Lewis Eliphalet Parsons (1817-1895) was an attorney, state legislator, and provisional governor of Alabama during Presidential Reconstruction. He was elected to represent Alabama in the U.S. Senate but was rejected along with representatives of other former Confederate states by the Congress.


During the Civil War many Unionists fled Alabama or served in the Confederate Army, but Parsons continued practicing law in Talladega. As opposition to the Civil War mounted in 1863, Alabama voters chose a governor and legislature who advocated peace. Parsons returned to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1863, where he supported the Confederacy's use of slaves as soldiers and opposed the state militia system.
On May 29, 1865, President Andrew Johnson announced a plan of Reconstruction for the former Confederate states and on June 21 appointed Parsons, a respected, moderate Unionist, as the provisional governor of Alabama. He served until December 20, 1865. Parsons declared in force all Alabama laws enacted before January 11, 1861, except those regarding slavery, and retained in office former Confederate officeholders. Johnson's plan required prospective voters to swear an amnesty oath to the United States to regain their citizenship, and those disfranchised had to apply for a presidential pardon. As voter registration progressed, Parsons called for an election for delegates to a convention to revise the state constitution. In a proclamation Parsons reminded Alabamians that former slaves were now free and must be governed as free men by Alabama laws.
In a constitutional convention opened on September 12, 1865, representatives abolished slavery, repealed the ordinance of secession, and repudiated the state's wartime debt without controversy. Disagreements erupted, however, regarding which section of the state would control the legislature. The Black Belt had dominated antebellum state politics through apportionment of the legislature. Now after bitter argument the 1865 convention apportioned representation on the basis of only the white population, giving largely white north Alabama counties control of Reconstruction in Alabama. Years later Parsons reflected that he had "committed a great error" in not urging the convention to adopt qualified black suffrage. Had that step been taken, he believed that Alabama would have been recognized as a state and admitted to representation in Congress in 1865 or 1866, avoiding later Reconstruction turmoil. The convention adopted the revised constitution by proclamation and set an election for governor, legislature, and congressmen for November. In December the legislature elected Parsons to the U.S. Senate, but Congress rejected southern representatives.
After leaving office, Parsons continued to be politically influential while he resumed his Talladega law practice. In 1866 he was a delegate to the National Union Convention to mobilize support for Johnson's conservative approach to Reconstruction. In September 1867 the Democratic and Conservative Party was organized in Alabama; Parsons joined and became a party leader and in 1868 led the Alabama delegation to the Democratic National Convention.

The November 1868 Republican victory convinced Parsons that further opposition to Congressional Reconstruction was futile. He stunned contemporaries by defecting to the Republicans in September 1869. He later explained his actions, saying the 1868 election had ensured Republican control of the presidency and the Congress for the next four years. Having opposed Republicans "as long as it was worth while," Parsons believed it "would be better to make terms with them," work with them, and "acquire their confidence."
Parsons became a leader among the native white southern element of the Republican Party (known as scalawags) and became embroiled in party power struggles. He returned to the Alabama House of Representatives (1872-1874), where he served as speaker and assisted in killing proposed civil rights bills. In 1872, 1876, and 1880 Parsons was nominated as a Republican presidential elector and in 1872 was a delegate to the National Republican Convention, where he chaired the convention's platform committee. He favored moderation on civil rights and a moderate, white-dominated Republican Party.

Note: This entry was adapted with permission from Alabama Governors: A Political History of the State, edited by Samuel L. Webb and Margaret Armbrester (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001).
Additional Resources
Parsons, Henry. Parsons Family Descendants of Comet Joseph Parsons. Springfield, 1636-Northhampton, 1655. N.p., 1912
Wiggins, Sarah Woolfolk. The Scalawag in Alabama Politics, 1865-1881. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1977.