Presidential elections can change history and the direction of the country for years. We are in the middle of one of the most contentious and divisive campaigns in our history. But history also tells us about another presidential election that most people don’t know about. It changed the country. It changed the lives of millions for generations. In 1876, the United States celebrated its Centennial. The wounds of the Civil War were still fresh. Republican President Ulysses S. Grant was coming to the end of his second term. He was even considering running for a third term. But while Grant was one of the greatest generals in American history, he was one of the worst presidents. Grant was too trusting, and surrounded himself with many dishonest and corrupt men who put their own greed ahead of the good of the country.
When Grant decided not to run again, the Republicans nominated Rutherford Hayes of Ohio. The Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden of New York at their convention in St. Louis. The first political convention held west of the Mississippi. The country was still sharply divided between north and south. Federal troops were still occupying parts of the south as part of Reconstruction after the Civil War which ended 11 years earlier. The Republican Party was the dominate party of the north. The Democrats controlled the south. The campaign was vicious. Democrats attacking the Republicans for years of corruption under Grant. Republicans still blaming Democrats for the Civil War. But racial hatred still cast a dark shadow over the country. Democratic white supremacist groups like the Red Shirts and the White League intimidated and terrorized Republican and black voters, who were overwhelmingly Republican, in the south. Their goal was to restore the Democratic Party to power and return the south to the way things used to be before the Civil War, and the continued suppression of African Americans.
Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote 50.9% to 47.9% over Republican Rutherford Hayes. Tilden also won the electoral vote 184-165. But 20 electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon were in dispute. There were charges of fraud, and threats of violence against Republican voters, even misleading ballots. To aid illiterate voters, parties would put symbols on ballots. Democrats printed ballots with Republican Abraham Lincoln’s picture on them to trick black voters to vote Democratic. This lead to a constitutional crisis. With the support of President Grant, congress passed a law establishing a 15 member Electoral Commission to decide the validity of the 20 votes, and who would be the next president of the United States.
The makeup of the commission was critical. Five members would come from the House. Five members would come from the Senate. Five would be Supreme Court Justices. The majority party in each house picked three majority members and two minority members. The Democrats controlled the House. The Republicans controlled the Senate. Two Democratic and two Republican Supreme Court justices would pick the fifth justice. Since the commission was now made up of seven Democrats and seven Republicans, the justices decided to pick an independent justice, David Davis, as the fifteenth member. All sounds very fair. But politics intervened. In the middle of the selection process, the Illinois legislature elected Davis to the U-S Senate. In those days, senators were elected by state legislatures. Democrats in the legislature supported Davis hoping he would support the Democrat Tilden in the commission vote. Instead of staying on the court so he could be part of the commission, Davis resigned the court to take his Senate seat.
The four remaining justices were all Republicans. The justices on the commission picked Justice Joseph Bradley who was thought to be the most impartial of the Republicans. Of course, the vote over the disputed electoral votes split along party lines, 8-7 in favor of Republican Rutherford Hayes, with Bradley casting the deciding vote. The commission gave all 20 disputed electoral votes to Republican Hayes, and he won the presidency by one electoral vote 185-184. As part of the Compromise of 1877, the Democrats didn’t dispute Hayes’ election, in return for the Republicans pulling federal troops out of the south, ending Reconstruction. This allowed segregationist Democrats to take over legislatures in southern states to enact Jim Crow laws that would discriminate against black people for decades until the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
Bradley claimed he was never pressured by his fellow Republicans on the commission. But it’s interesting to look at a case Bradley ruled on just the year before in 1875. In the United States v. Cruikshank the court ruled that the federal government would not intervene on paramilitary and group attacks on individuals. Plaintiffs would have to rely on state courts to get justice. This allowed groups like the Red Shirts, the White League, and Ku Klux Klan to terrorize and suppress black voters for years. For decades, these state courts did not convict a white man for killing a black person.
Reconstruction would have also ended if Democrat Tilden was elected. Although he favored a more conciliatory approach. But neither party could see the long range consequences of political decisions allowing racial hatred and fear to influence the lives of millions. It’s been 140 years since Justice Bradley cast his vote. Yet people are still chanting “Black Lives Matter” and others are talking about building walls and deporting millions. How far have we come?
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