The judicial and congressional
nominations were divided. The apparent inconsistency of voting for Bryan
for President and at the same time supporting Republicans who might be
expected to oppose him in Congress was accepted without flinching.
According to the bargain made two years before, when a Republican was
sent to the United States Senate for an unexpired term by the aid of the
Populist votes, Senator Pritchard was reelected.
[Footnote 1: _The Agrarian Crusade,_ by Solon J. Buck (in _The
Chronicles of America_).]
The experience of North Carolina with fusion government was a reminder
of the Reconstruction days. The Republicans had dilated upon "local
self-government" and the Populists had swallowed the bait. The
Legislature changed the form of county government, by which the board of
county commissioners had been named by the justices of the peace, and
made the board elective. This turned over to the blacks counties in
which several of the largest towns in the State were situated. Negro
politicians were chosen to office, and lawlessness and violence
followed. In Wilmington there was an uprising of the whites, who took
possession of the city government by force. The Legislature was again
Democratic in 1898 and began to prepare an amendment which should
disfranchise a large proportion of the 125,000 negro voters of the
State.
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