Electoral Commission (United States)
The Electoral Commission was a temporary body created by Congress to resolve the disputed United States presidential election of 1876. The election was contested by the Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, and the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. Twenty electoral votes, from the states of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina, were in dispute; the resolution of these disputes would determine the outcome of the election. Facing a constitutional crisis the likes of which the nation had never seen, Congress passed a law forming the Electoral Commission to settle the result.
The Commission consisted of fifteen members: five representatives, five senators, and five Supreme Court justices. Eight members were Republicans; seven were Democrats. The Commission ultimately voted along party lines to award all twenty disputed votes to Hayes, thus assuring his victory in the Electoral College by a margin of 185-184.
Election of 1876
The presidential election was held on November 7, 1876. Tilden carried his home state of New York Early returns suggested that Tilden had won the election; many major newspapers prematurely reported a Democratic victory in their morning editions. However, several other newspapers were more cautious; for example, the headline of The New York Times read: "The Results Still Uncertain." The returns in several states were tainted by allegations of electoral fraud; each side charged that ballot boxes had been stuffed, that ballots had been altered, and that voters had been intimidated.
In Louisiana, unofficial tallies indicated that Tilden had carried the state by over six thousand votes. However, the Republican-controlled returning board threw out the votes from several areas, citing fraud and voter intimidation; in all, over fifteen thousand votes (of which more than thirteen thousand were for Tilden) were discounted. As a result, Hayes won Louisiana's eight electoral votes, while the Republican candidate won the governorship. In response, the Democratic Party instituted a rival state government under Francis T. Nicholls. This rival administration, in turn, certified that Tilden had won
A nearly identical scenario played itself out in South Carolina, where initial returns suggested that Hayes had won the presidential election, while the Democratic Party had triumphed in the gubernatorial contest. Here, too, the Republican-controlled returning board discounted several votes, ensuring the election of a Republican Governor and Legislature. As in Louisiana, the Democratic Party organized a rival state government, under the leadership of Wade Hampton III. Hampton's government declared that Tilden the victor in the presidential election.
Similar problems arose in Florida as well. The initial count showed Hayes ahead by forty-three votes, but after a correction was made, Tilden took a lead of ninety-four votes. Subsequently, the returning board disallowed numerous ballots, delivering the election to Hayes by nearly a thousand votes. The board also declared that the Republican candidate had won the gubernatorial election; however, the Florida Supreme Court overruled them, instead announcing that Democrat George Franklin Drew was the victor. Drew then announced that Tilden, not Hayes, had carried Florida.
Further complications arose in Oregon. Although both sides acknowledged that Hayes had won the state, Tilden's supporters questioned the constitutional eligibility of John W. Watts, one of the Hayes electors. The Constitution provided that no federal official may serve as an elector. Watts was a United States postmaster; however, he resigned from his office a week after the election, long before the scheduled meeting of the Electoral College. Nevertheless, the state's Democratic Governor, LaFayette Grover, removed Watts as an elector, replacing him with C. A. Cronin (a Tilden supporter).
On December 6, 1876, the electors met in the state capitals to cast their ballots. In Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, both the Democratic and the Republican slates of electors assembled, and cast conflicting votes. In Oregon, likewise, both Watts and Cronin cast ballots. Thus, from each of these four states, two sets of returns were transmitted to Washington.
Tilden had won the popular vote by almost a quarter of a million votes, but he did not have a clear Electoral College majority. He received 184 uncontested electoral votes, while Hayes received 165, with both sides claiming the remaining twenty (four from Florida, eight from Louisiana, seven from South Carolina, and one from Oregon). A total of 185 votes constituted an Electoral College majority; hence, Tilden needed only one of the disputed votes, while Hayes needed all twenty.
Electoral Commission Act
Since the Constitution did not explicitly indicate how Electoral College disputes were to be resolved, Congress was forced to consider other methods to settle the crisis. Many Democrats argued that Congress as a whole should determine which certificates to count. However, the chances that this method would result in a harmonious settlement were slim, as the Democrats controlled the House, while the Republicans controlled the Senate. Several Hayes supporters, on the other hand, argued that the President pro tempore of the Senate had the authority to determine which certificates to count, because he was responsible for chairing the congressional session at which the electoral votes were to be tallied. Since the office of President pro tempore was occupied by by a Republican, Senator Thomas A. Ferry, this method would have favored Hayes.
In late December, each House created a special committee charged with developing a mechanism to resolve the issue. The committees ultimately settled upon creating an Electoral Commission. On January 25, 1877, the Senate voted in favor of the Electoral Commission Bill 47-17. The House followed suit the next day, 191-86. On January 29, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill into law.
Under the new legislation, the Electoral Commission was to consist of fifteen members: five representatives selected by the House, five senators selected by the Senate, four Supreme Court justices named in the law, and a fifth Supreme Court justice selected by the other four. The most senior justice was to serve as President of the Commission. Whenever two different electoral vote certificates arrived from any state, the Commission was empowered to determine which return was correct. The Commission's decisions were final, and could be overturned only by both houses of Congress.
Membership of the Commission
Originally, it was planned that the Commission would consist of seven Democrats, seven Republicans, and one independent. Justice David Davis, who was widely regarded as a political independent, was supposed to be the fifth justice on the Commission. However, just as the Electoral Commission Bill was passing Congress, the Legislature of Illinois elected Davis to the Senate. Davis then resigned from the Supreme Court to take his Senate seat. The final seat was given instead to the Republican Justice Joseph Philo Bradley. As a result, the GOP held a one-seat majority on the body.
The membership of the Commission was as follows:
| Member | Body | Party |
|---|---|---|
| Thomas F. Bayard (Delaware) | Senate | Democrat |
| Allen G. Thurman (Ohio) | Senate | Democrat |
| George F. Edmunds (Vermont) | Senate | Republican |
| Frederick T. Frelinghuysen (New Jersey) | Senate | Republican |
| Oliver Hazard Perry Morton (Indiana) | Senate | Republican |
| Josiah Gardner Abbott (Massachusetts) | House | Democrat |
| Eppa Hunton (Virginia) | House | Democrat |
| Henry B. Payne (Ohio) | House | Democrat |
| James Garfield (Ohio) | House | Republican |
| George Frisbie Hoar (Massachusetts) | House | Republican |
| Nathan Clifford* (Maine) | Supreme Court | Democrat |
| Stephen Johnson Field (California) | Supreme Court | Democrat |
| Joseph Philo Bradley (New Jersey) | Supreme Court | Republican |
| Samuel Freeman Miller (Iowa) | Supreme Court | Republican |
| William Strong (Pennsylvania) | Supreme Court | Republican |
| * President of the Electoral Commission | ||
Proceedings of the Commission
The Commission voted 8-7 to give every disputed electoral vote to Hayes. In response, Senate Democrats threatened a filibuster to prevent the commission from reporting its results. To prevent this, the Republicans negotiated an agreement known as the Compromise of 1877: federal troops were withdrawn from the south, a southerner was appointed to Hayes' cabinet, and the south received various economic benefits. The withdrawal of Federal troops marked the end of Reconstruction and post-Civil War efforts to bring about racial equality.
Wisconsin's votes were challenged although the state had clearly gone to Hayes, due to the fact that the Democrats thought they had been cheated out of victory. A filibuster incurred in the House when the body refused to vote.
After the long filibuster in the House was dissolved, Wisconsin's votes were counted for Hayes for a 185-184 electoral vote majority. The decision was handed down on March 2, 1877, at 4:10am, declaring Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election. The election was viewed by some as having been stolen, and Hayes was dubbed "Ruthefraud" by his opponents. Tilden was convinced he had been cheated but cipher telegrams were later released that proved he had tried to purchase electors in Florida.
References
- Flick, Alexander C. Samuel J. Tilden - A Study In Political Sagacity (1939)
- Hoogenboom, Ari. Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President (1995) (ISBN: 0700606416)
- Morris, Roy, Jr. Fraud Of The Century. Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden And The Stolen Election Of 1876 (2004)
- Polakoff, Keith Ian. The Politics of Inertia: The Election of 1876 and the End of Reconstruction (1973)
- C. Vann Woodward. Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (1951)
- See documents online from the Hayes Presidential Library, with essays by historians.