Ridgley C. Powers Republican Adelbert Ames Republican The 1873 Mississippi gubernatorial election took place on November 4, 1873, in order to elect the Governor of Mississippi.

Senator who previously served as governor from 1868 until 1870, defeated James L. Alcorn, also a U.S.

Alcorn's estrangement from Ames, his northern-born colleague, deepened in 1871, as African-Americans became convinced that Alcorn was not taking the problem of white terrorism seriously enough; and, in fact, Alcorn resisted Federal action to suppress the Ku Klux Klan, contending that state authorities were sufficient to handle the task.

Ames was supported by the Radicals and most African Americans, while Alcorn won the votes of conservative whites and most of the scalawags.

Alcorn withdrew from active politics in the state, emerging to assail the new governor as incapable and an enemy of the people of Mississippi.