“Tilden Defeats Hayes”

March 2, 1877 – U.S. Congress decides the presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden

 And we thought Bush v. Gore was contentious.  In the election of 1876, Democrat  Samuel Tilden racked up the most popular votes and was the presumptive nominee when he awoke the day after the voting.  But “irregularities” in Florida (!), South Carolina and Louisiana kept him one electoral vote short of the required 185. 

Things were especially rough in South Carolina, as riots erupted leading up to Election Day causing outgoing President Ulysses Grant to send in federal troops to maintain order at voting centers.

It was March 2, two days before Inauguration Day, when a congressional committee made up of congressmen and Supreme Court justices decided by a vote of 8-7 (along party lines, of course) that Hayes was the recipient of the remaining 19 votes and the winner of the election by a count of 185-184. 

Back-room deals supposedly gave the presidency to Hayes in exchange for promise to end the period of Reconstruction and military rule in the South. 

Tilden’s supporters were understandably unhappy, and there was a fear that they would try and stop the inauguration from happening.  So Hayes was actually sworn in a day before the public ceremony – at midnight and in the White House.  And when no violence erupted, he became the only one-term President to take the oath of office twice.

All in all, it was a fitting end to what’s been called the dirtiest political campaign in U.S. history.

Recommended reading: Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 and Grant: A Biography