pharr, and similar coalitions gained governorships and/or congressional seats in some southern states. The new constitution ensured that Louisiana would become a one-party state, and it was part of the "Solid South" Democratic hegemony for the next six decades.)
After Foster's reelection in 1896, Louisiana general elections were non-competitive; the only competition took place in Democratic primaries. Voter rolls were sharply reduced by the new initiatives, and blacks and other groups were excluded from the political system. The white-controlled legislature imposed racial segregation and
Senator and customs official
After leaving the office of governor in 1900, Foster was elected by the state legislature as a U.S. senator.[4] He served until 1913, when he lost the Democratic nomination. Thereafter, he was appointed as the customs collector in New Orleans by President Woodrow Wilson. This Southerner achieved office because he gained an Electoral College bonus following disfranchisement of blacks in the South and hobbling of the Republican Party.[16]
Death
Foster died on June 12, 1921, on the Dixie Plantation near Franklin, some nine years before his grandson and namesake, a future governor of the state, was born.[17]
Legacy
He was a member of The Boston Club of New Orleans.[18]
Foster worked to maintain white supremacy in Louisiana through his support of the Louisiana Constitution of 1898, which practically disfranchised blacks. He also led the fight which succeeded in outlawing the Louisiana Lottery Co. Foster fought for the interest of sugar growers and supported flood-control legislation and the regulation of railway rates.
Foster was the last governor of Louisiana to serve two consecutive 4-year terms until
Because blacks were disfranchised under his administration, Democratic candidates in the state did not encounter serious challenges from Republicans until 1963. At the beginning of a realignment of party identification in the South, that year
In 1997, Foster was
His grandson,
Notes
- Earl K. Long served part of one term and all of two other terms, but the terms were not consecutive; Jimmie Davisserved two nonconsecutive 4-year terms.
References
- ^ Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism. "Murphy James Foster Historical Marker".
- ^ Firestone, David (July 30, 2000). "Identity Restored to 100,000 Louisiana Slaves". The New York Times. p. 1. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
- ^ "Murphy James Foster". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved August 27, 2023.
- ^ a b "S. Doc. 58-1 - Fifty-eighth Congress. (Extraordinary session -- beginning November 9, 1903.) Official Congressional Directory for the use of the United States Congress. Compiled under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing by A.J. Halford. Special edition. Corrections made to November 5, 1903". GovInfo.gov. U.S. Government Printing Office. November 9, 1903. p. 40. Retrieved July 2, 2023.
- ^ "Routh Trowbridge Wilby/Murphy J. Foster Family Collection". University Libraries. May 22, 2015. Retrieved August 27, 2023.
- ^ Yearbook of American Clan Gregor Society, pp. 101-103. Richmond, Virginia: Appeals Press, 1916, Egbert Watson Magruder, ed. 1916. Retrieved July 18, 2013.
- ^ "Bailey, William B." Louisiana Historical Association. Archived from the original on March 15, 2016. Retrieved May 8, 2016.
- JSTOR 4230624.
- ^ "Clarke, Lewis Strong". Louisiana Historical Association, A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography (lahistory.com). Archived from the original on February 25, 2012. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
- Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UniversityStudies, 1963, p. 24
- ^ Governor Murphy James Foster Archived October 11, 2009, at the Wayback Machine in Encyclopedia Louisiana (retrieved December 28, 2009).
- ^ Henry E. Chambers, History of Louisiana, Vol. 2 (Chicago: American Historical Society, 1925), pp. 15-16. See the excerpt on John N. Pharr's son, Henry Newton Pharr, at http://files.usgwarchives.org/la/iberia/bios/pharrhn.txt Archived March 3, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. See also Pharr, Texas, namesake of Henry N. Pharr.
- tantamount to election.
- Murphy J. Foster.
- Jared Y. Sanders, Sr.#Legislature to governorship. For a summary of the Pharr family papers, see "Manuscript Resources on the Sugar Industry in the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections". Archived from the original on June 27, 2009. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). See also Henry Newton Pharr, Pharrs and Farrs, with other descendants from five Scots-Irish pioneers in America, also some other Farrs and miscellaneous data (New Orleans: N.p., 1955), and Horack Talley site for Henry N. Pharr III. Archived May 7, 2010, at the Wayback Machine - ^ Richard M. Valelly, The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement University of Chicago Press, 2009, pp. 146-147
- ^ "Murphy J. Foster, Distinguished Son of Louisiana, Dies". Shreveport Journal. Franklin, Louisiana. June 13, 1921. p. 1. Retrieved March 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "History of the Boston club, organized in 1841, by Stuart O. Landry".
- ^ "Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame". cityofwinnfield.com. Archived from the original on July 3, 2009. Retrieved August 22, 2009.
External links
- State of Louisiana - Biography
- Cemetery Memorial by La-Cemeteries
- Congressional Biography