The American Presidential Election of 1876

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The 23rd episode in a very long series about the American presidential elections from 1788 to the present. In 1876, a contested and extremely controversial election in which the winner doesn't win.

Feeling extra dorky? Then visit here:
http://www.countingthevotes.com/1876

The 23rd Presidential election in American history took place on November 7th, 1876. Boy was this one controversial! Let’s get right to it. President Ulysses Grant actually considered running for a third term, and he would have been the first to try, but he ultimately decided against it. This was probably a good idea since his administration continued to be accused of corruption and faced many scandals. Plus, the economy sucked. The country was in the middle of The Great Depression. Well, that’s what they called it back then. After the real Great Depression happened in the 1930s, we now call this financial crisis the Panic of 1873.

So Grant was smart to decide against seeking a third term, but who would take his place? When the Republican National Convention assembled, several candidates were on the ballot. James Blaine looked to be the early favorite, but many Republicans argued Blaine couldn’t win the general election. Eventually they settled with Rutherford Hayes, the governor of Ohio. Rutherford was another Civil War hero, having fought with bravery and even getting wounded five times during the war. He was known as a reformer. Plus, his beard was amazing. The Republicans chose William Wheeler, a Representative from New York, as his running mate.

The Democrats were feeling much better about their chances now that the economy was in ruins and Grant’s friends had messed up the Republican image. They were fired up, and passionately supported Samuel Tilden, the governor of New York. Tilden was known as a new type of Democrat- a Bourbon Democrat. Bourbon Democrats were basically classical liberals who supported things like free trade and the gold standard and opposed things like imperialism.
The Democrats nominated Thomas Hendricks, the governor of Indiana, as Tilden’s running mate.

So this election looked like a battle of governors. But wait, there’s more.

A new political party called the Greenback Party had emerged to offer a third option. They wanted inflation through printing paper money called greenbacks and were quite anti-monopoly, bringing these two issues into the national spotlight. They nominated inventor and entrepreneur Peter Cooper for President. Cooper was an interesting fellow. I mean, look at that beard. I love it. Plus, he designed and built the first American steam locomotive, and he was definitely not a politician, and he was like 180 years old. Ok, he was actually just 85. Cooper was the oldest person ever nominated for President in American history.

Ok, enough about him. His running mate was Samuel Fenton Cary, the former Representative from Ohio. As most third parties go, they stood little chance.

Meanwhile, it was shaping up to be a very close race between Hayes and Tilden. The two actually didn’t campaign much, and left that to their supporters. This election would mark the first one in which the new state of Colorado could participate in. However, since it became a state in August, its state legislature, who happened to be Republican, chose the electors. In fact, this was the last election in which any state picked its electors this way. Keep this in mind when we look at the results here in a bit.

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