The Election of 1876

Meet the Candidates

Rutherford B. Hayes - Republican Party

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822- 1893) was born in Delaware, Ohio. He attended Kenyon College in Ohio and Harvard University Law School. After graduating from law school, Hayes practiced law in Lower Sandusky (later Fremont), Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hayes married Lucy Ware Webb from Chillicothe, Ohio in 1852. She graduated from Cincinnati's Wesleyan Women's College making her the first wife of a president to graduate college.

When the Civil War broke out, Hayes served in the Union Army and rising to the rank of brevet major general. During the war, Republicans in Cincinnati nominated him to serve in the House of Representatives. Hayes won the election and served as a Representative from 1865-1867. From 1867 to 1876, he served as Governor of Ohio for three terms.

As governor of Ohio, Hayes ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, which granted Black men the right to vote.

In 1876, Hayes was the Republican nominee for president. As the Republican presidential nominee he advocated for the need of civil service reform in the federal government and peace and reconciliation between the North and South. Hayes ran against Samuel Tilden of New York.

Samuel Tilden - Democratic Party

Samuel Tilden was born in 1814 in New Lebanon, New York. He attended law school at the University of the City of New York (now New York University) and graduated in 1841. Tilden specialized in railroad finance as a corporate lawyer in New York.

Originally, in the 1840's, Tilden identified as a Free Soil Democrat (a political party that opposed slavery in new Western territories that eventually merged with the Republican Party). Tilden became a member of the Democratic Party in the 1850s. In the 1850's Southern Democrats supported slavery in newly established Western territories and Northern Democrats believed each new territory could decide for themselves if they wanted slavery to be legal. After the Civil War, the Democrats were strongest in the South and opposed civil and political rights for formerly enslaved people.

From 1866 to 1874 Tilden served as the New York State Democratic chairman. In that role, he worked to help take down two corrupt groups in New York State: William "Boss" Tweed at Tammany Hall in New York City and and the Canal Ring, a group of contractors and politicians who were overcharging for the maintenance on the Erie Canal. Exposing these two groups gave Tilden national recognition and a popular choice for the Democratic presidential nominee.

As the Democratic presidential nominee Tilden advocated for limited government, states' rights, and the end to Reconstruction.

The Election of 1876

At the end of election night, it looked like Samuel Tilden had won, however, due to disputed Electoral College votes, it was unclear who won. The results of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana were unclear and therefore none of the 20 Electoral College votes from those three state could be assigned to either candidate.

At that time, Tilden won the popular vote by more than 200,000, but he only had 184 votes from the Electoral College. He needed 185 to become president. Hayes had 165 electoral votes. The last 20 votes needed to be assigned in order for a winner to be declared. The Twelfth Amendment of the US Constitution states the procedure of how a president is elected. In 1876, the Congress debated how the actions in the Twelfth Amendment should be interpreted. No winner could be declared until it was decided who could assign the last 20 electoral votes.

In response to the vote count confusion, on January 29, 1877, Congress passed, and President Grant signed the Electoral Commission Act that created a bipartisan Federal Electoral Commission to decide which candidate would win the 20 disputed electoral votes and ultimately become the 19th President of the United States. This Commission consisted of five members of the Senate, five members from the House of Representatives and five Supreme Court Justices.

In addition to the Electoral Commission, behind-the-scenes negotiations between the parties also took place. In exchange for Southern Democrats not blocking the certification of the election in favor of Hayes, Republicans agreed that President Hayes would end federal military presence in the South, which had been in place since the end of the Civil War, effectively ending Reconstruction.

This agreement became known as The Compromise of 1877 also known as the Wormley Agreement because the meetings were held at Wormley’s Hotel in Washington D.C., an upscale hotel owned by a wealthy black businessman. The Electoral Commissions’ decision then had to be ratified by Congress. Democratic filibustering took place, but the vote was finally approved, and Rutherford B. Hayes became the 19th President of the United States.

Meet the Artist

Thomas Nast immigrated to America from Landau, Germany when he was five years old. With limited education and little artistic training he joined the art staff of Frank Leslie's Illustrated as a teenager. In 1860 Nast traveled to Italy as a war correspondent for The Illustrated London News and New York Illustrated News.

Upon his return to the United States in February 1861, Nast began to cover the American Civil War that April for New York Illustrated News. In 1862, the artist joined Harper's Weekly as its war correspondent. Just 22 years old at the time, Nast created illustrations based on reports of what was happening on the battlefield. He worked for the weekly until 1877, and again from 1895-1896. During his tenure, Nast created hundreds of cartoons including the Democratic Donkey, Republican Elephant, Uncle Sam, Columbia, Tammany Tiger and Santa Claus.

Nast also created cartoons commenting on issues of the day using derogatory ethnic and racial stereotypes. Nast illustrated stereotypes of Black Americans, as well as Irish and Chinese immigrants. The artist also published Anti-Catholic cartoons attacking the Church hierarchy. At times, Nast drew derogatory caricatures in support of a person or group. In other instances, Nast used stereotypes to make a visual case against a person or group.