Controversial Elections - Part 3

Will the election of 2020 have a clear winner?  If the election is close, the parties will argue over the proper counting of absentee and mail-in ballots. Allegations will be made of voter suppression and ballot harvesting. Potentially an unstable, even violent situation. While chaotic, it would not be unprecedented. Several Presidential elections took months to resolve.  Previously we covered the elections of 1800 and 1824.  Both went to the House of Representatives to determine the winner. The Election of 1876 took almost four months to pick a winner, perhaps the most controversial election in our history

Background

Cartoon Caption Reads - “Of Course He Wants to Vote the Democratic Ticket

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the process of reconstructing the Union began. Southerners and Democrats accepted the end of slavery but resisted granting the newly freed people full Civil rights. The Republicans wanted to provide full equality to the former slaves. The country passed three Civil War amendments. The 13th abolished slavery. The 14th granted citizenship to the newly freed slaves. It also granted equal protection under the law. The 15th prohibited the states from denying the right to vote based on race or color.

The South resisted these changes through intimidation and violence. In response, the Federal government declared martial law and sent troops into the South to protect black Civil Rights. Many African Americans voted and won elective office. However, a severe depression (Panic of 1873) and ongoing scandals in President Grant’s administration diverted attention away from the South and the challenges facing African Americans. Southern Democrats slowly took control back in Southern State after Southern State as Federal troops were gradually withdrawn.

In 1874, the Democrat Party swept control of the house from the Republicans. In a stunning turnaround, Democrats went from holding 30% of the House Seats to over 60% of the seats. By the 1876 Presidential Election, Federal troops only remained in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. Those three states were led by Republican administrations, the rest of the South was now controlled by Democrats.

The Election of 1876

Candidates Tilden and Hayes

Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, a Civil War veteran and Governor of Ohio, faced Democrat Samuel Tilden, Governor of New York. The Democrat platform focused mainly on economic matters and government reform. But it described the Post Civil War reconstruction effort as inflicting a ‘rapacity of carpet-bag tyrannies’ on the South. The Republican platform supported continuation of efforts to protect Civil Rights. Maybe ahead of its time, the platform also supported women’s rights – “The Republican party recognizes with approval the substantial advances recently made toward the establishment of equal rights for women…”

 When the votes were tallied, Tilden won the South and several Northern states. But he was one short of an Electoral College majority. However, the votes in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida, the last remaining Southern Republican states, were in dispute. Tilden won the original vote counts in those three states, enough to make him President. However, Democrats had used voter intimidation to reduce the heavily Republican Black vote, and there were reports of vote fraud. In those three States, the Republican-controlled election boards disallowed enough Democrat ballots to switch the electoral votes from Tilden to Hayes. That would make Hayes President by one electoral vote.

The Republicans and Democrats in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida certified different vote totals. They sent them to Congress, which officially counts the electoral votes. Congress ended up with two totals, one making Hayes President, the other Tilden.

The Constitution does not provide a mechanism for resolving disputed vote counts. The arguments became heated, and the military even ordered extra troops to Washington, D.C., in case of violence.

Final Electoral Tally - Hayes 185, Tilden 184

In January 1877, Congress passed a bill setting up a bi-partisan Commission to resolve the dispute.  The Commission’s findings were to be binding unless both the Senate and the House voted against them. The Commission consisted of five members of the House, five Senators, and five Supreme Court Justices. The Republicans ended up with an 8 to 7 majority on this panel. At that time, the Presidential inauguration occurred in early March, allowing the Commission a month to complete its work.

During February 1877, the Commission held hearings about South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida’s votes. In each case, the Commission awarded the ballots to the Republican Hayes by an 8 to 7 straight party-line vote. The House and Senate debated these results, and they were finally accepted in the middle of the night on March 2. Three days later, March 5, Hayes was sworn in as President. In what became known as the Compromise of 1877, before the final vote, talks between the parties led to Hayes withdrawing the remaining Federal troops from the South in April 1877, ending Reconstruction.

Conclusion

Emotions were heated during the Controversy (‘Tilden or Blood’)

The election of 1876, held in the country’s centennial year, was the most controversial in our history. Although reconstruction was already winding down, 1877 is now considered the end of Reconstruction. The South became a one-party state in favor of the Democrats. The former Confederate States passed Jim Crow and anti-black laws. Not the best way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our founding.

(Part 1 click here; Part 2 click here)