Think the 2008 Presidential race is interesting? Check out the controversy over the 1876 election!

It looks like the Presidential election of 2008 is going to be a close run thing if the nomination process is anything to go by. Go back eight years to the controversy over GWB’s win and you get a taste of what might be coming. Take a look even further back, to 1877, and you find an ever stranger outcome to the election of 1876. The contest, between Samuel J Tilden (who won the popular vote) and Rutherford B Hayes stood at 184 electoral college votes to Tilden, with Hayes on 165. A further 20 electoral votes were in dispute, with each candidate claiming to have won in the states of Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. Allegations of electoral fraud were rife with many issues focusing on the design of the voting paper itself (remind you of anything GWB?). In some states illiterate voters were helped to make choice by symbols depicting each party. However, some Democratic ballots were found to have the Republican symbol on them (a picture of Abraham Lincoln) thereby fooling those who couldn’t read into marking the wrong box.

The controversy was settled by an informal deal that was to have repercussions for the African-American population. Hayes was given the White House on the understanding that he would remove federal troops from the southern states – where they had been ever since the Civil War. Without these soldiers Democrats were free to seize back control of state governments and end the period of Reconstruction. Blacks were pushed from any position of political influence and barred from voting by Grandfather Clauses and Poll Taxes. It would take nearly ninety years for the damage to be undone.

Take a look at the campaign to have Tilden proclaimed as the ‘Real 19th President’. See also: http://elections.harpweek.com/09Ver2Controversy/Overview-1.htm http://www.rbhayes.org/hayes/president/display.asp?id=511&subj=president