The Election Of 1876 Sets The Tone

ASU HST 200 (Historical Themes) Politics in the Gilded Age 1870-1900 The Election Of 1876 Sets The Tone The 1876 presidential election produced one of the most contentious outcomes in presidential history, which in many respects predicted the politics of the day. The nation was in the midst of the 1873 Panic-induced economic depression, which would extend until 1879 and almost guarantee that Republican incumbent Ulysses S. Grant would not be reelected. Rather, the Republican Party put forth Rutherford B. Hayes, an Ohio governor who had served three terms. Most importantly, Hayes had no significant political scandals in his past, unlike his predecessor Grant, who was embroiled in the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal. Hayes was a popular candidate who supported both civil service reform—that is, recruiting based upon merit and qualifications—and "hard money," or an economy based upon gold currency transactions—to protect against inflationary pressures. A number of lawmakers took cash and stock bribes in this most well-known instance of Gilded Age corruption, which they accepted in exchange for allocating inflated government funding for the building of the transcontinental railroad. The Democrats also looked for a candidate who could support change in opposition to the increasing levels of political corruption. Samuel J. Tilden, the self-made billionaire and governor of New York, was their guy. He had successfully fought corruption in the city and spearheaded the prosecution of Tammany Hall Boss William Tweed, who was eventually imprisoned. By professing to be advocates of change and pledging to put an end to the corruption that had become rife in Washington, both parties capitalized on the general sentiment of the day (Figure 20.5). Similarly, both sides pledged to put an end to Reconstruction following the Civil War. The campaign was typical of the time period: Republicans used the bloody shirt campaign to remind people of the horrific human cost of the war against southern confederates who were now resurfacing in national politics under the Democratic Party banner, while Democrats focused attention on previous Republican scandals like the Crédit Mobilier affair. In the 1868 election, President Grant used a tactic known as the "bloody shirt" to great effect when Republican supporters attacked Democratic nominee Horatio Seymour for his backing of draft protesters in New York City during the war. As was customary in those days, neither Tilden nor Hayes ran an aggressive campaign for office in 1876; instead, they depended on their followers and other organizations to further their agendas. Democrats used White supremacist terror groups to intimidate Black voters and Republicans because they feared a large turnout of African Americans and White Republicans in the South, especially after the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which gave African Americans more protection in public spaces. Several were physically attacked as they tried to cast their ballots, among other tactics. Similar to the Ku Klux Klan, the Redshirts, who were centered in Mississippi and the Carolinas, and the White League, who were headquartered in Louisiana, used intimidation techniques, but their operations were more transparent and planned, and their only objective was to return Democrats to political control in the South. Redshirts would, on many occasions, openly lash freedmen who tried to cast their ballots and then throw barbecues in an effort to get Democratic voters to the polls. As a statement of their political beliefs, ladies all around South Carolina started sewing red flannel shirts for the men to wear. The women also started donning red ribbons around their waists and in their hair. In the end, the presidential election outcome was rather close. Tilden got 184 electoral votes, out of the 185 required to declare a formal victory, despite having approximately 300,000 more votes in the popular vote than any other candidate. Due to numerous allegations of voting fraud and miscounting, there was controversy in three states: Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. The final result was further clouded by doubts about the legitimacy of one of Oregon's three electors; however, that state later provided Congress with proof that Hayes had received all three electoral votes. The House of Representatives formed a special electoral commission to ascertain which candidate received the contested electoral votes in these three states as a result of the contested election. The leaders of the Republican Party made an alluring offer to southern Democrats in what is now known as the Compromise of 1877. The proposal said that Hayes would command the evacuation of all surviving American forces from those three southern states if the panel recommended a victory for him. This would enable the radical Reconstruction administrations of the first few years following the Civil War to fall. With the abolition of slavery, this action would enable southern Democrats to take control of their own states' destiny and terminate federal participation (Figure 20.6). Following weeks of discussion, Hayes was declared the winner in each of the three contested states by the electoral commission, which voted eight to seven along party lines. As a consequence, Hayes won 185–184 electoral votes over Tilden to become the next president. As promised, radical Reconstruction came to an end in April of that year when federal forces were withdrawn from the last two Reconstruction states, Louisiana and South Carolina. Redeemers, who were mostly Southern Democrats, reclaimed power over the political and social structure of the South in less than a year. Despite being unpopular with voters, particularly African Americans who called it "The Great Betrayal," the compromise revealed the two major political parties' willingness to prevent a "stand-off" that would have resulted from a southern Democrat filibuster, which would have significantly delayed the election's outcome. Democrats received control of the White House in exchange for ending Reconstruction and preserving "home rule" in the South. Similarly, most came to the conclusion that Hayes would probably only serve one term as president and would be just as incompetent as his predecessors from before the Civil War. The lack of even more public indignation at such an obvious compromise was perhaps most unexpected, because it shows how little the American people expected from their federal government. Regarding their goals and their penchant for dubious methods and backroom dealings, the two main political parties remained almost identical throughout a period of comparatively high voter turnout. Similarly, an increasing number of Americans came to embrace the idea of an inert federal government due to a rising conviction in laissez-faire principles rather than government involvement and reforms, which many saw as having contributed to the start of the Civil War.