Viewpoint Wiki - All Viewpoints, No Gatekeepers

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
====== Election of 1876 - History ======

This article traces the chronological development of the disputed United States presidential election of 1876 and its resolution through the Compromise of 1877. For background on the office and process involved, see [[election_of_1876]] and [[reconstruction_era]]. For the historiographical dispute over whether a formal bargain existed, see [[compromise-of-1877-no-deal-viewpoint]].

===== Background =====

By 1876, the Reconstruction era had entered its final phase. Federal troops remained stationed in three southern states - Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina - propping up Republican state governments. The administration of President Ulysses S. Grant had been marked by financial scandals, and the Panic of 1873 had produced a prolonged economic depression. The Democratic Party, having regained control of the House of Representatives in 1874, nominated New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden, a reform-minded lawyer known for prosecuting the Tweed Ring. The Republican Party nominated Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, a Civil War veteran regarded as a compromise candidate after the withdrawal of House Speaker James G. Blaine, whose candidacy had been damaged by corruption allegations.((Roy Morris Jr., *Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876* (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 45-62.))

===== Election Day and the Disputed Returns =====

Voting took place on November 7, 1876. Tilden won the national popular vote and carried 184 of the 185 electoral votes then needed for a majority, with returns from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and one disputed elector in Oregon left unresolved.((Michael F. Holt, *By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876* (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 1-15.)) In Louisiana and South Carolina, federal troops remained present at the polls, and both parties charged the other with fraud and intimidation. The Louisiana and Florida returning boards, each Republican-controlled, ultimately certified Hayes electors. Both parties in all three contested states submitted competing certified returns to Congress.((C. Vann Woodward, *Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction* (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951), 17-32.))

===== The Electoral Commission =====

The Constitution provided no clear mechanism for resolving competing electoral certificates, and Congress was divided between a Republican Senate and a Democratic House. In January 1877, Congress passed the Electoral Commission Act, creating a fifteen-member commission of five representatives, five senators, and five Supreme Court justices, intended to be politically balanced with the deciding vote held by independent Justice David Davis.((Holt, *By One Vote*, 219-241.)) Davis's election to the Senate by the Illinois legislature removed him from consideration, and he was replaced by Justice Joseph P. Bradley, a Republican. The commission divided eight to seven along party lines on every disputed point, awarding all contested electoral votes to Hayes.((Woodward, *Reunion and Reaction*, 161-183.))

===== Negotiations and the Wormley House Meetings =====

As the commission's findings moved through Congress for ratification, Democratic House members threatened a filibuster that could have prevented certification of any winner before the March 4 inauguration date, raising fears of a constitutional crisis or renewed sectional violence.((Morris, *Fraud of the Century*, 271-289.)) In late February 1877, representatives associated with Hayes met with southern Democrats, including at the Wormley House hotel in Washington, D.C. Discussions reportedly touched on the withdrawal of remaining federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina, federal aid for a southern transcontinental railroad linked to the Texas and Pacific Railway, and patronage appointments for southern Democrats.((Woodward, *Reunion and Reaction*, 205-235.)) No signed agreement has been found, and accounts of what was promised, by whom, and with what binding effect differ among participants and historians; see [[compromise-of-1877-no-deal-viewpoint]].

===== Inauguration and Troop Withdrawal =====

Congress certified Hayes's election in the early hours of March 2, 1877, two days before the constitutionally mandated inauguration date. Hayes was privately sworn in on March 3 and publicly inaugurated on March 5, 1877. Within weeks, Hayes ordered federal troops withdrawn from the statehouses in Columbia, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana, in April 1877. With troop support removed, Republican state governments in both states collapsed, and Democratic "Redeemer" governments took control.((Eric Foner, *Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877* (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 575-587.))

===== Aftermath =====

The withdrawal of federal troops is generally treated by historians as marking the end of Reconstruction. Tilden, who never publicly contested the outcome at length, did not seek the presidency again. Hayes served a single term, having stated during the campaign that he would not seek reelection. The promised railroad subsidy never materialized, a point cited by historians who question whether a binding "compromise" existed at all.((Allan Peskin, "Was There a Compromise of 1877?" *Journal of American History* 60, no. 1 (1973): 63-75.))

===== Controversies =====

  * Whether a binding, coordinated bargain was struck at Wormley House, or whether the outcome instead reflected the independent, uncoordinated collapse of southern Republican governments once military support ended, remains disputed among historians. Some historians argue the "Compromise" was not a discrete deal but a longer process of decentralized accommodation. See [[compromise-of-1877-no-deal-viewpoint]] and [[compromise-of-1877-no-deal-viewpoint-debate]].
  * Whether the electoral commission's party-line rulings reflected a good-faith reading of disputed evidence or a predetermined partisan outcome is contested. See [[election-of-1876-electoral-commission-bias-controversy]].
  * The proper allocation of the disputed electoral votes themselves - whether Tilden was the rightful winner of Florida, and whether Hayes was rightfully entitled to South Carolina and Louisiana - remains a matter of historical reconstruction from incomplete and contested returns. See [[election-of-1876-vote-count-controversy]].

===== See Also =====

  * [[election_of_1876]]
  * [[reconstruction_era]]
  * [[reconstruction_era-history]]
  * [[compromise-of-1877-no-deal-viewpoint]]
  * [[hayes_rutherford_b]]
  * [[tilden_samuel_j]]

===== Footnotes =====

  - Roy Morris Jr., *Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876* (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003).
  - Michael F. Holt, *By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876* (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008).
  - C. Vann Woodward, *Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction* (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951).
  - Eric Foner, *Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877* (New York: Harper & Row, 1988).
  - Allan Peskin, "Was There a Compromise of 1877?" *Journal of American History* 60, no. 1 (1973): 63-75.
  - C. Vann Woodward, "Yes, There Was a Compromise of 1877," *Journal of American History* 60, no. 2 (1973): 215-223.