Presidential Election of 1876

THE 1876 PRESIDENTIAL election remains one of the most controversial in American history. A revitalized Democratic Party nominated Governor Samuel Tilden of New York, known as “Whispering Sammy” because of his soft political demeanor, and campaigned on the issues of political corruption, the end of Reconstruction in the south, and Republican responsibility for a severe economic depression that hit the nation in 1875. The Republicans, after initially courting former Speaker of the House James G. Blaine, finally settled on Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio as their nominee, and continued a campaign strategy of “waving the bloody shirt,” which meant encouraging the American people to “vote as they shot” during the Civil War. This was a campaign tactic that was losing its punch, however, and 1876 would mark the last time that the Republicans would use the sectional conflict as a campaign theme.

But the issues of the 1876 election largely took a back seat to the means and methods used by the two parties in their attempts to win. While fraud and treachery were hardly new tactics used by parties in American politics, the 1876 battle was sui generis in how transparent the corruption was. The party organizations made it clear that they were willing to go to any lengths to reap the spoils of victory, whether that meant bribery and ballot stuffing, or intimidation, kidnapping, and murder. For these reasons, the election result was immediately questioned.

By the evening of November 7, things did not look good for the Republicans. The election returns seemed to be going solidly toward Tilden and the Democrats. With 185 electoral votes needed to win, some estimates gave Tilden as many as 209 votes. Many newspapers had even declared Tilden the winner. But, the Republicans were not ready to concede. As party leaders began to scrutinize the returns, a plan was quickly hatched. If the Republicans could find a way of holding the states of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, Hayes would win the election. These three states were still “unreconstructed,” meaning that they were still under the control of the so-called carpetbagger governments. The significance of this was that Republicans in these states controlled the canvassing boards that reviewed the election returns. Thus, all the Republicans had to do was find cause to disqualify enough Democratic votes to give the three states to Hayes.

Given the amount of fraud and corruption perpetrated by both parties, it did not require much effort by the Republican canvassing boards to throw out significant numbers of Democratic votes. Democrats protested fiercely, complaining that every challenge to Democratic votes was being upheld but, despite overwhelming evidence of similar fraud in Republican districts, the canvassing boards never disqualified Republican votes. While these Democratic criticisms certainly had merit, the unsurprising result was that the electoral votes of the three states were given to Hayes. This did not mean, however, that the election fight ended.

As the Republicans in the contested states prepared to send the electoral certificates to Washington, the Democrats concocted their own plan to challenge the results. Ignoring the contested electoral votes in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, Tilden still led Hayes in the election by a margin of 184–163. This meant that the Democrats only needed one electoral vote to break their way for Tilden to be elected. And the Democrats felt confident that they could get that vote in Washington. Accordingly, the Democrats dispatched rival electoral certificates to the capitol, declaring that the Republican certificates were illegitimate. Immediately the eyes of the nation turned to Washington to see how the dispute would be resolved.

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