Deja Vu: Revisiting the 1876 Presidential Election - comparison with 2000, United States

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), May, 2001 by Jeremy F. Plant

IN THE AUTUMN OF 1876, Americans were still recovering from the shock of Gen. George Armstrong Custer's defeat at Little Bighorn that summer and the thrill of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the nation. Anxiety increased as the presidential election drew nearer. The Civil War was just a little more than a decade over, and its greatest living hero, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, was about to leave the White House--albeit reluctantly. His presidency had been a bitter disappointment, to himself and the American public. They had suffered through eight years of mounting economic crisis, public and private corruption, Indian wars on the Plains, and growing racial tensions in the South.

Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, the only other true national hero from the war, was unwilling to put himself up for the nomination of the Republican Party, stating, "If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve." Instead, the Republicans, deeply fractured by factional splits, had passed over the two acknowledged senatorial party leaders, James Blaine of Maine and Roscoe Conkling of New York, in favor of a relative unknown, Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. The Democrats, who had been so disorganized and dispirited in the aftermath of the war, had found a new leader, Gov. Samuel J. Tilden of New York. They and most observers expected Tilden to vanquish the uninspiring Hayes, based on a number of factors working against the Republicans: the record of corruption in the Grant Administration, Tilden's proven record as a reformer in New York city and state politics, the growing weariness with the Republicans' reliance on "the bloody shirt" of Reconstruction, and the economic recession that had hit the country hard in 1873, from which it had still not fully recovered.

Each party had to face some hard facts. The Republicans needed to carry nearly all the northern states and the three western states--Oregon, California, and Nevada--to make up for the Democrat's grip on the South, which was showing signs of becoming the one-party stronghold it would remain for a century. Tilden was strong in New York, and his reputation carried over to neighboring states like New Jersey and Connecticut. Indiana, always the most southern in outlook of the northern states, was also in doubt. Three states in the South--Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana--were nominally Republican as a result of Reconstruction and might give their vote to the Republican slate. New England and most of the Midwest were expected to vote Republican. It promised to be a fairly close election, and both parties geared up to ensure the maximum participation at the polls.

The 1870s were perhaps the high point of party mobilization and loyalty in the nation's history. In town after town across the country, summer evenings saw torchlight parades as both parties tried to nail down the faithful and woo the uncommitted to their candidates. The stakes were high. Tilden, it was assumed, would pursue a policy of rapprochement with the South, even though he had supported the war. The losers were certain to be the Republicans, who would cease to exist as a major party in the region, and Negroes, who would be left to the mercies of state political systems disinclined to take the Fifteenth Amendment seriously. In the North, Catholic voters saw a clear choice, given Hayes' record of strident opposition to support of parochial schools in Ohio.

In many ways, the two candidates for the presidency were similar. Both were well-educated lawyers in the vanguard of the professionalization of law and its service to corporations. Both had small-town roots--Tilden was from New Lebanon, N.Y., a village in the Taconic Hills near the Massachusetts border; Hayes from Lower Sandusky, Ohio, with family roots in Vermont. Hayes had served loyally, but without great distinction, in the Civil War, attaining the rank of Brig. Gen. of Volunteers. Tilden was too old to serve. Both candidates were considered reformers, men of personal integrity, and somewhat detached from the image of the professional politician that haunted Conkling, Blaine, and others.

On Election Night, it looked as if Tilden had won a close, but convincing, victory. Hayes failed to hold the North, losing New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Connecticut. The South had gone for Tilden, with disputed returns in the three states still held by Republican Reconstruction governments. Returns from the West were slow in coming in, but it appeared they were going the Republicans' way. If so, Tilden needed just one more electoral vote to win the election he had already won in the national popular vote.

As election night turned into post-election day, Tilden was a heartbeat away from the White House. One of Oregon's three Republican electors was a postmaster, and so ineligible for election. The governor was a Democrat, and he certified the Tilden elector with the highest vote total to replace him, over the objections of the other Republican electors, who claimed the right to appoint electors in case of a vacancy. Was there a vacancy? On this question, the election might be decided.