"Member of the Indiana General Assembly from 1970 to 1996 representing Evansville's central city and southeastern Vanderbugh County. He also was the Democratic candidate for Mayor of Evansville in 1975 losing to Russell G. Lloyd. He retired from the University of Southern Indiana with the title of Director of Purchasing Emeritus. A University of Evansville graduate, Hays is married with five chidren. He is a Korean War veteran where he earned a Bronze Star."

The Election of 1876 Almost Caused a Second Civil War.     -

by J. Jeff Hays

Three Southern states were occupied by Federal troops. Navy Ships were cruising off the South Carolina coast. President Grant ordered 16,000 marshals and election supervisors to police polls in Democratic precincts in the North and across the entire South.

Constitutional crisis. Let me tell you about crisis.

It was 1876—the centennial year of Independence and only 11 years after the Civil War. Many were clamoring for another Civil War after reports of widespread bribery, vote buying and an outright theft of a presidential election.

It was the closest presidential election ever. The Democratic nominee, Gov. Samuel Tilden of New York, won the popular vote and claimed 184 electoral votes just one short of victory. The Republican nominee was Ohio Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes, later to be derisively known as “Rutherfraud.”

Tilden led in three states, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, with a total of 19 votes. The Returning Election Boards in these states refused to name electors for Tilden. As the hours stretched into days, the Democrats sensed that the election was being stolen. There was talk of a march on Washington. Partisans paraded through the streets of New York shouting, “Tilden or Blood.”

There were rumors that General George McClellan was raising an army for a march on Washington to hold off Grant’s forces. One wag reported that if McClellan moved with his usual slowness, much derided during the war by Lincoln, he might reach Washington by the election of 1880.

November and December passed with much rancor but no resolution. Two sets of electors from the disputed states were sent to the U.S. House of Representatives. The dispute raged throughout January when it was proposed that a special Electoral Commission be named to break the impasse. There were to be 15 members—five from the House, five from the Senate, and five from the Supreme Court. It was so constructed that there were to be seven Democrats, seven Republicans and one independent.

Judge Dave Davis was selected as the 15th member as an independent. He was widely respected to be impartial. However, before he was able to take his position, he was strangely and suddenly elected senator by the Illinois legislature, thus disqualifying him from the Commission.He was replaced by a Hayes supporter tilting the Commission toward the Republicans.

Finally in March a bargain was struck—called the Compromise of 1877. Many Southern Democrats in Congress who signed on to the bargain were accused of accepting irresistible offers from Hayes and Grant. Hayes agreed to serve only one term. Grant agreed to remove all troops from the “unreconstructed” states of the South. The Republicans also agreed to pump public money into the region to help recovery.

Pulling the troops out of the South removed the last obstacle in restoring white supremacy and assured the dominant whites of non-intervention in matters of race for nearly a century.

Finally, the 19 electoral votes of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana were given to Hayes giving him 185 to Tilden’s 184. He was inaugurated as the 19th president of the United States on March 20 serving one term.

For years, Rutherford B. Hayes was derisively referred to as “His Fraudulency.”