The returns accepted by the Commission put Hayes's margin of victory in South Carolina at 889 votes, the second-closest popular vote margin in a decisive state in U.S. history, after the election of 2000, which was decided by 537 votes in Florida. In the end, after a series of votes along strict party lines, the commission awarded Hayes all three of the contested states in early March 1877, making him the winner by a single electoral vote. In the deal, the Democrats conceded the 20 contested electoral votes to Hayes, resulting in a 185-184 victory; in return, the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, marking the end of Reconstruction. No, but Almost, in Another Vote That Dragged On", "Could a few state legislatures choose the next president? Omissions? . democrats thought the electoral commission voting system was unfair. Democrats who were able to put their anger aside realized that the situation offered opportunities and worked to secure concessions from politicians close to Hayes. The Constitution stipulates that the electoral votes be directed to the President of the Senate who was Republican Thomas W. Ferry. They were the party most supportive of slavery before the Civil War but amended their official positions following reunification. STDs are at a shocking high. "The election of 1876," Foner says, "would not have been disputed at all if there hadn't been massive violence in the south to prevent black people from voting and voter suppression like we. Why was the presidential election of 1872 controversial? However, Blaine was unable to win a majority at the 1876 Republican National Convention, which settled on Governor Hayes of Ohio as a compromise candidate. Why did the Democrats lose the presidential election of 1928? As a bipartisan congressional commission debated over the outcome early in 1877, allies of the Republican Party candidate Rutherford Hayes met in secret with moderate southern Democrats in order to negotiate acceptance of Hayes election. Get access to this video and our entire Q&A library, Presidential Election of 1876: Significance, Issues & Summary. For their part, white Southern Democrats did not honor their pledge to uphold the rights of Black citizens, but moved quickly to reverse as many of Reconstructions policies as possible. [23] One of the points of contention revolved around the design of ballots. Fish later confirmed that he would have declined the presidential nomination even if it had been offered to him. However, they had miscalculated, as Davis promptly excused himself from the commission and resigned as a Justice to take his Senate seat. Congress would eventually enact the Electoral Count Act in 1887 to provide more detailed rules for the counting of electoral votes, especially in cases of multiple slates of electors being received from a single state. A Brief History of Steamboat Racing in the U.S. Major General Winfield Scott Hancock from Pennsylvania. Why was there controversy around the presidential election of 1876? The place was nearly. Why was the presidential election of 1860 a critical presidential election? Still, the Republicans continued their strong commitment to the civil rights of emancipated slaves, their party platform stating that the permanent pacification of the Southern section of the Union and the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their rights, are duties to which the Republican party is sacredly pledged. It further criticized the Democratic Party for its lack of commitment to civil rights, arguing that the party counts, as its chief hope of success, upon the electoral vote of a united South, secured through the efforts of those who were recently arrayed against the nation and we invoke the earnest attention of the country to the grave truth, that a success thus achieved would reopen sectional strife and imperil national honor and human rights.. In the 1876 election, accusations of corruption stemmed from officials involved in counting the necessary and hotly contested electoral votes of both sides, in which Rutherford B. Hayes was elected by a congressional commission . Why did political tension increase after the presidential election of 1796? Ten years later, the debacle would also result in a long-overdue law: the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which codified electoral college procedure, as Shafer reports for the Post. Just two months after his inauguration, Hayes made good on his compromise and ordered the removal of the last federal troops from Louisiana. Why was the presidential election of 1936 a watershed year? Why was the presidential election of 1936 significant? Reconstruction: Following the Civil War, the United States began the process of Reconstruction to reintegrate the. Why was the presidential election of 1968 a turning point? The Democratic party began under the leadership of Andrew Johnson, a populist-esque president who was controversial, to say the least. rebecca is likely exp [19][20] This was the last election in which any state chose electors through its state legislature, rather than by popular vote.[21]. | When Davis refused to serve, the moderate Republican Justice Joseph Bradley was chosen to replace him. You can specify conditions of storing and accessing cookies in your browser. Heres a closer look at its events and legacy, On election night, Republican presidential candidate and Ohio governor Rutherford B. Hayes was losing so badly that he prepared his concession speech before turning in for the night. Because it was considered improper for a candidate to pursue the presidency actively, neither Tilden nor Hayes actively stumped as part of the campaign and left that duty to their surrogates. (Although it should be noted that, because presidents were inaugurated in March instead of January before the 1930s, the 1876 contest took five months to be decided; while the counting will. Updated: August 18, 2020 | Original: January 21, 2020. Since the House had a solid Democratic majority, rejecting the vote of one state, however, would elect Tilden.[25]. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. For some long COVID patients, exercise is bad medicine, Radioactive dogs? Why was the presidential election of 1876 so important? Under Reconstruction, African Americans had achieved unprecedented political power, and new federal legislation sought to provide a modicum of economic equality for newly enfranchised people. In 1877, Congress convened to settle the electionand their solution proved to be the beginning of the end for Reconstruction in the south. All rights reserved. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Does eating close to bedtime make you gain weight? The little-known history of the Florida panther. The Compromise of 1877 was an off-the-record deal, struck between Republicans and Democrats, that determined the victor of the 1876 presidential election. a. existential b. feminist c. gestalt d. psychoanalytic. But archaeology is confirming that Persia's engineering triumph was real. He had later been brevetted as a major-general. Upon his defeat, Tilden said, "I can retire to public life with the consciousness that I shall receive from posterity the credit of having been elected to the highest position in the gift of the people, without any of the cares and responsibilities of the office.". Ultimately, Congress. The 12th Democratic National Convention assembled in St. Louis, Missouri, in June 1876, which was the first political convention ever held by one of the major American parties west of the Mississippi River. Rutherford B. HayesRepublican via Electoral Commission. Deemed the nations most divisive everuntil 2020, that isthe election of 1876 ended with an unusual compromise. Why was the South upset after the presidential election of 1860? The results of the election remain among the most disputed ever. Why did the presidential election of 1876 anger democrats? In 1876, the elections in three statesFlorida, Louisiana, and South Carolinawere alleged to have been conducted illegally, the senators write in a statement. Why did voter participation increase between 1824 and 1840 in the United States? When the Sixth Republican National Convention assembled in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 14, 1876, James G. Blaine appeared to be the presidential nominee. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Any doubts about the party's future were dispelled firstly by the collapse of the Liberal Republicans in the aftermath of that election, and secondly by significant Democratic gains in the 1874 mid-term elections, which saw them take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in sixteen years. After U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant declined to seek a third term despite previously being expected to do so, U.S. Representative James G. Blaine emerged as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. By the 1870s, support was waning for the racially egalitarian policies of Reconstruction, a series of laws put in place after the Civil War to protect the rights of African Americans, especially in the South. A political cartoon by Thomas Nast that appeared in the February 17, 1877 issue of the American political magazine Harper's Weekly. After the Civil War ended in 1865, the Republicans held a stranglehold on the presidency, with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant winning easily in both 1868 and 1872. The election of 1876 was the last one held before the end of the Reconstruction era, which sought to protect the rights of African Americans in the South, who usually voted for Republican presidential candidates. Its resolution involved negotiations between the Republicans and Democrats, resulting in the Compromise of . in. All Rights Reserved. [25] Bradley then joined the other seven Republican committee members in a series of 87 votes that gave all 20 disputed electoral votes to Hayes, which gave Hayes a 185184 electoral vote victory. ", Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), https://www.history.com/news/reconstruction-1876-election-rutherford-hayes, How the 1876 Election Tested the Constitution and Effectively Ended Reconstruction. Many historians argue that if votes had been counted accurately and fairly in Southern states, Hayes might have won the 1876 election outright. Why did Henry Clay lose the election of 1844? To aid illiterate voters, the parties would print symbols on the tickets, and in this election, many Democratic ballots were printed with the Republican symbol of Abraham Lincoln on them. The presidential election of 1876 was arguably the most contentious and disputed in American history. With a Republican-controlled Senate, a Democrat-controlled House and no clear presidential winner, Congress was thrown into chaos. Why did the presidential election of 1856 cause alarm? Hayes would also have to agree to name a leading southerner to his cabinet and to support federal aid for the Texas and Pacific Railroad, a planned transcontinental line via a southern route. In an unprecedented move, Congress decided to create an extralegal Election Commission composed of five senators, five House members and five Supreme Court justices. In 1876, when the nation went to the polls to elect Grant's successor, Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden, governor of New York, emerged with a lead of more than 260,000 popular votes. The 1876 Democratic National Convention nominated Governor Tilden of New York on the second ballot. Election returns from three Republican-controlled Southern statesLouisiana, Florida and South Carolinawere divided, with both sides declaring victory. Privacy Statement Among the challengers to Blaine were Roscoe Conkling, a senator from New York and a prominent Republican leader in the post-Civil War period; Oliver H.P.T. Regardless of your opinion, Andrew Johnson and the Democratic party developed the idea of "common man democracy". Hayes, meanwhile, had 165. The platform opposed secret societies and monopolies. According to one historian, "No one, perhaps not even Davis himself, knew which presidential candidate he preferred. Why was the presidential election of 1828 considered a revolution? In 1876, "the elections in three statesFlorida, Louisiana, and South Carolinawere alleged to have been conducted illegally," the senators write in a statement. She can be reached through her website, noramcgreevy.com. Advertisement Advertisement To date, it remains the election that yielded the highest voter turnout of the eligible voting-age population in American history, at 82.6%. That year, he carried Tennessee, which had never experienced a long period of occupation by federal troops and had been completely "reconstructed" well before the first presidential election of the Reconstruction period (1868). Henry Adams called Hayes "a third-rate nonentity whose only recommendations are that he is obnoxious to no one." Running on the Democratic ticket was Tilden, an Ivy League graduate who appealed to voters with a successful anti-corruption track record during his tenure as New Yorks governor. The Democrats objected to that construction, since the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the Republican Thomas W. Ferry, could then count the votes of the disputed states for Hayes. The 1876 election took place at a remarkable time in American history. The 1876 presidential election proved to be the longest, closest, most hostile, and most controversialat least up to that timein the history of the United States. Democratic Party: In the late 19th century, the Democratic Party's base was centered in the South and focused on state rights. Peter Cooper was nominated for president with 352 votes to 119 for three other contenders. Although 1876 marked the last competitive two-party election in the South before the Democratic dominance of the South until 1948 and that to of the Border States until 1896, it was also the last presidential election (as of 2020) in which the Democrats won the wartime Unionist Mitchell County, North Carolina;[28] Wayne County, Tennessee; Henderson County, Tennessee; and Lewis County, Kentucky. In late January, the commission voted 8-7 along party lines that Hayes had won all the contested states, and therefore the presidency, by just one electoral vote. Why was the presidential election of 1888 noteworthy? Three years later, in United States v. Cruikshank, the Supreme Court overturned the convictions of three white men convicted in connection with the massacre of more than 100 Black men in Colfax, Louisiana in 1873, as part of a political dispute. The Democrats insisted that Congress should continue the practice followed since 1865: no vote objected to should be counted except by the concurrence of both houses. Why is the election of 1896 considered a watershed moment in American politics? New York Representative William A. Wheeler was nominated for vice president by a much larger margin (36689) over his chief rival, Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, who later served as a member of the Electoral Commission, which awarded the election to Hayes. Why was the presidential election of 1852 significant? Why did the Democrats lose the presidential election of 1904? B.T. ", How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century, National Archives and Records Administration, "1876 Presidential General Election Data National", "Corporations, Corruption, and the Modern Lobby: A Gilded Age Story of the West and the South in Washington, D.C.", United States presidential election, 1876, "You Think This Is Chaos? When Blanchard declined to run, Walker was unanimously nominated for president. In two Southern states, the governor recognized by the United States had signed the Republican certificates; the Democratic certificates from Florida were signed by the state attorney-general and the newly-elected Democratic governor. Anti-Blaine delegates could not agree on a candidate until his total rose to 41% on the sixth ballot. A back-room deal. The platform called for immediate and sweeping reforms in response to the scandals that had plagued the Grant administration. A Democratic candidate had emerged with the lead in the popular vote, but 19 electoral votes from four states were in dispute. Why did the number of white male voters increase between the elections of 1824 and 1828? We strive for accuracy and fairness. A severe economic depression followed the Panic of 1873, and scandals in the Grant administration had tarnished the party's reputation. It made Northern Republicans become more willing to make concessions. Hayes privately took the oath of office the next day and was publicly sworn into office on March 5, 1877, and Hayes was inaugurated without disturbance.[25]. It declared the first day of the week to be a day of rest for the United States. According to the commission's rulings, of the 2,249 counties and independent cities making returns, Tilden won in 1,301 (57.85%), and Hayes carried only 947 (42.11%). Samuel J. Tilden, the governor of New York, strongly appealed to delegates from Southern states, and on the first ballot he led Thomas A. Hendricks, the governor of Indiana. There were 369 electoral votes, of which 185 were necessary to a choice. In the late 19th century, the Democratic Party's base was centered in the South and focused on state rights. [24] The Republican-dominated state electoral commissions subsequently rejected enough Democratic votes to award their electoral votes to Hayes. Corrections? Why did the Democratic-Republican Party fall apart in the 1820s? In February, at a meeting held in Washingtons Wormley Hotel, the Democrats agreed to accept a Hayes victory and to respect the civil and political rights of African Americans, on the condition that Republicans withdraw all federal troops from the South, thus consolidating Democratic control in the region. His vote began to slide after the second ballot, however, as many Republicans feared that Blaine could not win the general election. Create an account to read the full story and get unlimited access to hundreds of Nat Geo articles. [18] On November 7, 1876, in a 50 to 24 vote, the state legislature chose Otto Mears, William Hadley, and Herman Beckurts to serve as the state's electors for president. There were 5000 people jammed the auditorium in St. Louis and hopes for the Democratic Party's first presidential victory in 20 years. The next time those two states voted against the Democrats was their support of the "Dixiecrat" candidate Strom Thurmond in 1948. On Nov. 7, 1876, Tilden received over 250,000 more votes than Hayes . Why was the presidential election of 1816 a turning point? The Democrats claimed fraud, and suppressed excitement pervaded the country. Following Lincoln's murder a month into his second term, his vice president, Andrew Johnson took office. The Republicans held their convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, in mid-June, and the front-runner for their nomination was James G. Blaine of Maine, the speaker of the House of Representatives. It also called for treaty protection for naturalized United States citizens visiting their homelands, restrictions on Asian immigration, tariff reform, and opposition to land grants for railroads. The Republican Party held a slim majority in the state legislature following a closely contested election on October 3, 1876. Source: Official proceedings of the National Democratic convention, held in St. Louis, Mo., June 27th, 28th and 29th, 1876. Why did the presidential election of 1828 include many first-time voters? She is also a freelance journalist based in Chicago whose work has appeared in Wired, Washingtonian, the Boston Globe, South Bend Tribune, the New York Times and more. Why is the presidential election of 1824 considered controversial? The main thing Democrats did with their new control of the House, starting in December 1875, was to investigate every department of the . In 1876, when the nation went to the polls to elect Grants successor, Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden, governor of New York, emerged with a lead of more than 260,000 popular votes. Why did Congress decide the presidential election of 1800? The platform supported the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution, international arbitration, the reading of the scriptures in public schools, specie payments, justice for Native Americans, abolition of the Electoral College, and prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages. She has been a frequent contributor to History.com since 2005, and is the author of Breaking History: Vanished! [2][3] Tilden's 50.9% is the largest share of the popular vote received by a candidate that was not elected to the presidency. Finally, just after 4 a.m. on March 2, 1877, the Senate president declared Hayes the president-elect of the United States. Meanwhile, in Oregon, the vote of a single elector was disputed. Eventually, with the withdrawal of Bristow, Conkling, and Morton in favour of Hayes, Hayes secured the nomination on the seventh ballot, and William A. Wheeler, a senator from New York, was selected as his running mate. Why was the presidential election of 1808 important? ", Hayes was a virtual unknown outside his home state of Ohio, where he had served two terms as a representative and then two terms as governor. Why did the Democrats lose the presidential election of 1860? The reason why the presidential election of 1876 angered Democrats is because "Democrats thought the voting system was unfair" since Tilden actually won the majority of the popular vote. answer choices It caused many people to vote against the incumbent Republican party. b As Reconstruction came to an end, Southern Democrats disenfranchised African Americans by b Students also viewed Sharecropping Test Lawmakers are citing the 19th-century crisis as precedent to dispute the 2020 election. democrats thought the electoral commission voting system was unfair. The two Republican electors dismissed Grover's action and reported three votes for Hayes. In the years since the Civil War ended in 1865, Democrats, whose voter base resided in the former Confederacy, had been partly shut out of the political sphere; now, with Republican Ulysses S. Grant facing charges of corruption, Tildens reform-minded candidacy seemed like a well-timed opportunity for Democrats to regain political power, as Gilbert King wrote for Smithsonian magazine in 2012. A contested presidential election The Compromise of 1877 resolved the tumult that had arisen following the 1876 presidential election. The cartoon is in response to the Compromise of 1877. The caption says "A trucenot a compromise, but a chance for high-toned men to retire gracefully from their very civil declarations of war. rebecca hears the voice of an old woman who continuously criticizes everything rebecca does, but nobody else can hear the voice. Tilden needed just one more vote in the electoral college to reach the 185 electoral votes necessary for the presidency. The Republicans held that the power to count the votes lay with the President of the Senate, with the House and Senate being mere spectators. During the commissions deliberations, Hayes Republican allies met in secret with moderate southern Democrats in hopes of convincing them not to block the official counting of votes through filibuster and effectively allow Hayes election. Tilden won more than 400 votes on the first ballot and the presidential nomination by a landslide on the second. The commissions members included seven Democrats, seven Republicans and one independent, Justice David Davis. Why was the 2000 presidential election controversial? As Eric Foner recounts in his book Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction, Hayes had pledged in his acceptance of the nomination to bring the blessings of honest and capable local self government to the South if electeda statement that could be taken as code for ending Reconstruction. Made by History About Made by History and Contact Americans worry about 2020 being another 2000, but the real worry is another 1876 An unclear outcome in deeply polarized times could be. [6] Later that year, Grant ruled himself out of running in 1876. The Reconstruction era (1865-1877) ushered in new rights and opportunities for formerly enslaved people but also saw ongoing racial division, violence against Black Americans, economic problems,. Become a Study.com member to unlock this answer! Using the strategy of the Mississippi Plan, the groups actively suppressed both Black and White Republican voter turnouts by disrupting meetings and rallies and even using violence and intimidation. The justices first selected the independent Justice David Davis. Inside South Africas skeleton trade. The men had been convicted of violating the 1870 Enforcement Act, which banned conspiracies to deny citizens constitutional rights and had been intended to combat violence by the Ku Klux Klan against Black people in the South. Why was the presidential election of 1800 considered a peaceful revolution? This small political party used several different names, often with different names in different states. The two Republican electors presented a certificate signed by the secretary of state of Oregon, and Cronin and the two electors whom he appointed (Cronin voted for Tilden while his associates voted for Hayes) presented a certificate signed by the governor and attested by the secretary of state. Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. . Immediately after the presidential election of 1876, it became clear that the outcome of the race hinged largely on disputed returns from Florida, Louisiana and South Carolinathe only three states in the South with Reconstruction-era Republican governments still in power. Within two months, however, Hayes had ordered federal troops from their posts guarding Louisiana and South Carolina statehouses, allowing Democrats to seize control in both those states. But a severe economic downturn in 1873 had plunged the country into its severest depression to date, with widespread unemployment and plummeting cotton prices that hampered the Souths postwar economic recovery. And its weighty consequences still resound today. The U.S. Congress subsequently created an Electoral Commission, which by early March 1877 had resolved all the disputed electoral votes in favour of Hayes, giving him a 185184 electoral college victory. Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes uncounted. Many of the seats in that election had been decided by only a few hundred votes. Tilden defeated Thomas A. Hendricks, Winfield Scott Hancock, William Allen, Thomas F. Bayard, and Joel Parker for the presidential nomination. Why did the presidential election of 1876 anger Democrats? Why was the presidential election of 1944 significant? To approach a question 400 million years in the making, researchers turned to mudskippers, blinking fish that live partially out of water. After Booth declined to run, the national committee chose Samuel Fenton Cary as his replacement on the ticket.[11][12]. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. All rights reserved, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. His most important asset was his help to the Republican ticket in carrying Ohio, a crucial swing state. They. Why was the presidential election of 1884 important? On the seventh ballot, Hayes was nominated for president with 384 votes, compared to 351 for Blaine and 21 for Benjamin Bristow. Stream thousands of hours of acclaimed series, probing documentaries and captivating specials commercial-free in HISTORY Vault. Although some of the promises were not kept, particularly the railroad proposal, that was enough for the time being to avert a dangerous standoff. kennedy fried chicken franchise cost,