page_title: Samuel J. Tilden
section_title: General election
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel J. Tilden / Presidential election of 1876 / General election
context_page_description: Samuel Jones Tilden was an American politician who served as the 25th Governor of New York and was the Democratic candidate for president in the disputed election of 1876. Tilden is the only individual to win an outright majority of the popular vote in a United States presidential election but lose the election.
  Tilden was born into a wealthy family in New Lebanon, New York. Attracted to politics at a young age, he became a protégé of Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States. After studying at Yale University and New York University School of Law, Tilden began a legal career in New York City, becoming a noted corporate lawyer. He served in the New York State Assembly and helped launch Van Buren's third party, anti-slavery candidacy in the 1848 presidential election. Though he opposed the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Tilden supported the Union during the American Civil War. After the Civil War, Tilden was selected as the chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, and he managed Democratic nominee Horatio Seymour's campaign in the 1868 presidential election.
context_section_description: Per tradition, both Tilden and Hayes avoided publicly campaigning for president, leaving that task to their supporters; Tilden appointed Abram Hewitt to lead his campaign. The Republican campaign established a major cash advantage, partly because Tilden refused to contribute much of his personal fortune to the campaign. The Democrats campaigned on the theme of "retrenchment and reform" and attacked the "corrupt centralism" of the Grant administration. Tilden blamed high taxes and the Grant administration for the economic downturn, and, like Hayes, promised civil service reform and hard money policies. Republicans, meanwhile, focused on their party's identification with Lincoln and the Union cause in the Civil War; many Republicans still associated the Democratic Party with slavery and disunion. Rebutting Republican charges, Tilden categorically denied that he had any intention of compensating the South for any slaves emancipated or losses suffered during the Civil War. For their part, many Democrats cared little for Tilden's emphasis on reform, and were instead focused on ending sixteen years of Republican leadership. Southern Democrats especially hoped to end Reconstruction and gain control of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, the last three "unredeemed" Southern states. Southern whites, who overwhelmingly favored Tilden, used violence and intimidation to suppress the turnout of Republican-leaning African-American voters. Tilden worked to distance himself from violent encounters like the Hamburg massacre, in which disgruntled Southern whites clashed with the Republican-led government of South Carolina.
  Both campaigns considered New York, Ohio, and Indiana to be the key swing states, but the campaigns also focused on several smaller states, including the three unredeemed Southern states. Ultimately, Hayes swept the West and won much of the North, but Tilden carried the closely contested Northern states of New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Connecticut, swept the border states, and carried most of the South. He had won a majority of the popular vote and tallied clear victories in seventeen states, leaving him one electoral vote short of a majority. On November 6, the day after election day, most major newspapers reported that Tilden had won the election; however, Hayes still had a narrow path to victory if he could sweep the electoral votes of Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Hayes refused to formally concede, but told members of the press that he was "of the opinion that the Democrats have carried the country and elected Tilden." Tilden, meanwhile, urged his alarmed followers, many of whom believed that the Republicans were attempting to steal the election, to remain calm and refrain from violence. Both parties feared the possibility that a dispute over the election would lead to armed conflict; Tilden discussed appointing General George B. McClellan as his military assistant, while President Grant ordered army and naval units to reinforce Washington.
caption: In the aftermath of the 1876 presidential election, the electoral votes of four states were disputed.