How did the election of 1876 and Compromise of 1877 lead to the end of Reconstruction?

Mon, 02.26.1877

The Compromise Of 1877, a story

(political cartoon)

*The Compromise of 1877 was enacted on this date in 1877.  This was an unwritten deal, informally arranged among U.S. Congressmen, that settled the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election.  

This agreement, less than a week before the inauguration resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, ending the Reconstruction Era. Through the Compromise, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the White House over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden on the understanding that Hayes would remove the federal troops whose support was essential for the survival of Republican state governments in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana.  Under the compromise, Democrats who controlled the House of Representatives allowed the decision of the Electoral Commission to take effect. 

The outgoing president, Republican Ulysses S. Grant, removed the soldiers from Florida, and as president, Hayes removed the remaining troops from South Carolina and Louisiana. As soon as the troops left, many white Republicans also left, and the "Redeemer" Democrats, who already dominated other state governments in the South, took control. The exact terms of the agreement are somewhat contested as the documentation is insufficient. Black Republicans felt betrayed as they lost power, being exposed to domestic terrorism and voter suppression.  By 1905, virtually all Black men were effectively disenfranchised by state legislatures in every Southern state. 

From Ohio History Central

The presidential election of 1876 led to the end of Reconstruction. In this election, the Republican Party nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, an Ohioan, while the Democratic Party ran Samuel Tilden, a New Yorker. Tilden won the popular vote by 250,000 votes, but a dispute arose in the Electoral College. The voting returns from South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon were contested. If Hayes received the Electoral College votes from these states, he would win the election by a single vote (185 to 184), despite losing the popular vote.

The United States Congress appointed a special committee to determine how the disputed votes were to be counted. Initially, seven Democrats, seven Republicans, and one independent served on the committee. The independent eventually withdrew, and the Congress selected a Republican to replace him. The special committee voted to give Hayes all of the disputed Electoral College votes. The United States House of Representatives and Senate still had to agree to the committee's decision. The Republican-dominated Senate quickly ratified the committee's decision. The Democrats in the House planned to filibuster, refusing to let the issue come to a vote.

To ensure Hayes's election, Republican leaders negotiated an agreement with Southern Democrats in the House. The Republicans agreed to remove federal troops policing the South as soon as Hayes became president. Hayes also agreed to have at least one Southerner appointed to his cabinet. Southern Democrats welcomed this agreement and permitted Hayes to win all of the disputed Electoral votes. With the removal of Northern soldiers from the South, white Southerners were successful in denying African Americans their rights. Southern Democrats also succeeded in redeeming their state governments from Republican control. In essence, the Compromise of 1877, as the bargain between Southern Democrats and the Republicans became known, brought Reconstruction to an end by ending the Northern occupation of the South.

See Also

Compromise of 1877

Two men emerged as the leading candidates in the election of 1876:

• Samuel J. Tilden – Democrat
• Rutherford B. Hayes – Republican

Broadside for the Democrat Party during the election

Samuel J. Tilden won the Democratic nomination based on his record of honesty and courage in breaking up the infamous New York City Boss Tweed Ring. He won the governorship of New York in 1874 and by 1876 was nominated for the presidency.
The Republicans turned to former Union general and Ohio governor Rutherford B. Hayes.  The election focused on issues of corruption in the Republican party and waving the bloody shirt at the Democratic party (accusing the Democrats of starting the Civil War).  The election itself was tainted with fraud, especially in those states in the South still occupied by Union forces.

Early election returns indicated that Tilden won the popular vote, but soon disputed returns surfaced in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida.  Since the constitution gave no guidance in a disputed election, the election was caught in a stalemate.  Congress decided to create a special Electoral Commission to investigate and determine which election returns were valid.  The Commission had fifteen members: five from each of the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court.  Of the members, seven were Republicans and seven were Democrats.  The fifteenth man, Supreme Court Justice David Davis, was not a party regular, and the other members expected him to be the swing vote, but when the Illinois assembly chose him to be their senator, he resigned his seat on the commission and was replaced by a Republican justice who voted along party lines. The commission voted eight to seven to qualify the disputed votes in favor of Hayes, but in the process, southern Democrats won several concessions.  The most important of these promised an end to Reconstruction. The Republicans claimed that if Hayes were elected, he would withdraw the last federal troops from the South, allowing the state Republican governments to collapse. Democrats for their part, promised to uphold black civil rights and support the Constitution.  In this Compromise of 1877 Hayes became president and the South returned to “home rule,” that is, government for the most part by white southern Democrats. Southerners called it Redemption.

Rutherford B. Hayes

Redemption

After taking office, Hayes withdrew the troops and black civil rights slowly withered.  The last remaining Republican governments fell in the South and a new group of individuals took control of the South, the Redeemers.  Some of these individuals were members of the old planter class who sought to restore things in the South to how they had been before the Civil War.  Others were middle-classed individuals who sought to bring industry and commerce to the South.   Still others were professional politicians who adopted whichever political current seemed most popular among the majority of voters at the moment.  Though diverse, these individuals as a whole believed the government should have a limited role in shaping the economy.  Secondly, Redeemers promoted white supremacy.  Appeals to white domination served to unite Democrats and detract attention away from economic and social problems in the South.

In the years that followed Reconstruction, racism became increasingly entrenched throughout the South.  Whites used intimidation, violence and fraud to prevent blacks from influencing the outcome of elections.  Additionally, states imposed rigid voting requirements to discourage black voters.  During the 1890s some states adopted literacy tests and various other legalized barriers that subverted the Fifteenth Amendment.

By the turn of the century, segregation of public facilities became commonplace throughout the South, because the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments had been severely undermined by U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, rising racism in the nation, and disfranchisement, segregation, and continued violence in the South.  The great promise of equality that came from the years of Congressional Reconstruction was in retreat. It would wait until the twentieth century when activists challenged discrimination in the courts and protested it in the streets.  The civil rights movement of the 1960s came to be known as the “Second Reconstruction.”

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