This article traces the historical development of the Compromise of 1877, from the disputed presidential election of 1876 through the political negotiations that resolved it and the subsequent withdrawal of federal troops from the South. For interpretive disputes about causes, consequences, and historical significance, see Compromise of 1877 - Debate. For the broader context of Reconstruction, see Reconstruction - History.

By 1876, the Reconstruction era had lasted more than a decade. Federal troops remained stationed in several Southern states, propping up Republican state governments that had been installed after the Civil War. These governments had granted civil and political rights to formerly enslaved black men, including voting rights and officeholding. White conservative Democrats in the South, organized in part through paramilitary groups such as the White League and the Red Shirts, had been working since the early 1870s to suppress black voting and restore Democratic control of Southern state governments.¹⁾

Northern public opinion had grown increasingly fatigued with Reconstruction. The Panic of 1873 and the ensuing economic depression had shifted political attention toward economic issues. Corruption scandals in the Grant administration had weakened the Republican Party's moral authority. Several Northern states had already swung Democratic in the 1874 midterm elections, which returned Democratic majorities to the House of Representatives for the first time since before the Civil War.²⁾

The Republican Party nominated Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes for president in 1876. The Democratic Party nominated New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden. The election was held on November 7, 1876.

Initial returns gave Tilden 184 undisputed electoral votes - one short of the 185 needed to win - and a popular vote plurality of approximately 250,000. Hayes had 165 undisputed electoral votes. The electoral votes of three Southern states - Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina - remained contested. A single electoral vote from Oregon was also disputed on a technicality. Together these four states accounted for 20 electoral votes. Whoever received them would win the presidency.³⁾

Both parties submitted competing sets of electoral certificates from the three Southern states. Republican-controlled state returning boards in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina had certified Hayes electors, in some cases after rejecting returns from Democratic-dominated counties on grounds of fraud and voter intimidation. Democrats alleged that the returning boards had manipulated results. Republicans alleged that Democratic paramilitary violence had suppressed black Republican votes throughout the South.⁴⁾

The Constitution provided no clear mechanism for resolving a dispute over competing electoral certificates. Congress debated the question through December 1876 and into January 1877. The result was the Electoral Commission Act, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant on January 29, 1877.

The act created a fifteen-member commission consisting of five senators, five representatives, and five Supreme Court justices. The congressional members were to be split evenly by party: three Republican senators, two Democratic senators, two Republican representatives, and three Democratic representatives. Four of the five justices were designated by their circuit assignments, yielding two Republicans and two Democrats. The fifth justice was to be chosen by the other four. It was widely assumed this would be Justice David Davis of Illinois, considered independent of both parties. Davis, however, accepted election to the Senate from Illinois by a coalition of Democrats and independents shortly before the commission was formed, and withdrew from consideration. Justice Joseph P. Bradley, a Republican, was selected in his place.⁵⁾

The commission took up the disputed returns state by state beginning in February 1877. On every question, it voted 8 to 7 along party lines to accept the Republican certificates. All 20 disputed electoral votes were awarded to Hayes. The final commission vote on the Louisiana returns was taken on February 16; the Oregon, Florida, and South Carolina votes followed. The full count gave Hayes 185 electoral votes to Tilden's 184.⁶⁾

The commission's decisions were not self-executing. Congress still had to complete the formal count of electoral votes in joint session, and House Democrats had the power to obstruct or delay this process indefinitely through procedural maneuvers - a strategy known as filibuster. Some Democrats advocated precisely this, hoping to prevent Hayes's inauguration and force a new election or negotiated settlement.

During February 1877, a series of meetings took place between Republican representatives of Hayes and Southern Democratic congressmen, primarily at Wormley's Hotel in Washington. The most documented of these occurred on February 26-27, 1877. The discussions involved commitments that Hayes's representatives were understood to be making on his behalf.

The precise terms communicated at these meetings have been disputed by historians, but the general outlines are well documented. Hayes's representatives indicated that a Hayes administration would: withdraw federal troops from the South and cease propping up the remaining Republican state governments in Louisiana and South Carolina; support federal funding for internal improvements in the South, particularly a transcontinental railroad along a southern route; and appoint at least one Southerner to the cabinet.⁷⁾

In exchange, Southern Democrats in the House agreed not to obstruct completion of the electoral count. The filibuster effort collapsed. The count was completed on March 2, 1877, and Hayes was declared the winner.⁸⁾

Hayes took the oath of office privately on March 3, 1877 (March 4 fell on a Sunday), and the public inauguration ceremony was held March 5. He appointed David M. Key of Tennessee, a Democrat, as Postmaster General - the promised Southern cabinet appointment.

Federal troops were withdrawn from the South Carolina and Louisiana statehouses in April 1877. On April 10, Hayes ordered the troops guarding the South Carolina statehouse to return to their barracks. The Republican governor of South Carolina, Daniel Chamberlain, acknowledged he could no longer maintain his government and left office. On April 24, Hayes ordered the withdrawal of troops from the Louisiana statehouse. The Republican claimant to the Louisiana governorship, William Pitt Kellogg's successor Stephen Packard, similarly surrendered his claim. The Democratic claimants to both governorships, Wade Hampton in South Carolina and Francis T. Nicholls in Louisiana, took office without further federal contest.⁹⁾

These actions effectively ended Reconstruction. The remaining Republican state governments in the South lost federal military support and quickly collapsed. Democratic “Redeemer” governments consolidated control across the former Confederate states over the following months and years.

The promised federal support for Southern internal improvements largely did not materialize. The Texas and Pacific Railroad project, which had been a key incentive for some Southern Democratic congressmen, failed to receive the federal land grants and subsidies its backers had sought. Disputes within Congress and competing railroad interests blocked the legislation.¹⁰⁾

The civil and political rights of black Southerners were progressively curtailed following the end of Reconstruction. Poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and other mechanisms were adopted across Southern states over the following two decades, effectively disenfranchising black voters. Violence against black Southerners went largely unpunished by state authorities.¹¹⁾

Hayes served one term. He had pledged before the election not to seek a second term and honored that pledge. He left office in 1881.

Whether a specific, binding “compromise” was actually struck, or whether the outcome resulted from parallel and loosely coordinated political maneuvers rather than a formal deal, remains debated among historians; see Compromise of 1877 - Debate.¹²⁾

The relative weight of economic incentives versus sectional political exhaustion in explaining Southern Democratic acquiescence is contested; see Compromise of 1877 - Debate.¹³⁾

Whether Hayes's representatives made commitments that constituted authorized promises or exceeded their authority is disputed; see Compromise of 1877 - Debate.¹⁴⁾

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