page_title: Henry M. Mathews
section_title: Political rise
hierarchical_section_title: Henry M. Mathews / Political career / Political rise
caption_attribution_description: English: 'Death to Bourbonism' Cartoon
context_page_description: Henry Mason Mathews was an American military officer, lawyer, and politician in the U.S. State of West Virginia. Mathews served as 7th Attorney General of West Virginia and 5th Governor of West Virginia, being the first former Confederate elected to a governorship in the United States. Born into a Virginia political family, Mathews practiced law before the outbreak of the American Civil War. When Virginia seceded from the United States in 1861, he volunteered for the Confederate States Army, where he served in the western theater as a major of artillery. Following the war, Mathews was elected to the West Virginia Senate, but denied the seat due to state restrictions for former Confederates. He participated in the 1872 state constitutional convention that overturned these restrictions, and was thereafter elected attorney general of West Virginia. After one term, he was elected governor of West Virginia.
  Mathews was identified as a Redeemer, the southern wing of the conservative, pro-business Bourbon faction of the Democratic Party that sought to oust the Radical Republicans who had come to power across the postwar South.
context_section_description: While at war Mathews' reputation as a fledgling leader had spread through his home state. In a post-war state that was dominated by the Republican party, Mathews, a Democrat, was elected to the West Virginia Senate in 1865 but was not allowed to serve due to the restriction that prohibited former Confederates from holding public office. As Democratic support increased in subsequent years, state Republicans amended the West Virginia State Constitution to return state rights to former Confederates in an attempt to appeal to voters. However, the effort backfired as the Democratic party quickly regained control of the legislature.
  Mathews was sent as a Democratic delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1872 to overhaul the 1863 Republican-drafted state constitution. The drafting of this new constitution, of which Mathews was a part, enabled his rise in the politics of the state. The following year, 1873, Mathews was elected 7th attorney general of the state under Governor John J. Jacobs, succeeding Joseph Sprigg, and served one term in which his popularity within his party rose.
  At the conclusion of his term as attorney general, Mathews defeated Republican Nathan Goff by 15,000 votes in the most one-sided race for governor in state history at that time. Thus, on March 4, 1877, Mathews became 5th governor of West Virginia, and the first Confederate veteran in the United States to be elected to a governorship. Mathews' conservative, pro-business platform aligned him with the Bourbon Democratic movement sweeping the South. Mathews was the first of the Bourbons to ascend to a governorship, though many would follow all over the South in the 1880s.
caption: An 1870s political cartoon calling for "Death to Bourbonism"
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