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The Presidential Election of 1876

The Presidential Election of 1876 remains the most hotly contested campaign in the nationÆs history, even more so than the Election of 2000. The similarities between the two elections are many û in both, the candidate who won the popular vote lost in the electoral college, and in both the state of Florida was central to the challenge. However, although the election of 2000 was thrown into the courts, the campaign of 1876 ultimately relied on an extra-constitutional commission that determined the final apportionment of electoral votes.

The Democrats in 1876 were hungry for a victory. They had not won a presidential election since James Buchanan in 1856 and had been out of power for 16 years to the 2 term Lincoln and Grant administrations. To break this string, they turned to Samuel Tilden. Tilden was a reform-minded Governor of New York who had gained fame by breaking the corruption of Boss TweedÆs Tammany Hall gang in New York City. The Republicans had a divided party, and nominated Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes after 7 ballots at their convention (HistoryCentral, 2005).

The morning after the election, it appeared that Tilden had won a small but solid popular vote victory and a thin electoral victory. However, a few partisan Republicans saw that, if they could overturn the very narrow results of three key states, that their man Hayes could claim the presidency with 185 electoral votes to TildenÆs 184 (Hoogenboom, 1995). When the first official tallies were in, it now appeared that Hays had won the first of these disputed states, South Carolina, by between 600 and 1000 votes. However, Florida had been lost by just 94 votes and Louisiana by a more substantial 6,300.

The Republicans used the tactic of claiming voter fraud and intimidation by Democrats in disenfranchising the black vote. Curiously, this is the same charge that Democrats would turn against Republicans in the 2000 election, turning the tables. ...

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The Presidential Election of 1876. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 16:23, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1708757.html