History
Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 was a political agreement that effectively ended the Reconstruction era in the United States. It involved the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction, and the appointment of a Southern Democrat to the president's cabinet. In exchange, the Republicans gained support for Rutherford B. Hayes as president. This compromise marked the beginning of the Jim Crow era in the South.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
5 Key excerpts on "Compromise of 1877"
eBook - PDFRace and Reunion
The Civil War in American Memory
- David W. Blight, David W. BLIGHT(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Belknap Press(Publisher)
75 Throughout most of the winter of 1877, Democrats sustained an exasper-ating ªlibuster against the possibility of Hayes taking ofªce. But for two days in late February, four Southern Democrats and ªve Ohio Republicans met secretly at the Wormley Hotel in Washington and reached the ªnal arrange-ments of a sectional and partisan compromise. The Democrats promised no reprisals against Southern Republicans, and agreed to end their ªlibuster and allow Hayes to be peacefully inaugurated as President. The Republicans pledged at least one and possibly two cabinet posts to Democrats in Hayes’s administration, gave assurance of money to build the Texas-Paciªc Railroad, and agreed to help Democrats take control of the governments in the re-maining unredeemed states. On March 4, with much of the nation breathing a sigh of confused relief, Hayes was privately inaugurated at an indoor cere-mony in the White House, thus avoiding any possible violence or disruption. At the heart of the Compromise of 1877 was the understanding that Hayes would institute a “new Southern policy,” one that would leave the South alone to deal with all questions of governance and race relations. As for black voting rights, even Grant himself had told his cabinet that he had come to see the Fifteenth Amendment as a mistake, a law that “had done the Negro no good.” By April, Godkin’s Nation had rejoiced in the compromise and an-nounced that the “negro will disappear from the ªeld of national politics. Henceforth, the nation as a nation, will have nothing more to do with him.” 76 A reconciliationist vision mixed with racism stood triumphant, ush-ering the emancipationist vision of the Civil War into an increasingly blurred past. So u t h e r n c o n s e r va t i ve re d e e m e r s now increasingly had much in common with those Northern Republicans who sought to further the ends of commerce and thwart labor activism.
eBook - PDFA People and a Nation
A History of the United States
- Jane Kamensky, Carol Sheriff, David W. Blight, Howard Chudacoff(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 437 Summary ME. MO. NEV. KANSAS TEXAS IOWA OREGON CALIF. MINN. COLO. NEB. ARK. LA. MISS. ALA. ILL. IND. MICH. WISC. OHIO KY. TENN. GA. FLA. S.C. N.C. VA. W. VA. PA. N.Y. MD. N.H. VT. MASS. CONN. R.I. N.J. DEL. R-7 D-15 R-3 R-5 D-8 R-11 R-3 R-6 R-5 R-3 R-3 D-6 R-8 D-8 D-10 R-21 D-15 R-11 R-10 R-22 D-12 D-12 D-11 R-4 R-7 D-10 D-11 D-5 R-29 D-35 D-8 R-5 R-5 R-13 D-6 R-4 D-9 D-3 1876 R-4 Hayes (Republican) Tilden (Democrat) Territories Candidate (Party) 185 50% 184 50% Electoral Vote 165 184 Uncontested Electoral Vote 4,036,572 48.0% 4,284,020 51.0% Popular Vote Map 14.2 Presidential Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877 In 1876, a combination of solid southern support and Democratic gains in the North gave Samuel Tilden the majority of popular votes, but Rutherford B. Hayes won the disputed election in the electoral college, after a deal satisfied Democratic wishes for an end to Reconstruction. narrowly, not winning the Electoral College, the first of four such times in American history when the presidential winner did not win the most votes, a constitutional anomaly that still mystifies much of the world. Southern Democrats rejoiced, but African Americans grieved over the betrayal of their hopes for equality. The Civil War had brought emancipation, and Reconstruction had guaranteed their rights under law. But events and atti- tudes in larger white America were foreboding. In a Fourth of July speech in Washington, D.C., in 1875, Frederick Douglass anticipated this predicament. He reflected anx- iously on the American centennial to be celebrated the fol- lowing year.
eBook - ePubCurrents in American History: A Brief History of the United States, Volume II: From 1861
A Brief History of the United States, Volume II: From 1861
- Alan C. Elliott, Terry D. Bilhartz(Authors)
- 2023(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
CHAPTER 8 PRESIDENTIAL BARGAINING, February 26, 1877 The Compromise of 1877 and the Price of National UnityIs this a Republican Form of Government? Is this Protecting Life, Liberty, or Property? Is this the Equal Protection of the Laws?(Engraving by Thomas Nast, 1876. Illustrated in Harper's Weekly, September 2, 1876, p. 712. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. LC-USZ62-116355. 9-29-2006. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c16355 )Time LineA1876 The United States celebrates its centennial Samuel Tilden wins 184 electoral votes and Rutherford Hayes 165, but twenty electoral votes are disputed 1877 Congress creates an electoral commission to resolve the election crisis The Compromise of 1877 is negotiated Hayes is inaugurated as president The removal of federal troops ends the period of Reconstruction 1881 President James A. Garfield is assassinated; Chester A. Arthur assumes the presidency 1880s–1910s Rising numbers of eastern and southern Europeans migrate to the United States 1882 Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act 1883 The Pendleton Act establishes the U.S. Civil Service Commission The Supreme Court rules that the Fourteenth Amendment does not forbid individuals from discriminating against the civil rights of racial groups 1884 Democrat Grover Cleveland defeats James Blaine to win the presidency 1887 Congress enacts the Dawes Severalty Act 1888 The Interstate Commerce Commission is created Republicans retake the White House as Benjamin Harrison edges Cleveland in the Electoral College 1890 Harrison signs the McKinley Tariff Act For the first time, the U.S. Census reveals more money made in manufacturing than in agriculture 1892 In a presidential rematch, Cleveland defeats Harrison to win the presidency 1893 The Panic of 1893 results in high unemployment 1896 In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court approves the “separate but equal” doctrine 
- Samuel DeCanio(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Yale University Press(Publisher)
While forces unleashed by the contested election of 1876 provided the proximate cause for the introduction of Reagan’s bill, liberal reformers’ justifications for creating a regulatory commission were influenced by their pessimistic views of public opinion, and by their hopes that an expert agency could make rational deci-sions and disseminate information to help inform voters of railroad policy. The combination of Reagan’s actions and liberal reformers’ reaction to Rea-gan’s efforts culminated in the creation of the ICC, spreading bureaucratic regulatory authority beyond monetary policy and the Treasury Department. However, the contradictory forces driving this administrative expansion, and the disparate objectives Reagan and liberal reformers sought to accomplish, were poorly understood at the time. Indeed, although the Compromise of 1877 is typically believed to have ended Reconstruction, the fact that the Compromise of 1877 involved any-thing other than the removal of federal troops from the South was not under-stood until the publication of C. Vann Woodward’s Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction in 1954. If scholars attempt-ing to reconstruct prior historical events did not know that the Compromise of 1877 involved promises of federal aid to railroads until three-quarters of a century after the fact, it is unrealistic to expect nineteenth-century voters to have understood what the Compromise of 1877 involved, or how it influenced other policy areas and debates. Although few nineteenth-century Americans understood how vague prom-ises regarding the subsidization of railroads influenced the Compromise of 1877, similar misunderstanding existed with liberal reformers’ justifications for creating a regulatory commission.
eBook - ePubA House Divided
The Civil War and Nineteenth-Century America
- Jonathan Wells(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
12 Collapse of Reconstruction Topics Covered in this Chapter:- ■ Republican Party Politics
- ■ Economic Panic in 1873
- ■ Redemption and White Supremacy
- ■ The “Compromise” of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction
- ■ The Legacy of Reconstruction
- ■ Labor and Capital Battle in 1877
Introduction
Reconstruction began to wane by 1873 and then ended altogether in 1877. A severe economic depression erupted in 1873, crippling the nation’s economy and diverting attention and resources away from the racial politics of the South. A new wave of labor strife struck northern and midwestern cities, and political power in Washington pivoted from helping the freedmen to defending the rights of employers to control their workers. Public and private armies would be redeployed from the New South to cities such as Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York. Even Radical Republicans concluded that the most potent challenge facing the nation was not southern white supremacists but labor unions trying to organize for better wages and working conditions.Equally important to the end of Reconstruction was the growing sense that the federal government had done much for the former slaves, from the Freedmen’s Bureau to the Reconstruction Amendments. Voters became fatigued with the notion of further aid for the freedpeople, and decided that with the right to vote African Americans could chart their own course without federal aid. Unfortunately, given southern white legal, political, and economic power, the ex-slaves stood little chance once the last federal troops began leaving the South in 1877. By the 1890s, whites had firmly established Jim Crow laws that left no doubt as to which race controlled the South.
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
