West Virginia: Postwar Political Changes and the Hatfield-McCoy Feud
Postwar Political Changes and the Hatfield-McCoy Feud
Slavery was abolished in 1865, but it was not until 1872 that the state allowed African Americans to vote and to hold public office. In 1866 Radical Republicans disenfranchised all persons who had aided the Confederacy, but after the Democrats came to power (which they held for 25 years thereafter), this act was annulled (1871) by the Flick Amendment.
In 1885 the capital, which had been shuttled back and forth between Wheeling and Charleston, became fixed at Charleston. Three years earlier, along the border region between West Virginia and Kentucky, there had begun the now famous Hatfield-McCoy feud, which was to encompass many killings and embroil the governors of the two states in lengthy and heated controversy. The blood of West Virginia Hatfields and Kentucky McCoys was shed until 1896.
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- Late-Twentieth-Century Developments
- Industrial Expansion and the Labor Movement
- Postwar Political Changes and the Hatfield-McCoy Feud
- Civil War and the Creation of West Virginia
- Growth and Estrangement from Eastern Virginia
- The American Revolution
- Early Inhabitants and European Settlement
- Government, Politics, and Higher Education
- Economy
- Geography
- Facts and Figures
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