Hayes-Tilden Election

Hayes-Tilden Election

In 1876 the Hayes-Tilden election became one of the most disputed elections in United States history. The dispute was settled by the political Compromise of 1877, which lead to the end of reconstruction in the South. The republicans were willing to compromise due to several circumstances during this time.

Rutherford B. Hayes was a Republican candidate who served three terms as a governor in Ohio as well as was a Civil War veteran. To the Republicans, Hayes was the perfect candidate for presidency due to his past positions and experiences. Samuel J. Tilden was a Democratic candidate who was well known as a New York prosecutor as well as the governor of New York and a reformer. Tilden received over a quarter of a million of the popular votes and was one electoral vote away from winning the election, with 184 out of 185 votes. Hayes only received 165 of the electoral votes and lost the popular vote. Twenty electoral votes were disputed between the three different states of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina due to confusing ballots. Hayes needed to win all three of these states to be one electoral vote ahead of Tilden, while Tilden only needed to win one the disputed states to win the election (Kennedy, 2011).

Both sides of the election accused the other party of corrupting the votes. Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina submitted two sets of their electoral returns to Congress, which contained different results. The normal procedure for these disputed votes would be to recount the votes in front of Congress by the president of the Senate, but, in this case the president of the Senate was a Republican and the Speaker of the House was a Democrat. These circumstances meant that the votes were not trusted for fair counting. This turned the election into a deadlock and raised the question of not having a president on inauguration day (Kennedy, 2011). This situation spurred the creation of the Electoral Count Act in 1877. This act created a...