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“If Anybody Says Election to Me, I Want to Fight”

The messy election of 1876.

In early 1877, the fight moved to Washington. A Republican Senate and Democratic House bickered over which electoral certificates to count. Finally, they agreed to establish a 15-member Electoral Commission, with 7 Democrats, 7 Republicans, and 1 neutral member. That deciding vote would be Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley, nominally independent but in fact a longtime Republican. 

With the outcome now leaning toward Hayes, the final issue seemed to be finding a way for congressional Democrats to back down. One meeting has taken on legendary significance. On February 26, a small bipartisan group met in Washington’s ornate Wormley Hotel. They discussed a potential deal, in which Democrats would accept Hayes as president, in exchange for support for a southern transcontinental railroad and the end of Reconstruction. 

But no decisive agreement was reached. Though many believe in a mythic Compromise of 1877, in which a few sneaky politicos conspired against both the popular will and the fight for racial equality, the truth points to something simpler. The white majority—including almost all Democrats and many Republicans—voted to give up on Reconstruction by the mid-1870s.

Hayes now had the single vote edge in the Electoral Commission, which gave him a single vote edge in the Electoral College, and mattered more than Tilden’s 50.9 percent of the popular vote. Though Democrats were furious, all Tilden could do was shrug: “It is about what I expected,” while the Democratic New York Sun moaned, “These are days of humiliation, shame and mourning for every patriotic American.”

The chaos of 1876 took place in a vastly different nation, but a few points seem instructive in 2020. Tilden’s choice to stay in his bunker was a crucial mistake, while Hayes’s engagement across the aisle helped win the day. His ability to convince his opponents that they could tolerate four years of his presidency made it possible for them to concede his victory. 

Republican success stemmed from the power of obscure local officials in the contested states, many of whom allowed their personal views to guide policy. After the 1876 election, a furious Democrat offered a warning to future Americans: “If you want to know who will be president by a future election do not inquire how the people of the states are going to vote.” The truth, he asserted, is murkier. “You need only to know what kind of scoundrels constitute the returning boards.”