Centennial Crisis- the Disputed Election of 1876

by William H Rehnquist

  The reform efforts of New York’s Governor during 1875 and 1876 were cited by the Democrats as a welcome contrast to the scandals of the Grant administration. The New York State Democratic Convention meeting in Utica in 1876 endorsed Tilden as its candidate for President. The Governor and his allies went to work at once, forming a Newspaper Popularity Bureau, well staffed with writers. They sent out paid advertisements to local newspapers nationwide, and also favorable press clippings. The Tilden “boom” was under way.

  A cloud on the otherwise sunny horizon of the national Democratic Party was the monetary issue. Grant, it will be recalled, had signed a law pledging to redeem greenbacks in specie over a period of time. But the hard times which followed the Panic of 1873 had increased the demand for soft money, so that debtors could repay their creditors with inflated dollars. The monetary issue broke not so much along political party lines as along geographic ones: debtors tended to be in the West, creditors in the East. But there were more soft-money Democrats than there were Republicans.

  The Democratic National Convention met in St. Louis in late June 1876—two weeks after the Republican National Convention which had nominated Hayes. Tilden’s most formidable rival for the first prize was Governor Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana. As a senator during Reconstruction, he had opposed both the Thirteenth and the Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, and also opposed the conviction of President Johnson. But now he stood principally for a soft-money policy. Tilden, on the other hand, true to his eastern connections, believed in hard money. On the first ballot in St. Louis, Tilden received 4041⁄2 votes—a majority, but not the necessary two-thirds—to Hendricks’ 1401⁄2, with the rest scattered to others. Tilden was nominated on the next ballot, and the following day the convention unanimously nominated Hendricks for Vice President.

  — CHAPTER 4 —

  SINCE THE WATERSHED ELECTION of 1860, Republican strength had been concentrated in the North and Democratic strength in the South. The Republican Party had its greatest edge in New England and in the upper Midwest, while the populous band of industrial states stretching from New York to Illinois were usually the political battleground.

  These sectional divisions had not been nearly as sharp before the Civil War. In 1856 James Buchanan, the Democratic candidate, had carried New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri as well as the soon-to-be Confederate states. In 1852, Franklin Pierce’s Democratic victory swept every state but four—Vermont, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Tennessee. And in 1848, the Whig candidate Zachary Taylor defeated Democrat Lewis Cass while losing every one of the states which made up the old Northwest Territory: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

  In 1868, however, Ulysses S. Grant had been elected by the votes of all of the northern states except New York, New Jersey, and Oregon, together with all of the southern states except Kentucky, Georgia, and Louisiana. But these figures were skewed because most of the southern states were undergoing some form of reconstruction, and Virginia and Mississippi had not yet been readmitted to the Union. The results in 1872 followed a similar pattern.

  But by 1876, the prospects of a Republican presidential candidate carrying any southern state were considerably dimmer. Republican success there depended on the votes of the newly freed slaves, and the Fifteenth Amendment forbidding denial of the right to vote on the basis of race was not very effective in securing their franchise. In many places the Ku Klux Klan and similar organizations carried on a successful campaign of violence and threats against these voters, either dissuading or preventing them from going to the polls. How determinative these efforts would be in the presidential election might affect the outcome in an otherwise close vote.

  Hayes and Tilden would contend for the electoral votes of the thirty-eight states then in the Union. The four states with the most electoral votes were New York (35), Pennsylvania (29), Ohio (22), and Illinois (21). Of these, New York had gone Democratic in 1868, but Republican in 1872. The other three had voted Republican both times. It is interesting to note the contrast between the four electoral prizes in 1876 and in 2000. In the latter year, California led with 54 electoral votes, followed by New York with 33, Texas with 32, and Florida with 25. In 1876, California had 6, Texas had 8, and Florida had 4.

  Presidential campaigns in the nineteenth century were quite different from those of today. Not only was there no radio or television, but the candidates themselves did not go on the campaign trail. They generally stayed home and relied on surrogates crisscrossing the country to get out their message. Indeed, it was not until 1896 that Williams Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee for President, visited cities across the country to seek votes.

  Perhaps because of this reticence on the part of the candidates, considerable attention was paid to the somewhat formalistic ritual of their acceptance letters. The candidate did not accept the nomination at the convention, as today, but several weeks afterward. A group representing the national party called on him to “notify” him of his nomination—of which, of course, he was already aware. The candidate then issued an acceptance letter, declaring to no one’s surprise that he was pleased to accept the party nomination.

  Hayes’ letter was made public on July 8. He stressed his commitment to thoroughgoing reform of the civil service, and his commitment to resumption of specie payments—i.e., the redemption of greenbacks with gold. He also made a somewhat equivocal statement about the future of the South, recognizing the need for southerners to control their own affairs but calling for respect for the constitutional rights of all citizens.

  Tilden’s letter was not released until July 31. The Democratic convention had come after the Republican, and Tilden labored over his document for nearly three weeks. He, too, promised a complete reform of the federal civil service. He also emphasized the need for frugality in government. Like Hayes, he endorsed the resumption of specie payments. His position on this issue was more difficult than Hayes’ because Thomas Hendricks, his vice presidential nominee, was an avowed opponent of specie resumption. Hendricks was an ardent Greenbacker, and his views were endorsed by a large number of voters in the Midwest and West. These views, in turn, caused great consternation among Tilden’s supporters in the eastern establishment. New York editor Whitelaw Reid, writing to John Bigelow, Tilden’s close associate, on July 9, said: “It does not seem to me by any means clear that he [Tilden] will not be elected. If he is, we ought all to pray night and day that his health may be preserved to protect us against Hendricks.” 1

  But Tilden was unequivocal in his call for resumption of specie payments. Hendricks, not to be silenced, issued his own acceptance of the vice presidential nomination, stoutly opposing any resumption.

  There was actually a presidential candidate of the Greenback Party on the ballot in nearly twenty states—Peter Cooper of New York. In the forthcoming election he would receive fewer than 100,000 of the nearly 81⁄2 million votes cast. But the Greenback Party’s candidate four years later would garner more than twice that number. And in 1892, running on the ticket of the Populist Party (which incorporated the views of the Greenback Party), General James Weaver of Iowa would receive nearly 1 million votes and win the electoral votes of Colorado, Idaho, and Kansas. The party disappeared from the ballot in 1896, when the Democratic Party adopted a large part of its program.

  The national headquarters of both parties were located in New York City, which allowed Tilden to personally direct his campaign in a way in which Hayes could not from Ohio. The Democratic National Committee had chosen Abram Hewitt as its chairman. Hewitt was a businessman and a recently elected member of Congress, but something of a novice in politics. He was nominally in charge of the Tilden campaign, but in fact the nominee ran things—a highly organized and effective effort.

  The Publicity Bureau of the pre–St. Louis days morphed into the Literary Bureau, which produced reams of favorable material to be sent out to city and rural newspapers throughout the country. Its masterpiece was a 750-p
age campaign textbook, excerpts from which, describing in lurid and partisan detail the scandals of the Grant administration, were reprinted in thousands of newspapers and periodicals.

  There was also a Speakers’ Bureau, headed by Tilden’s nephew, Colonel W. T. Pelton. This body matched available orators

  Justice David Davis, painted before 1947 from earlier portraits.

  with requests from local campaign organizations. Tilden clubs were assembled to provide parades and audiences for the speakers. All of this, of course, required money—though not of the magnitude spent in today’s campaigns. Tilden’s biographer Flick estimated the amount raised by the national committee as approaching $500,000. Tilden could, of course, have easily contributed this amount himself, but he was understandably loath to do so when there were other wealthy Democratic resources available.

  Hayes’ campaign got off to a bad start because of rivalries within the party in New York State. Senator Roscoe Conkling, the Republican boss of the state, had replaced former Governor Edwin Morgan, an excellent fund-raiser, with a Customs House toady, Alonzo Cornell, as the New York representative on the national committee. The members of the committee loyal to Grant and Blaine had selected Secretary of the Interior Zachariah Chandler as its chairman, rather than Hayes’ choice, former Governor Edward F. Noyes of Ohio. Such a situation could not occur today, of course, since the choice of chairman of the national committee is regarded as the indisputable prerogative of the presidential candidate.

  Chandler himself was opposed to civil service reform, and his method of raising money for the party depended heavily on the traditional levy on federal employees. He did not devote himself totally to the campaign and rarely communicated with Hayes. While a man of considerable means, Hayes did not possess the liquid assets to make a significant contribution to the party funds, and the bleak prospects of the Republican ticket made it difficult to raise money elsewhere.

  Hayes determined that it was essential to once more “wave the bloody shirt”—to impress on the electorate that while every Democrat had not been a rebel, every rebel had been a Democrat. This view was captured in its positive aspect by the speech which Governor Noyes made when placing Hayes’ name in nomination before the Cincinnati convention:

  “. . . I have the honor to present the name of a Gentleman well known and favorably known throughout the country. One held in high respect and much beloved by the people of Ohio. A man who during the dark and stormy days of the rebellion, when those who are invincible in peace and invisible in war were uttering brave words to cheer their neighbors to the fore-front of battle, followed his leaders and his flag until the authority of our Government was reestablished from the lakes to the gulf, and from ocean to ocean. . . .”2

  Hayes’ war record was obviously a political asset with northern voters. But the Republicans also sought to paint a negative picture of Tilden’s conduct during the Civil War. He had remained a civilian throughout the war. He was overage for the draft and, indeed, it is difficult to imagine anyone more out of place in the rank and file of the Army than Samuel Tilden, even at a young age. And even younger, politically successful men in the north had remained civilians. James G. Blaine, the odds-on favorite for the Republic nomination at the Cincinnati convention, had paid to hire a substitute (as the law allowed) when he was drafted.

  Tilden had supported the northern war effort openly, if not enthusiastically. But the Republicans attempted to tie him to the infamous 1864 “peace plank” in the Democratic national platform. The “peace Democrats” had gained control of that convention, and one of the planks in the platform declared the northern war effort a failure, called for an armistice, and for a convention of all the states to restore the Union. The convention nominated General George McClellan as its candidate for President to oppose Lincoln, but in the November election he won the electoral votes of only three of the twenty-five states that voted.

  Tilden had attended the 1864 convention as a member of the New York delegation that had voted for McClellan, and Tilden had contributed money and time to his campaign. But when the peace plank was attributed to him by Republicans in 1876, he was able to show that he had urged McClellan to renounce it.

  Tilden was also attacked for having filed fraudulent income tax returns, and for having grown wealthy on the corpses of dead railroads. The facts in each case were complicated and somewhat ambiguous. Certainly no criminal liability was established, but there was some damage to the candidate.

  In October, a month before the election, Ohio and Indiana held state elections for Governor and other officials. Returns from these contests buoyed the Democrats. Their Democratic candidate for Governor in Indiana, James Douglas “Blue Jeans” Williams, defeated the Republican Benjamin Harrison by a margin of about 5,000 votes. The last time Indiana had voted for a Democrat in a presidential election was twenty years earlier, in 1856. The Republican candidate for Governor in Ohio won by 10,000 votes. The last time Ohio had gone Democratic in a presidential election was in 1852, before the birth of the Republican Party.

  NO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION day dawns bright and clear everywhere in the United States, and November 7, 1876, was no exception. Weather has always been a factor in predicting the outcome of elections, as is reflected by an article in the New York Herald on election day that was devoted entirely to the weather nationwide:

  The weather has frequently exercised a powerful influence in determining the results of popular elections. It has grown into a popular belief that fair weather is good for the Republican Party, and that bad weather is favorable to the Democrats. Why this should be it is not difficult to understand, especially in the case of the larger cities of the East. The Republican ranks are largely recruited from the wealthier classes of the community, the men who live in comfortable houses and wear good clothes. On the other hand, the laborers, the men who earn small wages and work with their hands, form the bone and sinew of the Democratic masses. But these conditions do not prevail equally over the Union. In the West, the farming classes, the hearty pioneers of civilization, frequently form the Republican strength, while the professional men and those engaged in trade form that of the Democratic Party. The Southern proprietors and businessmen, like the Western, are by tradition and condition Democratic, while their laborers are in the opposition ranks. In the East and North, we are importers and manufacturers. In the West and South production and exportation form the bases of prosperity. The election today will no doubt be similarly influenced throughout the country by the state of the weather, as have former elections, and with a view to informing the readers of the Herald on such an interesting subject we present the following series of “weather probabilities” for the several states, which are arranged in alphabetical order. . . .

  The article went on to predict warm and cloudy weather with rain along the entire eastern seaboard, cold and clear weather in the Midwest and in the plains states, and clear temperate weather on the Pacific slope. The paper also carried an interview with President Grant in which he predicted that Tilden would carry most of the South, Hayes most of the North, and that Hayes would win by a margin of some 50 electoral votes.

  The Herald also published accounts of activities at the headquarters of the two parties in New York City.

  AT THE DEMOCRATIC HEADQUARTERS

  The confidence shown at the rooms of the Democratic Central Committee, at the Everett House, all day yesterday, was remarkable. The Democratic Committee was apparently as certain of victory as though the result had been once for all decided. Mr. Magone spoke in no uncertain tones.

  “I tell you,” said he, with impressive earnestness, “that it is too late for any further appeals and arguments. The fiat has gone forth, and as sure as the sun will rise and set tomorrow, Governor Tilden will be elected by a magnificent majority.”

  AFFAIRS AT REPUBLICAN HEADQUARTERS

  The following dispatch was received from Mississippi on the condition of affairs there:

  Holly Springs, Miss.

>   November 6, 1876.

  To Hon. Z. Chandler, Chairman:—

  I am in possession of facts which warrant me in saying that the election in the northern half of this State will be a farce. Colored and white Republicans will not be allowed to vote in many of the counties. The Tilden clubs are armed with Winchester rifles and shotguns, and declare that they will carry the election at all hazards. In several counties of my district leading white and colored Republicans are now refugees asking for protection. . . . A reign of terror such as I have never before witnessed exists in many large Republican counties to such an extent that Republicans are unable to cope with it. If it were not for rifles and shotguns this State would give Hayes and Wheeler from 20,000 to 30,000 majority. I send this dispatch from Holly Springs, because it is impossible to rely on the Oxford office.

  J. H. PIERCE, United States Marshal. Northern District of Mississippi.

  The Herald also printed a story datelined Washington dealing with betting on the election in the nation’s capital: