page_title: Samuel Tilden 1876 presidential campaign
section_title: Campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Tilden 1876 presidential campaign / Campaign
caption_attribution_description: Joseph Philo Bradley. Library of Congress description: "Judge Joseph Bradley".
context_page_description: The 1876 U.S. presidential election occurred at the twilight of Reconstruction and was between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. After an extremely heated election dispute, a compromise was eventually reached where Hayes would become U.S. President in exchange for the end of Reconstruction and a withdrawal of U.S. federal troops from the South.
context_section_description: The 1876 Democratic platform demanded the repeal of the Specie Payment Resumption Act, condemned the Grant Administration's corruption, reaffirmed the Reconstruction Amendments, denounced Congressional Reconstruction as both coercive and corrupt, supported a tariff only for revenue, conservation of public lands, and civil service reform. Meanwhile, the Republicans "waved the bloody shirt" by associating the Democrats with the Confederacy and criticized Tilden's questionable tax returns, early association with Boss Tweed, poor health, and conflicting views on the "money question" in comparison to his running mate.
  Tilden's campaign aggressively focused on winning the crucial New York state and its 35 electoral votes while the Grant Administration spent nearly $300,000--mostly in the South and in New York City--on deputy marshals and supervisors whose job was to secure a fair election (there was violence against and intimidation of Black voters by the Democrats in the Southern U.S. in 1876). Meanwhile, the Democratic-controlled House made a crucial blunder when it passed a statehood bill for Colorado in the middle of the campaign. While the Democrats might have believed that Colorado would vote for Tilden, it ended up giving its electors to Hayes and thus provided the decisive margin for Hayes's victory in the election.
caption: Justice Joseph P. Bradley, the decisive vote on the Electoral Commission.
exif: {}