Politics of the Southern United States

Southern politics refer to the political landscape of the Southern United States. Due to the region's unique cultural and historic heritage with slavery, the American South has been prominently involved in numerous political issues between Democrats and Republicans faced by the United States as a whole, including States' rights, slavery, Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement. The region was a "Solid South" voting heavily for Democratic candidates for president, and for state and local offices, from the 1870s to the 1960s. Its Congressmen gained seniority and controlled many committees. In presidential politics the South moved into the Republican camp in 1968 and ever since, with exceptions when the Democrats nominated a Southerner. Since the 1990s control of state and much local politics has turned Republican in every state.

According to the United States Census Bureau the following states are considered part of the "south."

Other definitions can be more exclusive or more expansive. This represents a region of the United States with a diverse physical and cultural geography.. Missouri is not shown on many maps as a southern state and is considered a border state, yet many Missourians claim that Missouri is in the South.

The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868 placed most of the southern states under military rule, requiring Union Army governors to approve appointed officials and candidates for election. They enfranchised black citizens and required voters to recite an oath of allegiance to the US Constitution (including the 14th Amendment), which effectively barred passionate supporters of the rebel cause from voting, though enforcement was far from universal. Democrats had regained power in most Southern states by the late 1870s, and began to pass laws to restrict black voting in a period they came to refer to as Redemption. From 1890–1908 states of the former Confederacy passed statutes and amendments to their state constitutions that effectively disfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites in the South through devices such as poll taxes, and literacy tests.

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