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The Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency in exchange for the end of Reconstruction in the South.
Overview The Compromise of 1877 resolved the contested 1876 presidential election between Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden and Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes. Democrats agreed that Rutherford B. Hayes would become president in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and the granting of home rule in the South. President Hayes’ withdrawal of federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina marked a major turning point in American political history, effectively ending the Reconstruction Era and issuing in the system of Jim Crow.
A contested presidential election The Compromise of 1877 resolved the tumult that had arisen following the 1876 presidential election. In that election, Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden of New York won 247,448 more popular votes than Republican Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. But the electoral votes in the three southern states of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina were disputed. For almost four months, from November into late February, tensions remained high as the question of who was to become the nation’s next president remained unresolved.
Portrait of Rutherford B. Hayes. Rutherford B. Hayes won the contested election of 1876 as a result of the Compromise of
1877. Image courtesy Library of Congress.
In January 1877, Congress established a 15-member Electoral Commission to resolve the issue of which candidate had won the contested states. The commission voted 8-7 along party lines to award the votes of all three states to Hayes. As the commission deliberated, members of Congress and others made their own efforts to end the crisis, but no written, formal agreements resulted.
The presidency in return for home rule in the South During Reconstruction , the period after the Civil War when the South reorganized its political, social, and economic systems to account for the end of slavery, federal troops occupied the South. These troops served to guarantee African American men's right to vote, and the Republican-controlled federal government would only end the military occupation when states rewrote their Constitutions to recognize the citizenship and voting rights of African American men. White Southerners generally despised these troops, and wanted an end to the intervention of the federal government in the South.
The Compromise of 1877 gave white Southerners their chance to stop the military occupation of the South. In the compromise, Southern Democrats agreed not to block the vote by which Congress awarded the contested electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes, and Hayes therefore became president. In return, Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from actively intervening in the politics of Louisiana and South Carolina (the last two states occupied by federal troops). Accordingly, within two months of becoming president, Hayes ordered federal troops in Louisiana and South Carolina to return to their bases.
Cartoon showing a Southern veteran and a Northern veteran (missing a leg) shaking hands over a tombstone that reads "In Memory of Union Heroes in a Useless War." In the background, an African American family kneels in chains.
