Thursday, December 21, 2000
Election of 1876 divided the country
LOOKING BACK by Wally Dobelis
Now that the Presidential election of 2000 is moving towards the surreal, with challenges from both sides having the potential of extending beyond Florida, let’s revisit another challenged contest, the November 1876 election, which was not resolved until March 2, 1877, two days before the then inaugural date. The loser was our neighbor, Samuel Jones Tilden of 16 East 20th Street (now the National Arts Club), Governor of New York, and the winner was General Rutherford B. Hayes, Governor of Ohio. The chief loser was the US, condemned to four years of divisive political strife, with the office of the Presidency exposed to calumnies and recriminations that besmirched the reputations of two honest men.
We have been used to viewing our local hero, Sam Tilden, as the victim of unscrupulous Republicans, who, faced with the loss of the Presidency due to the oerwhelming popular vote for Tilden, did some ballot-fixing and bribing among the members of the returning boards of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina, the three Southern states still remaining in Federal military control under the laws of Reconstruction. Alternate lists of 19 electors were brought forth from the three Southern states, also one from Oregon. After much debate, five Senators, five members of the House and five Associate Justices of the Supreme Court were chosen to constitute a blue-ribbon Electoral Commission, to choose between the two sets of the electors. Their decision would stand, unless it were to be rejected by both houses of the Congress. There were eight Democrats on the Commission. When the Democrat Judge David C. Davis resigned, having been elected to the Senate from Illinois, a Republican judge was substituted, who allegedly knew that the Florida electors were illegaly appointed. However, the now Republican majority voted a straight party line on each elector, awarding all 20 votes to Hayes, thus giving a him a one-vote majority (184 to 185) in the Electoral College.The Democrats decided to forego a challenge, although fraud was established, most prominently in Florida. Hayes became President, despite the fact that the popular vote for Tilden exceeded that for Hayes by a count of 250,000 , or about 3 percent of the total. But the Democrats of the South saw a threat of potential civil war, wanted to avoid it, and persuaded Tilden not to challenge the decision. They exacted concessions from the Republicans - the military was to be withdrawn, the carpetbagger governments had to be disavowed , and blacks were to be accorded the same subordinate political status as the white laboring classes in the North. The agreements affirmed white supremacy in the South, until the 1960s.
An article by Sanford Mock in the Spring issue of Financial History, published by our friends at the Museum of American Financial History, 26 Broadway, tries to explain the events in different terms. Based on two biographies of Hayes, it highlights the miserable conditions of the Reconstruction South, with unscrupulous Northern carpetbaggers and Southern scalawags trying to make their fortunes while the populace was rebuilding their destroyed lives. U.S.Grant’s roughshod troops were making sure that the liberty and voting rights of blacks guaranteed by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were enforced, and the Southern whites were edoing their best to stop the Republican ascendancy via the black vote, Riots were frequent, and black voters were suppressed by the Klan.It could be implied that, in a sense, the "bought" state commissioners may have been righting a wrong.
It is to the credit to the honorable contestants that, whenever they discovered their campaign staffs at bribery, they stopped it. Hayes was angry about the Democratic Tammany Hall-type fixers in the North and the suppressors of the black vote in the South, and, once in office, tried to right things. But the hostility of the Democratic majority in Congress ruined his program. The withdrawal of the soldiers from the South angered his Republican supporters, as did his attempt to reform the civil service.The economic depression in his term of office brought on the first nationwide strike by rail workers in 1877., and sending in troops to quell riots angered the electorate..In 1880 Hayes declined the offer to run again, and retired to his native Ohio to devote himself to education and philantropy. He died at the age of 71, in 1893. Tilden became somewhat of a recluse at his Gramercy Park and Yon kers enclaves, and died in 1886, at 72, leaving most of his $5 million fortune for the building of the New York Public Library (he had earned it as a successful lawyer, mostly defending the railroads). Although the monies were whittled down to less than a half by litigious relatives, twThis task was completed by his friend and biographer John Bigelow of 21 Gramercy Park South, in 1911 [Bigelow’s daughter Grace chaired the Park trustees, and his great-great grandson NYC Commissioner of Finance Andrew Eristoff was, until recently, the local City Councilman]. Tilden’s mausoleum in New Lebanon, upstate, bears the inscription: "I still trust the people."
LOOKING BACK by Wally Dobelis
The contested Presidential election of 1876 divided the country
Now that the Presidential election of 2000 is moving towards the surreal, with challenges from both sides having the potential of extending beyond Florida, let’s revisit another challenged contest, the November 1876 election, which was not resolved until March 2, 1877, two days before the then inaugural date. The loser was our neighbor, Samuel Jones Tilden of 16 East 20th Street (now the National Arts Club), Governor of New York, and the winner was General Rutherford B. Hayes, Governor of Ohio. The chief loser was the US, condemned to four years of divisive political strife, with the office of the Presidency exposed to calumnies and recriminations that besmirched the reputations of two honest men.
We have been used to viewing our local hero, Sam Tilden, as the victim of unscrupulous Republicans, who, faced with the loss of the Presidency due to the oerwhelming popular vote for Tilden, did some ballot-fixing and bribing among the members of the returning boards of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina, the three Southern states still remaining in Federal military control under the laws of Reconstruction. Alternate lists of 19 electors were brought forth from the three Southern states, also one from Oregon. After much debate, five Senators, five members of the House and five Associate Justices of the Supreme Court were chosen to constitute a blue-ribbon Electoral Commission, to choose between the two sets of the electors. Their decision would stand, unless it were to be rejected by both houses of the Congress. There were eight Democrats on the Commission. When the Democrat Judge David C. Davis resigned, having been elected to the Senate from Illinois, a Republican judge was substituted, who allegedly knew that the Florida electors were illegaly appointed. However, the now Republican majority voted a straight party line on each elector, awarding all 20 votes to Hayes, thus giving a him a one-vote majority (184 to 185) in the Electoral College.The Democrats decided to forego a challenge, although fraud was established, most prominently in Florida. Hayes became President, despite the fact that the popular vote for Tilden exceeded that for Hayes by a count of 250,000 , or about 3 percent of the total. But the Democrats of the South saw a threat of potential civil war, wanted to avoid it, and persuaded Tilden not to challenge the decision. They exacted concessions from the Republicans - the military was to be withdrawn, the carpetbagger governments had to be disavowed , and blacks were to be accorded the same subordinate political status as the white laboring classes in the North. The agreements affirmed white supremacy in the South, until the 1960s.
An article by Sanford Mock in the Spring issue of Financial History, published by our friends at the Museum of American Financial History, 26 Broadway, tries to explain the events in different terms. Based on two biographies of Hayes, it highlights the miserable conditions of the Reconstruction South, with unscrupulous Northern carpetbaggers and Southern scalawags trying to make their fortunes while the populace was rebuilding their destroyed lives. U.S.Grant’s roughshod troops were making sure that the liberty and voting rights of blacks guaranteed by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were enforced, and the Southern whites were edoing their best to stop the Republican ascendancy via the black vote, Riots were frequent, and black voters were suppressed by the Klan.It could be implied that, in a sense, the "bought" state commissioners may have been righting a wrong.
It is to the credit to the honorable contestants that, whenever they discovered their campaign staffs at bribery, they stopped it. Hayes was angry about the Democratic Tammany Hall-type fixers in the North and the suppressors of the black vote in the South, and, once in office, tried to right things. But the hostility of the Democratic majority in Congress ruined his program. The withdrawal of the soldiers from the South angered his Republican supporters, as did his attempt to reform the civil service.The economic depression in his term of office brought on the first nationwide strike by rail workers in 1877., and sending in troops to quell riots angered the electorate..In 1880 Hayes declined the offer to run again, and retired to his native Ohio to devote himself to education and philantropy. He died at the age of 71, in 1893. Tilden became somewhat of a recluse at his Gramercy Park and Yon kers enclaves, and died in 1886, at 72, leaving most of his $5 million fortune for the building of the New York Public Library (he had earned it as a successful lawyer, mostly defending the railroads). Although the monies were whittled down to less than a half by litigious relatives, twThis task was completed by his friend and biographer John Bigelow of 21 Gramercy Park South, in 1911 [Bigelow’s daughter Grace chaired the Park trustees, and his great-great grandson NYC Commissioner of Finance Andrew Eristoff was, until recently, the local City Councilman]. Tilden’s mausoleum in New Lebanon, upstate, bears the inscription: "I still trust the people."
Now that the Presidential election of 2000 is moving towards the surreal, with challenges from both sides having the potential of extending beyond Florida, let’s revisit another challenged contest, the November 1876 election, which was not resolved until March 2, 1877, two days before the then inaugural date. The loser was our neighbor, Samuel Jones Tilden of 16 East 20th Street (now the National Arts Club), Governor of New York, and the winner was General Rutherford B. Hayes, Governor of Ohio. The chief loser was the US, condemned to four years of divisive political strife, with the office of the Presidency exposed to calumnies and recriminations that besmirched the reputations of two honest men.
We have been used to viewing our local hero, Sam Tilden, as the victim of unscrupulous Republicans, who, faced with the loss of the Presidency due to the oerwhelming popular vote for Tilden, did some ballot-fixing and bribing among the members of the returning boards of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina, the three Southern states still remaining in Federal military control under the laws of Reconstruction. Alternate lists of 19 electors were brought forth from the three Southern states, also one from Oregon. After much debate, five Senators, five members of the House and five Associate Justices of the Supreme Court were chosen to constitute a blue-ribbon Electoral Commission, to choose between the two sets of the electors. Their decision would stand, unless it were to be rejected by both houses of the Congress. There were eight Democrats on the Commission. When the Democrat Judge David C. Davis resigned, having been elected to the Senate from Illinois, a Republican judge was substituted, who allegedly knew that the Florida electors were illegaly appointed. However, the now Republican majority voted a straight party line on each elector, awarding all 20 votes to Hayes, thus giving a him a one-vote majority (184 to 185) in the Electoral College.The Democrats decided to forego a challenge, although fraud was established, most prominently in Florida. Hayes became President, despite the fact that the popular vote for Tilden exceeded that for Hayes by a count of 250,000 , or about 3 percent of the total. But the Democrats of the South saw a threat of potential civil war, wanted to avoid it, and persuaded Tilden not to challenge the decision. They exacted concessions from the Republicans - the military was to be withdrawn, the carpetbagger governments had to be disavowed , and blacks were to be accorded the same subordinate political status as the white laboring classes in the North. The agreements affirmed white supremacy in the South, until the 1960s.
An article by Sanford Mock in the Spring issue of Financial History, published by our friends at the Museum of American Financial History, 26 Broadway, tries to explain the events in different terms. Based on two biographies of Hayes, it highlights the miserable conditions of the Reconstruction South, with unscrupulous Northern carpetbaggers and Southern scalawags trying to make their fortunes while the populace was rebuilding their destroyed lives. U.S.Grant’s roughshod troops were making sure that the liberty and voting rights of blacks guaranteed by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were enforced, and the Southern whites were edoing their best to stop the Republican ascendancy via the black vote, Riots were frequent, and black voters were suppressed by the Klan.It could be implied that, in a sense, the "bought" state commissioners may have been righting a wrong.
It is to the credit to the honorable contestants that, whenever they discovered their campaign staffs at bribery, they stopped it. Hayes was angry about the Democratic Tammany Hall-type fixers in the North and the suppressors of the black vote in the South, and, once in office, tried to right things. But the hostility of the Democratic majority in Congress ruined his program. The withdrawal of the soldiers from the South angered his Republican supporters, as did his attempt to reform the civil service.The economic depression in his term of office brought on the first nationwide strike by rail workers in 1877., and sending in troops to quell riots angered the electorate..In 1880 Hayes declined the offer to run again, and retired to his native Ohio to devote himself to education and philantropy. He died at the age of 71, in 1893. Tilden became somewhat of a recluse at his Gramercy Park and Yon kers enclaves, and died in 1886, at 72, leaving most of his $5 million fortune for the building of the New York Public Library (he had earned it as a successful lawyer, mostly defending the railroads). Although the monies were whittled down to less than a half by litigious relatives, twThis task was completed by his friend and biographer John Bigelow of 21 Gramercy Park South, in 1911 [Bigelow’s daughter Grace chaired the Park trustees, and his great-great grandson NYC Commissioner of Finance Andrew Eristoff was, until recently, the local City Councilman]. Tilden’s mausoleum in New Lebanon, upstate, bears the inscription: "I still trust the people."
LOOKING BACK by Wally Dobelis
The contested Presidential election of 1876 divided the country
Now that the Presidential election of 2000 is moving towards the surreal, with challenges from both sides having the potential of extending beyond Florida, let’s revisit another challenged contest, the November 1876 election, which was not resolved until March 2, 1877, two days before the then inaugural date. The loser was our neighbor, Samuel Jones Tilden of 16 East 20th Street (now the National Arts Club), Governor of New York, and the winner was General Rutherford B. Hayes, Governor of Ohio. The chief loser was the US, condemned to four years of divisive political strife, with the office of the Presidency exposed to calumnies and recriminations that besmirched the reputations of two honest men.
We have been used to viewing our local hero, Sam Tilden, as the victim of unscrupulous Republicans, who, faced with the loss of the Presidency due to the oerwhelming popular vote for Tilden, did some ballot-fixing and bribing among the members of the returning boards of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina, the three Southern states still remaining in Federal military control under the laws of Reconstruction. Alternate lists of 19 electors were brought forth from the three Southern states, also one from Oregon. After much debate, five Senators, five members of the House and five Associate Justices of the Supreme Court were chosen to constitute a blue-ribbon Electoral Commission, to choose between the two sets of the electors. Their decision would stand, unless it were to be rejected by both houses of the Congress. There were eight Democrats on the Commission. When the Democrat Judge David C. Davis resigned, having been elected to the Senate from Illinois, a Republican judge was substituted, who allegedly knew that the Florida electors were illegaly appointed. However, the now Republican majority voted a straight party line on each elector, awarding all 20 votes to Hayes, thus giving a him a one-vote majority (184 to 185) in the Electoral College.The Democrats decided to forego a challenge, although fraud was established, most prominently in Florida. Hayes became President, despite the fact that the popular vote for Tilden exceeded that for Hayes by a count of 250,000 , or about 3 percent of the total. But the Democrats of the South saw a threat of potential civil war, wanted to avoid it, and persuaded Tilden not to challenge the decision. They exacted concessions from the Republicans - the military was to be withdrawn, the carpetbagger governments had to be disavowed , and blacks were to be accorded the same subordinate political status as the white laboring classes in the North. The agreements affirmed white supremacy in the South, until the 1960s.
An article by Sanford Mock in the Spring issue of Financial History, published by our friends at the Museum of American Financial History, 26 Broadway, tries to explain the events in different terms. Based on two biographies of Hayes, it highlights the miserable conditions of the Reconstruction South, with unscrupulous Northern carpetbaggers and Southern scalawags trying to make their fortunes while the populace was rebuilding their destroyed lives. U.S.Grant’s roughshod troops were making sure that the liberty and voting rights of blacks guaranteed by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were enforced, and the Southern whites were edoing their best to stop the Republican ascendancy via the black vote, Riots were frequent, and black voters were suppressed by the Klan.It could be implied that, in a sense, the "bought" state commissioners may have been righting a wrong.
It is to the credit to the honorable contestants that, whenever they discovered their campaign staffs at bribery, they stopped it. Hayes was angry about the Democratic Tammany Hall-type fixers in the North and the suppressors of the black vote in the South, and, once in office, tried to right things. But the hostility of the Democratic majority in Congress ruined his program. The withdrawal of the soldiers from the South angered his Republican supporters, as did his attempt to reform the civil service.The economic depression in his term of office brought on the first nationwide strike by rail workers in 1877., and sending in troops to quell riots angered the electorate..In 1880 Hayes declined the offer to run again, and retired to his native Ohio to devote himself to education and philantropy. He died at the age of 71, in 1893. Tilden became somewhat of a recluse at his Gramercy Park and Yon kers enclaves, and died in 1886, at 72, leaving most of his $5 million fortune for the building of the New York Public Library (he had earned it as a successful lawyer, mostly defending the railroads). Although the monies were whittled down to less than a half by litigious relatives, twThis task was completed by his friend and biographer John Bigelow of 21 Gramercy Park South, in 1911 [Bigelow’s daughter Grace chaired the Park trustees, and his great-great grandson NYC Commissioner of Finance Andrew Eristoff was, until recently, the local City Councilman]. Tilden’s mausoleum in New Lebanon, upstate, bears the inscription: "I still trust the people."
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:58 AM 
