Grand Army of the Republic

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was formed after the Civil War as a fraternal organization for veterans of the Union army. It was first organized in the spring of 1866 by a group of veterans in Springfield, Illinois, led by Dr. Benjamin F. Stephenson. GAR posts were established in several states, and their first National Encampment (the GAR’s version of a national convention) was held in November at

Indianapolis, Indiana. Initially, the GAR grew slowly, but between 1881 and 1882 its membership rose from approximately 87,718 to 131,900; by 1890 membership in the GAR reached 409,489, making it the largest and most powerful veterans’ organization in the United States.

Although it originally avoided political involvement, the GAR became a major political force, influencing several elections with its financial support and partisan electioneering for Republican candidates. The principal goals of the GAR were to increase pensions and other benefits for veterans and their families and to remember those who died in the war. The GAR was instrumental in securing the observance of Decoration Day (currently observed as Memorial Day, commemorating all war dead) in 1868 to honor those who gave their lives for the Union during the Civil War. The GAR successfully pressed for the 1879 Pension Arrears Act, which provided for back pensions (to the date of discharge) for disabled Union veterans. In 1887 Congress passed the Dependents Pension bill, granting a pension of $12 a month to all Union veterans suffering from any disability that prevented them from earning a living and gave the same pension to the dependent parents and widows of a deceased veteran. Although the GAR had lobbied Congress for many years to pass such a bill, President Grover Cleveland vetoed it, earning for himself the enmity of the GAR. In the 1888 presidential election, the GAR supported Benjamin Harrison, the Republican candidate. Harrison not only triumphed but the Republicans also carried both houses of Congress. In 1890 Congress passed and President Harrison signed the Dependents Pension Act, which embodied many of the same features of the earlier bill. The law doubled the number of pensioners from 490,000 to 966,00 and ensured that the GAR would remain a virtual wing of the Republican Party.

Further reading: Mary Dearing, Veterans in Politics: The Story of the G. A.R. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952); Stuart McConnell, Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

— Phillip Papas

Beginning with South Carolina in 1895, seven states used the grandfather clause, which declared that those who voted prior to January 1, 1867, and their lineal descendants were exempt from property, educational, or tax requirements for exercising the franchise. Following South Carolina, Louisiana (1898), North Carolina (1900), Alabama (1901), Virginia (1902), Georgia (1908), and Oklahoma (1910) adopted the grandfather clause. Although the grandfather clause was applicable for a limited period (except in Oklahoma), its effect in disfranchising black voters was devastating and lasting. For example, in Louisiana the already low African-American voter registration dropped from 130,734 in 1896 to 1,324 in 1904. Apart from Oklahoma, where blacks composed only 7 percent of the population, the states that employed the grandfather clause to suppress the black vote disfranchised either a majority or a substantial minority of their citizens and created a “lily white” electorate. The percentage of blacks in those states ranged from 58 percent in South Carolina to 33 percent in North Carolina.

The permanent grandfather clause was challenged in Oklahoma after election judges denied an African American the privilege of voting. They were indicted and convicted for conspiring to deny a citizen his constitutional rights under federal statutes. The U. S. Supreme Court heard the case of Guinn v. United States in 1913 and decided unanimously in 1915 that the grandfather clause obviously violated the Fifteenth Amendment and struck it down. The decision, however, had little practical effect, since the grandfather clause in other states had already disfranchised African Americans and had lapsed, and the small number of blacks in Oklahoma were disfranchised by other devices.

Further reading: Loren Miller, The Petitioners: The Story of the Supreme Court of the United States (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1967).

—William Seraile

Granger laws See railroads.

Granger movement See Patrons of Husbandry.