Library of Congress Brady-Handy Photograph Collection

On March 2, 1877, only three days before his inauguration, the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election, defeating the Democrat Samuel J. Tilden in one of the most disputed elections in American history.

The March 3 edition of The New York Times said that Hayes was informed while traveling to Washington by train. “The news created quite a jubilee among the governor’s friends on board the train, who congratulated him on his being able to enter the capital of the nation as the actual president-elect, with no further doubt resting upon his title to the office.”

Mr. Hayes had lost the popular vote to Mr. Tilden and on election night appeared to have lost the electoral vote as well. Some newspapers went so far as to report a victory for Mr. Tilden in their Wednesday editions. The Times declared that the election was in doubt in its Wednesday edition and proclaimed a victory for Mr. Hayes the next day.



Mr. Tilden, with 184 electoral votes, had fallen one vote short of a majority necessary for election, with the 19 electoral votes of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana still being decided. Mr. Tilden had carried all three states, but there were many instances of voter fraud and voter intimidation — primarily toward black voters, who were likely to support Republicans. Each state had a Republican-controlled returning board that held the power to throw out contested votes. There was also controversy in Oregon, a state carried by Mr. Hayes, where the Democratic governor removed one of the three Republican electors and replaced him with a Democrat.

State electors cast their ballots on Dec. 6. Both Democrat and Republican electors cast conflicting votes in the four contested states, leaving Mr. Tilden with 184 votes, Mr. Hayes with 165 and 20 contested.

Congress decided to settle the dispute by creating a 15-member Electoral Commission made up of five Democratic congressmen, five Republican congressmen and five Supreme Court justices: two Democrats, two Republicans and a fifth chosen by the four. The original fifth justice was a moderate, David Davis, but before the commission could convene, Democrats elected him to the Illinois state Senate hoping to influence his vote. Instead, Mr. Davis resigned from the commission and the commission had to replace him with one of the four remaining justices, all of whom were Republican. In February, the commission decided in a series of party-line 8-7 votes to award all 20 contested electoral votes to Mr. Hayes, giving him the victory.

The Democrat-controlled House conducted filibusters to delay the election results from becoming official. Ultimately the dispute was settled with a deal known as the Compromise of 1877. Democrats agreed to drop their objections to Mr. Hayes’s election in exchange for the Hayes administration appointing a Democratic postmaster-general and agreeing to remove federal troops from state government buildings in Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana. The decision to remove federal troops effectively ended the federal government’s Reconstruction efforts.

“Many Democrats seem to be really well satisfied at the peaceable declaration of the election of Mr. Hayes, and even more violent filibusters are not nearly so angry as they were last night,” The Times reported. “Indeed, some of them go so far as to say that no matter what may come, the country is well rid of the pretender Tilden. For that person no one has a good word.”

Connect to Today:

Unlike most elections, presidential elections are decided not by popular vote, but by a system known as the Electoral College, in which each state is assigned a certain number of electors who vote for president based on their state’s results. The election of 1876 is one of four elections in which the winner of the popular vote lost the electoral vote, the others occurring in 1824, 1888 and 2000.

Proponents of the Electoral College say it gives smaller states a voice and preserves the federalist nature of the United States. Opponents say that it gives disproportionate amount of power to “swing” states while virtually disenfranchising voters in states where one candidate wins by a large margin. The Center for Voting and Democracy, an organization that opposes the Electoral College, provides a list of other possible voting systems. Though the 2000 election, in which the Republican George W. Bush became president instead of the Democrat Al Gore, despite not winning the popular vote, sparked significant debate about electoral change, the topic has received very little mainstream news coverage in subsequent elections.

What do you think about the Electoral College? In your opinion, which is more fair: election by popular vote or Electoral College? Given this history of intermittent debate, do you think you will witness a change in the electoral system in your lifetime? Why or why not?

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