Intimidation was the program: the alleged attempt to lynch H. Seb. Doyle, "the rhetoric of corruption," and disfranchisement

In 1892, Seb Doyle, an African American preacher allegedly under the threat of death by a Democratic lynch mob for supporting Populist Congressman Tom Watson, became the center of a campaign discussion of race, politics, and corruption. The newspaper accounts that sought to make since of this and other events reveal the role the rhetoric of corruption played in the Populist Partys campaigns in the 1890s. Oddly enough, the Populists used a similar rhetoric as Democrats did against Republicans during Reconstruction. Included in this rhetoric was the linkage of political and economic malfeasance with the racial corruptions of miscegenation and Negro Domination. The similar rhetoric of corruption proved much less effective against the Democrats. Although the Populists attempted to make this link, their insistence on the political equality of African Americans along with suggestions of armed self-defense weakened the previously effective tactics of the Democrats who had long been the party of white supremacy. Despite the Populists failure, the ultimate result was the same as the Populists abandoned biracial politics, and called for greater disfranchisement, all in the name of reform.