Different elections had been challenged with out intervention by Congress. Some Republicans suspected that John F. Kennedy’s victory in 1960 was ba
Different elections had been challenged with out intervention by Congress. Some Republicans suspected that John F. Kennedy’s victory in 1960 was based mostly on fraud and filed lawsuits, however Richard M. Nixon disavowed the hassle. George W. Bush received the presidency over Al Gore in 2000 solely after a five-week recount battle was determined by the Supreme Courtroom. 4 years later, some Democrats objected to electors for Mr. Bush’s re-election when Congress tallied the votes, however the transfer was fruitless and disclaimed by the dropping candidate, John F. Kerry.
The fireworks of 1876, nevertheless, had been like none different and never simply because it was the nation’s centennial. Then as now, the election dispute had its roots in a significant cleavage in American society. Barely a decade after the top of the Civil Conflict, the nation remained fractured by geography, economics, class and particularly race.
The get together that ended slavery received the presidency within the brief time period that 12 months, however the white supremacists received what they needed in the long run by agreeing to simply accept defeat in change for the top of Reconstruction, finally ushering in 90 years of legalized segregation and oppression of newly freed Blacks within the south.
The competition pitted two northern governors whose destiny could be determined by southern states. Hayes, the Republican, had served as a Union normal within the Civil Conflict. He fought at Antietam and was wounded 4 occasions over the course of the battle. A two-term congressman and three-term governor of Ohio, he was a restrained determine, “a magic lantern picture with out even a floor to be displayed upon,” within the biting phrases of Ambrose Bierce, the famed soldier-turned-writer of the period.
Tilden, the Democrat, was a lawyer and crusading reformer in New York who helped carry down Tammany Corridor’s Boss Tweed and parlayed that into the governorship. With a drooping left eyelid, he “regarded like a person in determined want of a superb night time’s sleep,” as Roy Morris Jr. put it in “Fraud of the Century,” his 2003 account of the election dispute.
The election was replete with intimidation, fraud and efforts to suppress the Black vote. In Florida, the place Republicans had been divided amongst themselves, Democrats intimidated Black voters and others by having landlords, shopkeepers, medical doctors and attorneys cost a 25 % surtax on anybody suspected of voting Republican. The state-owned railroad fired staff who attended Democratic rallies. And votes had been mentioned to be on the market at $5 every.