The 1876 U.S. presidential election was the 23rd quadrennial presidential election. Republican nominee Rutherford B. Hayes faced Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. The Democrats conceded the election to Hayes in return for an end to Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops from the South.
About 1876 United States presidential election in brief
The 1876 United States presidential election was the 23rd quadrennial presidential election. Republican nominee Rutherford B. Hayes faced Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. It was one of the most contentious and controversial presidential elections in American history. After a controversial post-election process, Hayes was declared the winner. The Democrats conceded the election to Hayes in return for an end to Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops from the South. The Compromise of 1877 ceded power in the Southern states to the Democratic Redeemers, who proceeded to disenfranchise black voters thereafter. To date, it remains the election that recorded the smallest electoral vote victory, and theelection that yielded the highest voter turnout of the eligible voting age population in American History, at 81.8%. Despite not becoming president, Tildens was the first Democratic presidential nominee since James Buchanan in 1856 to win the popular vote and the first since Franklin Pierce in 1852 to do so in an outright majority. The 1876 election is the second of five presidential elections where the person who won the most popular votes did not win the election. It is the only such election in which the popularVote winner received a majority of the popularvote. The election was widely assumed that incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant would run for a third term as president in spite of the poor economic conditions, the numerous political scandals that had developed since he assumed office in 1869, and a long-standing tradition set by the first president, George Washington, not to stay in office longer than two terms.
Late in the year, President Grant ruled himself out of running in 1876. He instead tried to persuade his Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish to run for the presidency, but the 67-year-old Fish declined, believing himself too old for the role. When the Sixth Republican National Convention assembled in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 14, 1876, it appeared that James G. Blaine would be the nominee. On the first ballot, Blaine was just 100 votes short of a majority. His support gradually built during the second ballot, until he finished with 41% of the vote on the sixth ballot. Hayes had been the governor of Ohio, who had been gradually building support during the convention until he had been chosen as the general election candidate. Hayes won the election by 41% to 41%. The election remains among the most disputed ever, with 20 votes from four states unresolved: in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, each party reported its candidate had won the state, while in Oregon, one elector was replaced after being declared illegal for being an elected or appointed official. The question of who should have been awarded these electoral votes is the source of the continued controversy. In return for the Democrats’ acquiescence to Hayes’ election, the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops in the South, ending Reconstruction. In return, the Democrats agreed to give Hayes all 20 electoral votes to Hayes, in exchange for the Republicans agreeing to end Reconstruction.
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