governor. ⁶ Northern-born and a long-time Unionist resident of Key
West, Marvin immediately acted to relieve uncertainty and to
arouse the defeated from their apathy. To prepare for Florida's
reentrance into the Union, a statewide election was held for del-
egates to a constitutional convention, ⁷ which met in Tallahassee
on October 24, 1865. Composed almost entirely of ex-Confed-
crates, the convention was dominated by the old plantation, small
town, port city oligarchy. Philosophically conservative, they
would later be call Bourbons by their political opponents.
Reactionary insofar as the blacks were concerned, their views
were based on paternalistic attitudes rather than racial hatred.
Many of them would become proponents of the New South con-
cept of Henry Grady and John B. Gordon. Northern investors such
as Henry Flagler would find them enthusiastic allies. Confronted
with the necessity and practicality of bringing Florida back into the
Union under Presidential Reconstruction, these ex-Confederates
annulled the Ordinance of Secession, then repealed the state law
which legalized slavery. They rejected Governor Marvin's recom-
mendation that civil rights be extended to the freedmen and
Florida's Civil War debt of $2,100,000 be repudiated. Not until
the convention was notified that repudiation was an inflexible
demand of President Johnson was it voted. The delegates also
reluctantly supported a watered-down civil rights bill. ⁸ It was
obvious that the role of the Negro had changed but not the attitude
of the white Floridian toward him.

Interest in state government continued at a low ebb. When the
state held its first postwar election to replace Governor Marvin's
provisional administration, Negroes were still denied the franchise,
and only four thousand whites went to the polls to give the Union-
ists a hollow victory. Since the voting strength in Florida prior
to the Civil War had been fourteen thousand, it was obvious that
the new governor, David S. Walker of Tallahassee, did not have
a clear mandate from the people. A former slaveholder, Walker
was a cousin and successor of long-time antebellum Whig and
Unionist leader General Richard Keith Call. ⁹ If left to his own
devices, Walker would follow a moderately conservative policy
and not disturb the ex-Confederate control of the state.

The new legislature was more aggressive than the similarly com-
posed convention. The old defeatist attitude was disappearing as
things returned to normal. As a stop-gap, a stringent Black Code

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