1876 United States presidential election — 23rd quadrennial U.S. presidential election
The 1876 election, resolved by a partisan Electoral Commission amid widespread fraud, ended Reconstruction and enabled Jim Crow disenfranchisement of Black Americans.
Key Facts
- Voter turnout
- 82.6% of eligible voting-age population
- Tilden popular vote share
- 50.9%
- Disputed electoral votes
- 20 votes from FL, LA, SC, and OR
- Electoral Commission decision
- All 20 disputed votes awarded to Hayes
- Final electoral vote
- Hayes 185, Tilden 184
- Result confirmed by Congress
- March 2, 1877
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
President Ulysses S. Grant declined a third term, prompting a contested Republican nomination that bypassed frontrunner James G. Blaine and settled on Governor Rutherford B. Hayes as a compromise. Democrats nominated Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York, a reformer who won a popular vote majority but fell one electoral vote short of a majority amid widespread fraud and voter intimidation by paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts.
On November 7, 1876, Americans voted in one of the most disputed elections in U.S. history. Twenty electoral votes from four states were contested, triggering a constitutional crisis. Congress created a bipartisan Electoral Commission, which in a strict party-line vote awarded all disputed votes to Hayes, giving him a 185–184 electoral college victory. A Democratic filibuster of the result was ended by party leader Samuel J. Randall, and Congress confirmed Hayes on March 2, 1877.
The election's resolution, widely attributed to the Compromise of 1877, led Hayes to withdraw federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction. Southern states subsequently imposed Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised Black Americans and produced decades of Democratic dominance known as the Solid South. No Republican presidential nominee carried a former Confederate state again until Warren G. Harding in 1920.
Political Outcome
Rutherford B. Hayes declared winner with 185 electoral votes to Tilden's 184, despite losing the popular vote; Hayes's inauguration ended Reconstruction.
Republican administration under Ulysses S. Grant with active Reconstruction in the South
Republican Hayes presidency with withdrawal of federal troops, ending Reconstruction and enabling Democratic Solid South