[Shades of Tilden-Hayes! The following is an excerpt from William Bryk's NY Press column of 11/22-28 on the notorious 1876 presidential race between Democrat Samuel Tilden and Republican Rutherford Hayes – in which, course, Hayes lost the popular vote but won in electoral votes.]
An American presidential campaign is really a series of campaigns, and much of it, like an iceberg, is invisible to a casual observer. In 1876, the Civil War had only been over for a decade. Much of the South was still ruled by Republican puppet governors upheld by the U.S. Army. As the Republicans were the party of abolition, whites flocked to the Democrats. The elections became a time of terror. Outside the state capitals and the lines of communication held by federal troops, white extremists conducted a secret war of fire and blood against Republicans. Unlike the lumpen proletariat comprising today’s Klan, these terrorists were often community leaders bitterly determined to destroy the Republicans, disenfranchise the blacks and restore white rule. They intimidated tens of thousands of former slaves from voting. Republican activists who didn’t get the message, whether former slaves or carpetbaggers, including the white women teachers who had come South to teach the former slaves how to read and write, were burned out, murdered, lynched and raped. ...
[There was ultimately bipartisan agreement not to investigate the disputed 1876 election too closely.] This served both parties. The Republicans did not want the corruption of the official results investigated. The Democrats did not want an examination into their relationship with the night riders. (It was once observed that, just perhaps, the Democrats stole the elections from the Republicans and the Republicans stole it right back again.)
[Full text at http://www.nypress.com/content.cfm?content_id=3130]
Carl
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