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North Carolina's Governors
Daniel Lindsay Russell, Jr. (1845-1908) was elected to office by the uneasy Fusion alliance of Republicans and Populists in the bitter and racially charged election of 1896. The "Maverick Republican" was born in Brunswick County. At age six, he went to live at the Onslow County home of his grandfather. Russell studied at the Bingham School and the University of North Carolina; the Civil War cut short his education. Russell was nineteen when he was elected in 1864 to the state House. He won election as a Superior Court judge, remaining in that position for six years. In 1878 he ran for the U.S. House and served a single term. Out of political office, he castigated the Democrats for their use of the racial issue, charging that blacks had been innocent victims of white barbarity. By the early 1890s agrarian unrest and economic depression split the Democratic Party. An alliance with Populists resulted in victories in 1896 that removed control of the legislature from the Democrats and placed Republican Russell in the governor's office. During Russell's administration, the Railroad Commission gave way to a Corporate Commission and a new law provided for popular election of the Commissioner of Agriculture. Some of the greatest gains came in education. One of Russell's disappointments was his inability to recover the North Carolina Railroad from its lease to the Southern Railway. In the last two years of his term, the Democratic Party resurrected the racial issue and staged the "Red Shirt" campaign, capturing the legislature and many state offices. The Democrats virtually negated any gubernatorial powers, witness Russell's ineffectiveness in using state troops to quell the 1898 Wilmington race riot. Further insult followed when Russell was forced to accept the "grandfather clause" effectively prohibiting blacks from voting. After leaving office, Russell returned to Brunswick County to try to recoup financial losses due to agricultural failures. At his death in May 1908, his estate cleared only $1,000. Russell is buried in a family plot at Belgrade in Onslow County.
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