James Shepherd Pike (September 8, 1811 – November 29, 1882) was an American journalist[1] and a historian ofSouth Carolina during theReconstruction Era. He was born in 1811 inCalais,Massachusetts (in the part of that state that was made the state ofMaine in 1820).
From 1850 to 1860 he was the chief Washington correspondent and associate editor of theNew York Tribune.[1] TheTribune was the chief source of news and commentary for many Republican newspapers across the country. Republican editors reprinted his dispatches prior to the outbreak of theAmerican Civil War. In 1854 he led the fight against theKansas-Nebraska Act, calling for the formation of a new political entity to oppose it. Pike wrote that a "solid phalanx of aggression rears its black head everywhere south of Mason and Dixon's line, banded for the propagation of Slavery all over the continent."[2] His reports were, "widely quoted, bitterly attacked or enthusiastically praised; they exerted a profound influence upon public opinion and gave to their author national prominence, first as an uncompromising anti-slavery Whig, and later as an ardent Republican."[3]
PresidentAbraham Lincoln appointed Pike to be minister to theNetherlands, where he foughtConfederate diplomatic efforts and promoted the Union war aims from 1861 to 1866.[4] On returning to Washington in 1866, Pike resumed writing for theNew York Tribune and also wrote editorials for the New YorkSun.
Pike was an outspokenRadical Republican, standing withThaddeus Stevens andCharles Sumner and opposing PresidentAndrew Johnson. Long before black suffrage became a major issue Pike had come to believe that the freed slaves must be given the vote. Pike in 1866–67 strongly supported Black suffrage and the disqualification of most ex-Confederates from holding office.[5]
Pike did not admireUlysses S. Grant as a politician, and drifted away from the Republican party. By 1872 Pike was disenchanted with Blacksuffrage and the corruption and failures of Reconstruction. He argued the federal government should withdraw its soldiers from the Southern states.[6] He was a strong supporter of theLiberal Republican movement that in 1872 opposed PresidentUlysses Grant, denouncing the corruption of his administration.[7] Pike's boss,New York Tribune editorHorace Greeley, was the Liberal Republican nominee in 1872. Greeley lost to Grant by a landslide, then died. The new editor of theTribuneWhitelaw Reid sent Pike to South Carolina to study the conditions in the deep South under Reconstruction.[8]
In 1873 Pike touredSouth Carolina and published a series of newspaper articles detailing his observations ofReconstruction era government, later compiled into the influential bookThe Prostrate State: South Carolina under Negro Government.[9] Pike depicted the South Carolina legislature as corrupt, incompetent, and dominated by what he called “a mass of black barbarism,” advocating a return of political power to white elites.[10]
