The “Election” of Rutherford B. Hayes
Congress created an electoral commission to determine the winner of the 1876 election when neither candidate received a clear majority of electoral votes. The media and general public viewed the method by which the Electoral Commission determined the decision – the Compromise of 1877 – as highly partisan and undemocratic.
Issue
The presidential election of 1876 was a close race between Democrat Samuel Tilden from New York and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes from Ohio. Although Tilden had won the popular vote and received 184 of the 185 votes needed to win the Electoral College, compared to Hayes’ 181, there were ongoing disputes regarding the results in Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, and Oregon. The closeness of the election stirred both parties to engage in last-minute fraud to sway the vote in their favor. From stuffing ballot boxes to bribing and intimidating newly enfranchised Black voters, the true results of the election were unclear.
With both candidates claiming victory in each of these states and accusing the other candidate of election fraud, Congress created an Electoral Commission to decide the election. The Commission was composed of a bipartisan House and Senate committee, as well as Supreme Court justices. When the commission determined Hayes to be the winner, angry Democrats threatened to fill the streets of Washington and prevent Hayes from being inaugurated. To appease the Democrats, the commission negotiated the Compromise of 1877. Under this compromise, Hayes assumed the presidency and federal soldiers were ordered to withdraw from the South, ending Reconstruction.
Causes
The 12th Amendment states that the president of the Senate, who is usually the vice president, opens the electoral certificates and counts them aloud in the presence of Congress members. However, the vice president, Henry Wilson, had died the previous year and had not been replaced. Senator Thomas Ferry, the president pro tempore, assumed Wilson’s role as president of the Senate but not that of vice president.
Republican congress members interpreted the 12th Amendment to mean that president pro tempore Senator Ferry, who was a Republican, had the sole authority to determine which electoral votes counted and which ones did not. However, Democrats disagreed with this interpretation because they believed that Senator Ferry would tip the election in favor of Hayes. Instead, Democratic congressmen proposed that the Democratic-majority Congress should have a say in whether an electoral vote was counted or not. To compromise, Congress passed the Electoral Commission Act in 1877. This act created the bipartisan Electoral Commission that ultimately negotiated the Compromise of 1877 and identified Hayes as the winner of the election.
Outcome
Worried that armed and displeased Democrats might start a second civil war, the Electoral Commission negotiated the Compromise of 1877 that allowed Hayes to be successfully inaugurated as president in return for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South. While this compromise prevented violence, the American public questioned the legitimacy of Hayes’ presidency. Democrats in the media frequently referred to President Hayes as “His Fraudulency,” and Republicans disapproved of ending Reconstruction. To restore trust in the office of the presidency, Hayes promised to serve only one term and not run for reelection.
The brokered deal for the presidency weakened the legitimacy of Hayes’ presidency and set the nation on a path that undermined the safety and civil rights of African Americans for much of the next century. After federal troops moved out of the South as required by the Compromise of 1877, Southern states passed a series of Jim Crow laws that fostered racial segregation and disenfranchised Black voters. It was only in 1964, almost 90 years after the Compromise of 1877, that Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. These acts reasserted federal oversight of race relations, primarily in the South.
Feature image: The Electoral Commission holds a secret candlelight meeting, Feb. 16, 1877 (Source: Library of Congress)
