Obstructing Reconstruction: John Archibald Campbell and the Legal Campaign Against Louisiana's Republican Government, 1868-1873

The Supreme Court, Reconstruction, and the Meaning of the Civil War

“…While some white Southerners turned to violence to fight the new order, a cohort of reactionary lawyers turned to briefs rather than bullets in the effort to destroy the biracial governments in the South. 29 The legal fight launched by Campbell and other attorneys in Louisiana targeted state laws like the one passed by the Republicandominated state legislature that made it a criminal offense to deny African Americans entry to hotels, steamboats, railroad cars, barrooms, and other public places. Campbell's "rule or ruin" legal campaign also included litigation designed to obstruct needed economic development and sanitation projects.…”