From 1872 to 1877 there had been essentially a dual government, as Democrats rejected the election of Republicans. During this period election cycle violence continued to increase as white Democrats sought to suppress the black Republican vote. Louisiana was torn, not unlike during the Civil war, with battles between the Radical Republicans and the Southern Democrats. With the Democrats resumption of power in 1877, the Solid South coalition was formed. The period of time from 1868 to 1879 was marked with violence against freedmen, as seen in the First Battle of the Cabildo (March 5, 1873) and the Colfax massacre April 13, 1873), both events that arose from the disputed gubernatorial election of 1872. Charges related to the Colfax events reached the US Supreme Court. In "United States v. Cruikshank" (1876), it supported federal restrictions on the civil freedoms supposedly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States and the Louisiana Constitution. It denied African-American citizens the constitutional rights of the Fourteenth Amendment and the right to bear arms.