Standard 8.88 Lesson
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C HAPTER
Chapter 1. Standard 8.88 Lesson
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Standard 8.88 Lesson
8.88 Explain the controversy of the 1876 presidential election and the subsequent removal of federal troops
from the South. (H,P)
FIGURE 1.1
http //radiocoloradocollege.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/09/1876.jpg
1876 presidential Election
Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden - governor of New York
Samuel Jones Tilden (February 9, 1814 – August 4, 1886) was the 25th Governor of New York and the Democratic
candidate for the U.S. Presidency in the disputed election of 1876 , winning a popular vote majority, but ultimately
being denied victory by the electoral college . A political reformer , he was a Bourbon Democrat who worked
closely with the New York City business community and led the fight against the corruption of Tammany Hall .
Republicans - Rutherford B. Hayes - governor of Ohio
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th President of the United States
(1877–1881). As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction , began the efforts that led to civil service reform,
and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Hayes, an attorney in Ohio, became city solicitor of Cincinnati from 1858 to 1861. When the Civil War began, he
left a fledgling political career to join the Union Army as an officer. Hayes was wounded five times, most seriously
at the Battle of South Mountain ; he earned a reputation for bravery in combat and was promoted to the rank of major
general. After the war, he served in the U.S. Congress from 1865 to 1867 as a Republican . Hayes left Congress
to run for Governor of Ohio and was elected to two consecutive terms, from 1868 to 1872, and then to a third term,
from 1876 to 1877.
In 1876, Hayes was elected president in one of the most contentious and confused elections in national history. He
lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden but he won an intensely disputed electoral college vote after a
Congressional commission awarded him twenty contested electoral votes. The result was the Compromise of 1877
, in which the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes’s election and Hayes ended all federal army intervention in Southern
politics.
Hayes believed in meritocratic government, equal treatment without regard to race, and improvement through
education. He ordered federal troops to crush the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 . He implemented modest civil
service reforms that laid the groundwork for further reform in the 1880s and 1890s. He vetoed the Bland-Alliso
n Act , which would have put silver money into circulation and raised prices, insisting that maintenance of the
gold standard was essential to economic recovery. His policy toward Western Indians anticipated the assimilationist
program of the Dawes Act of 1887.
Hayes kept his pledge not to run for re-election, retired to his home in Ohio, and became an advocate of social and
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educational reform. Biographer Ari Hoogenboom says his greatest achievement was to restore popular faith in the
presidency and to reverse the deterioration of executive power that had set in after Lincoln’s death.
FIGURE 1.2
http://www.historycentral.com/elections/1876.html
- cited for Election 1876 Election
FIGURE 1.3
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Chapter 1. Standard 8.88 Lesson
FIGURE 1.4
Tilden won the popular vote with 184 electoral votes which was one short of number needed to win. There were 3
southern states, that held 20 votes, that decided the election–South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. There was no
clear winner as the inauguration day came closer. A commission, set up by Congress, of Republicans and Democrats
would come up with a deal. This deal would be called Compromise of 1877.
The commission, mostly Republicans, decided to give all the disputed votes to Rutherford B. Hayes. Privately,
Hayes had decided to end Reconstruction and Southern Democrats decided to go along with it if the Republicans
would recall all the federal troops that were supporting Reconstruction. Also, Hayes would have to appoint at least
one Southerner to his cabinet. Giving all the disputed 20 votes to Hayes allowed him to win the election with 185
electoral votes. Hayes began to remove federal troops during his first year in office.
Compromise of 1877
FIGURE 1.5
The Compromise of 1877 Explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tknVMkVDUto
The Compromise of 1877 was a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S.
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presidential election , pulled federal troops out of state politics in the South, and ended the Reconstruction Era .
Through the Compromise, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the White House over Democrat Samu
el J. Tilden on the understanding that Hayes would remove the federal troops whose support was essential for the
survival of Republican state governments in South Carolina , Florida and Louisiana . The compromise involved
Democrats who controlled the House of Representatives allowing the decision of the Electoral Commission to take
effect. The outgoing president, Republican Ulysses S. Grant , removed the soldiers from Florida. As president,
Hayes removed the remaining troops in South Carolina and Louisiana. As soon as the troops left, many white
Republicans also left and the "Redeemer " Democrats took control. What exactly happened is somewhat contested
as the documentation is scanty. Black Republicans felt betrayed as they lost power.
http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/compromise-of-1877
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