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The election of 1876, was the closest in American history at that time. Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, won some 250,000 popular votes, more than Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, and at first had the edge in electoral votes of four states where the returns were in dispute - Oregon, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. Oregon only had one disputed vote, and that was quickly settled for Hayes.

The three remaining states were all in the South and were still under Republican carpetbag rule. The three states together had 19 electoral votes. If Hayes got them, he would win by one vote, 185 - 184. The carpetbag regimes were quite willing to turn their votes over to Hayes, but Democrats everywhere raised an outcry.

Congress set up a joint committee to examine the returns, composed of eight Republicans and seven Democrats. By a strict party line vote, the committee awarded all three states, and the election, to Hayes. At the same time some backstairs bargains silenced the Democrats.

The new President agreed to remove the federal troops from South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, thereby allowing the last southern states to be "redeemed" by Democrats. Republican leaders also agreed that southern railroad projects, such as the Texas Pacific, would get the same kind of government aid given to the Union Pacific.

The chain of bargains ended the crisis, and Hayes was sworn into office without incident. It also ended an era ~ an era that had begun with secession, an era in which Americans resorted to force and to military arms to resolve their differences. The bargain of 1877, shoddy though it was, at least restored the spirit of compromise.

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