Byrd Organization

The Byrd machine, or Byrd organization, was a political machine of the Democratic Party led by former Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd (1887–1966) that controlled Virginian politics for 50 years.

Readjusters Party (Mahoneism)

William Mahone (1826-1895) was a railroad president before the Civil War, a general in the Confederate Army, and afterward one of the most controversial of all Virginia political leaders. Mahone led the Readjusters against what they believed was Bourbon domination. These reformers hoped to challenge the role of the Southern elite, reduce government debt, and provide more funds for public education.

After the Civil War, U.S. Senator William Mahone created the first political machine with support from Black voters and Black-elected officials. The Readjusters were voted out of office by 1883, and their goals of separate but relatively equal funding for education and the elimination of poll taxes that kept poor people of all races from voting were defeated.

As founder of the Readjuster Party, which tried to reduce the amount of the expensive antebellum state debt that the taxpayers had to pay, Mahone formed a coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and Black citizens. The Readjusters attained control of the General Assembly in 1879 and in 1881 elected Mahone to a six-year term in the United States Senate. Mahone lost the support of most Democrats due to the political alliance he and the Republicans had forged with the state's many Black voters. By the end of the century, both major political parties had rejected participation of Black citizens in Virginian politics. The biracial political alliance that Mahone created during the 1870s and 1880s was radically different from any other nineteenth-century Virginian political party before or after. Mahone was one of many white Virginians who attempted to succeed in politics by accepting the enfranchisement of Black citizens after the Civil War. His short-term success demonstrated what was possible, but his long-term failure illustrated the limits of what was attainable.

Martin Organization

Thomas S. Martin (1847–1919), a Scottsville-born, twenty-six year Senator, created a political machine that was responsible for the 1902 revised state constitution that formalized Virginia's Jim Crow laws. Martin became a prominent political figure on the national scene, ultimately becoming the figurehead of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party during the early part of the twentieth century.

Byrd Organization

Harry F. Byrd (1887–1966) was the most powerful political leader in twentieth-century Virginia. A member of the Democratic party, he served as a Virginia state senator (1915–1925), governor (1926–1930), and United States senator (1933–1965).