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“4—00,000 More”
"What is the meaning of this in the Washington shop windows, and so near Christmas? Speak, and let the worst be known."
The
winner of the 1876 presidential election remained uncertain for nearly
four months from election day on November 7, 1876, until March 2, 1877,
three days before the scheduled public inauguration of a new chief
executive. The Democratic
candidate, Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York, won a narrow majority
of the popular vote against the Republican nominee, Governor Rutherford
B. Hayes of Ohio. However,
both parties believed they had captured the presidency in the Electoral
College, with each claiming twenty electoral votes from four
states—Louisiana (8), South Carolina (7), Florida (4), and Oregon (1).
Without them, Tilden’s tally of 184 electoral votes was one
short of a majority, while Hayes’s 165 electoral votes left him 20
ballots shy of the presidency.
As both Republicans and
Democrats hurled heated accusations of corruption and violence against
each other, President Ulysses S. Grant ordered General William T.
Sherman to reroute four artillery companies to the nation’s capital,
where they were to maintain order. At first, the reason for the move was
not made public, provoking artist Thomas Nast to inquire in this cartoon
why the soldiers were in Washington. Perhaps because Grant was his hero,
Nast asks the question amid the innocent imagery of Christmas shopping
and toy soldiers. Yet, the title of the cartoon mimics the refrain of a
Civil War song, “We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more.”
It was written in response to President Abraham Lincoln’s
request in July 1862 for additional volunteers for the Union army. In
the first few weeks of the Electoral College controversy there was
considerable fear that another civil war might start.
More militant Democrats warned
that unless Tilden was recognized and inaugurated as president there
would be blood in the streets. Henry Watterson, a Democratic congressman
from Kentucky and editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal,
threatened that 100,000 men would march on Washington, D.C., if Tilden
was not installed as chief executive. The headlines in other Democratic
newspapers screamed, “Tilden or War!” For all of their bellicose
rhetoric, though, Democrats were restrained in their actions by the
presence in the White House of the Union war hero, General Grant, whom
many political opponents feared might take the opportunity to establish
a military dictatorship if provoked.
In reality, President Grant was
not concerned about personal or partisan empowerment.
In a November 10 telegram to General Sherman, Grant firmly
stated: “No man worthy of the office of President should be willing to
hold it if counted in or placed there by fraud. Either party can afford
to be disappointed in the result, but the country can not afford to have
the result tainted by the suspicion of illegal or false returns.” The
president could have been referring to Hayes as readily as to Tilden. As
the situation unfolded, Grant refused to recognize the Republican
gubernatorial administrations in Louisiana and South Carolina.
The Electoral College crisis
sent newspaper sales soaring, although responsible commentators tried to
quiet fears of renewed civil war. Some black Americans, though, were
reportedly anxious that a Democratic victory could lead to the
reestablishment of slavery. The
presidential candidates themselves remained publicly mum during the
tense interval. As he searched through law books for legal precedents,
Tilden’s characteristic silence prevented him from convincing the
public that the winner of the popular vote should become president.
Hayes used the time to conciliate Republican President Ulysses S. Grant,
who had let it be known privately that he believed Tilden had carried
Louisiana.
In January, Congress
established an Electoral College Commission—consisting of 15 members
from the Senate, House, and Supreme Court—to settle the dispute.
They voted on a partisan basis, 8-7, to award all the contested
electoral votes to the Republicans, and Hayes was therefore inaugurated
as the 19th president of the United States on March 5, 1877.
For more information, visit HarpWeek’s website on the Electoral
College controversy .
Robert C. Kennedy
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