ABSTRACT
In Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas and the Border States, the interests of black labor were never in the ascendant; but from the first there was a battle between carpetbaggers and planters to control white and black labor. Florida was a poor state with a small population. It had been dominated by rich planters and the poor whites had had little opportunity. The state therefore in many respects resembles South Carolina rather than Alabama in that the black man was the dominant labor and no white proletariat ever ruled. Harrison Reed was a Johnson Democrat and formerly chief postal agent in Florida. Reed's administration started out with strength and respectability, but it was weak because of lack of recognition of the colored people. His opponents, therefore, tried one method of attacking him by introducing a civil rights bill, compelling hotel keepers and railroad companies to receive Negroes on the same terms as whites.
