Tilden-Hayes compromise of 1877

 

                The Presidential election of 1876 was shadowed by a controversy that purported a profound effect on the outcome of not only the election but of impending civil rights during the Reconstruction era south. Campaigning for the Presidency were Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio and Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Hayes won the election by one solitary vote, having that vote accepted or rejected would have placed Tilden firmly in the White House. The controversy stems from voting results returned from Louisiana, in which Tilden held a commanding 6000 vote lead. However, the returning board threw out some 13000 votes resulting in the state going to Hayes as far as the electorate was concerned.                 At the heart of this lies a question of the Returning Board of Louisiana, of which O.H Brewster presided. Brewster was the Secretary General of Louisiana, a position that he resigned on 4 Nov. 1876, reaching President Grant and having his acceptance on 16 Nov. 1876. In early December, Brewster along with six other men became delegated as the Electorate of Louisiana. A position that Brewster and one other would not visit on the reported time, which by statute the two were to be replaced by appointees of the other five members. The vacancies of both men were in turn filled by themselves, and within an hour cast their votes for Hayes. The question of Brewster’s ability to be an electorate was at question and thus Hayes’ resulting trip to the White House. (Field) The Tilden Hayes Affair marked a dark beginning to the end of Reconstruction in the South, not solely as an idea but as practice as well. The results of the compromise between Tilden and Hayes resulted in the withdrawal of federal troops from occupied areas of the South, with no federal protection to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments southern African Americans were subjected to further oppression and brow beating at every turn. This lack of protection allowed the creation of Jim Crow laws, laws that separated blacks and whites in al public places, water fountains, restaurants and train cars. 

                The results of the compromise between Tilden and Hayes changed the political landscape for civil rights toward the freed blacks after the war and alternately through the turn of the century. Grant’s half-hearted attempt to enforce the new amendments during his term coupled with Hayes’ promises to the Southern Democrats only strengthened the resolve of those that sought to keep the oppression going on and refuse the ballot to legal black voters. Seven years before the Tilden-Hayes Compromise Hiram Revels was elected as the first African American Senator for Mississippi. Revels’ appointment was highly contested in the Senate by Southern Democrats who fell back on the Dredd Scott decision, claiming that Africans brought into the United States—as well as their descendants—had no rights under the U.S. Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens. Revels was the son of a mixed race father and a white mother had in the eyes of the Democrats only been a citizen for 2 years and not the nine required by law to set in the Senate. Although, Revels’ appointment was a beginning of the new Union in the eyes of Republicans and proponents of the Reconstruction “ideal”, it marked a brief, shining victory for African Americans. Had Northern Republicans not compromised with Southern Democrats during the Tilden-Hayes election perhaps Reconstruction would have lasted long enough for men like Hiram Revels to make a more enduring impact on the racially divided post-Civil War South.