[2] Readjusters aspired "to break the power of wealth and established privilege"[3] among the planter elite of whites in the state and to promote public education.

The party was led by Harrison H. Riddleberger of Woodstock, an attorney, and William Mahone, a former Confederate general who was president of several railroads.

[4] The Readjuster Party refinanced the Commonwealth's debts and invested in schools, especially for African Americans, who gained access to teaching jobs.

Because of expanded voting, Danville elected a black-majority town council and hired an unprecedented integrated police force.

Virginia's governor elected at that time, Gilbert Carlton Walker, was a banker in Norfolk and supported affirmation of the pre-war debt.

Confederate bonds were still worthless, and by this time prewar debt (exchanged after the law) had mostly been bought by out-of-state and even British investors at greatly discounted prices.

In 1878, Readjusters passed a law forbidding bond coupons to be used to pay state taxes, but Conservative John W. Daniel swore that he would rather have all public schools closed rather than divert money from bondholders, and Governor Frederick W.M.

While his railroad went through several receivers, Mahone ran for Governor, as the Conservative Party of Virginia (Democratic) candidate, but the little-known Holliday had defeated him in the primary.

Mahone became the Readjuster Party's driving force, as it held a convention in February 1879, and elected a majority of the Virginia General Assembly by year's end.

Furthermore, many justices of the Virginia Supreme Court had terms expiring during the height of Readjuster power, so the Readjuster-dominated legislature elected Readjusters to replace them, as well as appointed former Confederate officer (and Taylor County, West Virginia legislator) George W. Hansbrough as the new reporter of judicial decisions.

[7] However, the bondholders continued to contest the decision, and also lobbied the Conservative Party of Virginia to affirm higher interest payments.

[citation needed] The Readjusters lost control of the state legislature in 1883 after the Danville Massacre, which occurred immediately before voting began.

John S. Barbour Jr., son of President of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad had organized revitalization of the Democratic Party on conservative principles in 1883, and succeeded Riddleberger in 1888.

Finally in 1892, the General Assembly adopted the Olcutt Act which forbade using the bond coupons to pay state taxes.

The collapse of the biracial Republican coalition was also related to a broader struggle over marriage, and the legislature's attempt to ban miscegenation.

Some such laws had been adopted in the previous two decades (including forbidding those ever convicted of minor theft or an offense involving a whipping penalty to vote) and effectively disenfranchised most blacks and some poor whites.