1876

It's hardly news that many Americans are nervous about the upcoming election, not merely because of uncertainty about who will win but, more profoundly, because of fears that no clear winner will be determined.  

With mail-in voting to be used on an unprecedented scale, there are questions about the timely delivery and the accurate count of the ballots. Phalanxes of attorneys have already lined up on both sides to challenge decisions made by local electoral boards. There seems to be a real danger that some states will be unable to certify a slate of electors in time to meet the deadline for the Electoral College vote, in which case the election would be referred to the Congress, with the House of Representatives choosing the president and the Senate choosing the vice president.

Complicating matters still further is the fact that it's the newly elected House and Senate that are supposed to make this choice, yet it's unclear how the newly elected bodies can assemble if critical ballots remain in dispute. If the Congress manages to work around this issue, the House will choose the president by a vote of state delegations. At present, Republicans control 26 state delegations, giving them the advantage in the current House, though not necessarily in the post-election House. If no president can be selected by Inauguration Day, the Speaker of the House assumes the duties of acting President of the United States. And there are many more complexities and uncertainties.

It would be one thing if all this drama were to play out in an atmosphere of calm deliberation, but – to put it mildly – that seems unlikely. Instead we can probably expect a wave of demonstrations, many turning violent.

To get some idea of what we may be in store for, I recently read Fraud of the Century, by Roy Morris, Jr., which covers the contested election of 1876 between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. It's an exhaustively researched, generally compelling narrative that perhaps offers a glimpse into the events of the next few months. 

The election took place eleven years after the end of the Civil War. Antagonisms were still strong on both sides. Racism remained widespread and not at all covert. South Carolina politician Edmund Rhett said openly that the goal of his policies was for blacks to "be kept as near to the condition of slavery as possible, and as far from the condition of the white man as is practicable." Florida governor William Marvin told blacks to return to the plantations where they had been enslaved and "call your old Master – 'Master.'"

In response to such attitudes, the government in Washington had imposed federal troops on the South to protect the civil rights (and the lives) of the black population — the defining feature of the policy known as Reconstruction. Southern whites increasingly chafed under this de facto martial law, and many Northerners had grown weary of policing the region.

The Democratic Party, which had been the party of secession, continued to represent the interests of Southern whites, though some canny Democrats were making inroads with black voters. These inroads were made a bit easier by the widespread corruption of Ulysses S. Grant's presidential administration. Sordid scandals involving patronage and kickbacks had led to resignations and indictments, and had made the hapless Grant a figure of ridicule and contempt. 

Corruption was by no means limited to the Republicans. The most notoriously corrupt politician in America was a Democrat, the famous Boss Tweed of New York's Tammany Hall. Morris writes, "With his diamond stick pins, loud checked suits, ruby shirt studs, and bowler hats, the corpulent Tweed was the walking embodiment of big-city corruption." The scale of Tweed's misdeeds is legendary. Morris focuses on the erection of the New York County courthouse, which took ten years to complete:

The building, which was supposed to cost $250,000, wound up costing the city nearly $14 million … Carpenters were paid $2.1 million for $30,000 worth of work; a Tammany Hall [crony] named Andrew Garvey received $1.9 million to plaster the building …; the furniture bill was $1.6 million, including $179,729 for three tables and forty chairs; and the bill for carpeting the courthouse was a staggering $4.8 million – enough to carpet the entire city.

Both Hayes and Tilden ran against corruption and in favor of reform. Tilden in particular had bona fides in this regard. He had been one of the leading voices against Tammany Hall and was instrumental in sending Tweed into exile (eventually followed by extradition and prison).

The presidential campaign was ugly and vicious, as is usual in American politics. The Republican-leaning Chicago Tribune described Tilden as "weazened, and shrimpled, and meanly cute. There is nothing about the man that is large, big, generous, solid, inspiring, powerful, or awakening. He's a small, lazy, odorous, ungainly, trickling stream, winding along and among the weeds ..." and so on.  His masculinity was questioned because he was a lifelong bachelor. The political cartoonist Thomas Nast frequently depicted him wearing a skirt. More worryingly, some of Hayes's supporters adopted the tactic of "waving the bloody shirt" – reminding ex-Union soldiers of the wounds they'd won in battle ("Soldiers," Robert G. Ingersoll would declaim, "every scar you have on your heroic bodies was given to you by a Democrat") and exhorting them to "vote as you shot." The attacks went in the other direction as well, of course. One Tilden supporter urged the candidate to pose the question, "Did Hayes shoot his mother in a fit of insanity?"

On election night, it appeared that Tilden had won by a slim but unassailable margin. Republicans, however, immediately focused on three key southern states: South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. They asserted that widespread suppression of the black vote in those states had allowed Tilden's victory. Teams of strategists from both parties descended on the states to oversee the certification of the ballots. Though undoubtedly there was some suppression of the black vote, Morris argues that it was insufficient to account for Tilden's margins of victory (I gather that other historians disagree). In any case, hard-working Republican operatives were able to cloud the issue sufficiently that the outcome in all three states remained unresolved.

The general atmosphere of these deliberations was extremely disheartening for believers in democracy. After witnessing some of the behind-the-scenes activities, onetime Union general and Republican politician Lew Wallace, today best known as the author of Ben-Hur, wrote his wife,

I scarcely ever passed a week under such depression of spirits. It is terrible to see the extent to which all classes go in their determination to win. Conscience offers no restraint. Nothing is so common as the resort to perjury, unless it is violence – in short, I do not know whom to believe. If we win, our methods are subject to impeachment for possible fraud. If the enemy win, it is the same thing exactly – doubt, suspicion, irritation go with the consequence, whatever it may be.

This forecast proved accurate. There was never any chance that the eventual winner of the election would be respected by the losing side.

Ultimately, four states submitted multiple slates of electors to the Electoral College. North Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana each offered at least two different slates, reflecting ongoing disputes over whether Hayes or Tilden had carried the vote. A fourth state, Oregon, posed a different  dilemma; the state had gone for Hayes by an indisputable margin, but one of the Hayes electors had been retroactively disqualified for being a federal employee, and there was a question of what to do with his single electoral college vote. Should it be awarded to Hayes anyway, or should it go to Tilden, whose elector had received the next-largest number of votes? The matter was more critical than it might appear; Tilden already had a confirmed total of 184 electoral votes, leaving him just one vote shy of the presidency. Should the orphaned Oregon vote go his way, he would be inaugurated. 

To resolve these issues, Congress agreed to set up two electoral commissions, later merged into one, comprised of eight Republicans and seven Democrats. The Republicans' one-seat advantage on the commission – a somewhat accidental result of the selection process – proved decisive, as the commission ruled in favor of the Republicans in all four states. By receiving all the disputed votes, including the one in Oregon, Hayes was able to edge out Tilden, 185-184.

The transparently partisan rulings of the electoral commission left the public feeling cheated. The new president was quickly dubbed "His Fraudulency" and "Rutherfraud" Hayes. Although Hayes overcame this bad beginning and ended his single term in office (he did not run for reelection) as a reasonably popular figure, his reputation was forever marked by the dubious circumstances under which he attained power. 

Hayes's election is often framed as the result of a "corrupt bargain" in which Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction in exchange for some limited but crucial Democratic support. Morris argues that this is an oversimplification. He points out that the North had already grown frustrated with overseeing the postwar South, and that the policy of withdrawing federal troops would have been implemented no matter who was in power. He also thinks the last-minute "bargain" has been oversold and amounted to little more than a ratification of the inevitable. In any event, Reconstruction did end with Hayes, and for nearly a century Southern blacks were left without federal protection and were reduced to the states of second-class citizens as whites implemented Jim Crow laws and turned a blind eye to lynchings and mob action. 

Returning to our present circumstances, it's somewhat reassuring to see that violence in the turbulent post-election atmosphere of 1876 was kept to a minimum. True, there was an assassination attempt against Hayes (an assailant, never apprehended, fired a gun at him through a window of his home), which was hushed up at the time to avoid exacerbating tensions. Even so, the widespread civil unrest that might have been expected did not arise. This was mainly due to the forbearance of Hayes and Tilden, both of whom made every effort to prevent large assemblies that might degenerate into riots. It was also due to the prudence of President Grant, who made sure that Washington, DC, was protected by federal troops to prevent any attempt to seize the White House by force. 

Another factor was Tilden's principled decision to abide by the law. Some of his more hotheaded advisers pressed him to take the oath of office in defiance of the electoral commission and set up a parallel government. Tilden steadfastly refused, saying simply that he had "no warrant of authority." Had he taken their advice, he could have been arrested as an insurrectionist and even shot. The potential consequences are appalling. The country would have risked a resumption of the Civil War. 

Needless to say, the United States survived the contested election of 1876. There was no mass uprising, no confrontation between protesters and federal troops, no parallel government that might have prompted divided loyalties on the part of the military. Hayes was peacefully succeeded by another Republican, James A. Garfield. Garfield, in turn was assassinated six months into his presidency, but the killing had nothing to do with ideology; the assassin was a mentally ill low-level political operative incensed at not having been appointed ambassador to France. 

Looking ahead, it's possible that November's election will be so one-sided (in either direction) that there will be no serious dispute over the outcome. I hope so. Regardless of who wins, I would rather have a blowout that silences all doubts than a squeaker that encourages recounts, litigation, protests, and possibly a spiraling descent into chaos.

If we're not so lucky and we end up with a replay of 1876, we can only hope that the moderation and good sense shown by Hayes and Tilden in restraining their supporters and adhering to constitutional norms will be shown by both of our contemporary presidential candidates and their advisors.

Somehow I'm not optimistic, but when it comes to human nature, I never am.

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P.S.  If you're interested in reading Fraud of the Century, I recommend purchasing the print edition, rather than the Kindle ebook. The Kindle is poorly formatted; most of the chapters have the text centered so that it runs down the middle of the page. This makes it almost impossible to read. I don't know if ebook editions other than the Kindle suffer from the same formatting issue, but they might.

Comments

[Eric Newhill]

Great piece, Michael. Always good to have perspective; in this case that viciousness has long been a feature of American politics and that elections have been hotly contested in the past.

A big difference between 1876 and now is that in 1876 the country had just been through a terrible civil war and was war weary. Now, many seem to be spoiling for war. "Burn it down!" is a common rallying cry the leftists. Maybe another important difference is that back then the foreign ideology of socialism wasn't a factor. It was more a question of who would be in control of a capitalist system; not what kind of system of governance we would have.

We will see soon enough how it shakes out.

[Michael Prescott]

Good points, Eric.

By the way, here's an interesting historical tidbit I couldn't fit into the main post. Both Hayes and Tilden ran against the patronage of the spoils system, but Hayes, as a seriously weakened president, was unable to get reforms passed. His successor was James Garfield, who also ran as a reformer. But six months into his presidency, Garfield died of an assassin's bullet (the killer was a deranged low-level political operative who thought Garfield had cheated him of an ambassadorial appointment). This elevated the VP, Chester Arthur, to the presidency.

No one had any hopes for Arthur, a creature of New York's political machine who was put on the ticket as a sop to the anti-reform bloc of the Republican Party. But after assuming his new office, Arthur underwent a near-miraculous transformation, threw off his old bosses, and was able to implement a thoroughgoing reform of the civil service. He is said to have slowly embraced the role of reformer during a lengthy correspondence with an earnest reform-minded citizen, a woman who appealed to the better angels of his nature and gradually won the day.

Which just proves that you never know about people, I guess.

[Michael Prescott]

Another tidbit: In his early years, Tilden worked in the law office of John W. Edmonds, who happened to be one of the first serious investigators of mediumship. Edmonds was personally convinced that some mediums communicated with the dead and was not afraid to announce his findings. His openness hurt his career; when he published a book on the topic, the resulting controversy forced him to resign from New York State's Supreme Court. See Michael Tymn's article:

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/john-w-edmonds

[Eric Newhill]

" His openness hurt his career; when he published a book on the topic, the resulting controversy forced him to resign from New York State's Supreme Court."

I had heard about that tidbit, but had forgotten it. Yep, something else that hasn't changed; savage systemic scientific materialism.

This set of images (below at the link) - political cartoons of the 1800s - is more proof that dumbed-down soundbites and memes attacking others are not new to the culture. We could say that today that it comes at us faster than ever and it's difficult to evade, but back then ordinary people didn't have as many alternatives (other than the Bible). So when they did read, what they read was just as bad as today. Their perspective was getting just as skewed. There is nothing new under the sun.

https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=vicious+political+cartoons+1800s&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjsrIb9_P_rAhUrTt8KHfkADyAQjJkEegQIChAB&safe=active&ssui=on

[Roger Knights]

"merged into one, comprised of eight Republicans and seven Democrats."

"comprising" should have been used, just as "including" should be used instead of "included of." ("Comprising" is a restricted form of "including," implying that only the entities listed constitute the whole—i.e., there are no others. E.g., "Our flag comprises the colors red, white, and blue.")

A recent WSJ poll puts Biden 8 points ahead of Trump. Maybe that gap will be halved by November, but more would be unlikely.
An almost as important contest is for control of the senate.

[Michael Prescott]

I think "comprise" is one of those words that are used incorrectly so often, the formerly incorrect usage has become acceptable through repetition. Anyway, I don’t worry about it, at least in a blog post. For a book, I might worry a little.

I'm doubtful that the polls mean anything. Biden is running such a lifeless, empty campaign that it’s hard to imagine much enthusiasm for him. But we'll see. Trump might be doing better if he hadn’t surrendered so much decision-making power to a superannuated crank like Dr. Fauci. Just today, Fauci said masks and social distancing need to remain in effect until "at least" late 2021.

Truthfully, a country this stupid doesn’t deserve to survive. Increasingly I root for chaos and collapse. If we all die out, maybe the cockroaches will take over North America and do a better job.

[Paul]

I presume you’re excluding Canada from your invitation to the cockroaches to run America? :)

[Michael Prescott]

No, I pretty much want Canada to go cockroach, too.

[Matt Rouge]

Michael,

First, good, interesting post. It was a real mess that has largely been forgotten. I took an interest in Hayes in junior high and read a lot about it the encyclopedias we had in school (remember those)?

You wrote:

||Truthfully, a country this stupid doesn’t deserve to survive. Increasingly I root for chaos and collapse. If we all die out, maybe the cockroaches will take over North America and do a better job. ||

One thing we need to do a better job of in the US is connecting our problems to global problems. The type of malaise and political issues we have in the US are currently found all around the world. Some countries are behaving in the exactly the same manner as well, with frustrations over current institutions (Brexit) and the rise of extreme right-wing politicians (Hungary, Brazil, etc.). Argentina already had its recent turn to the right with Macri and has already gone back to the left.

Of course, I could go on and on about the malaise and lack of vision that has afflicted Japan since their bubble burst in 1989.

If we are a stupid country, then there are a lot of stupid countries around the world. Why is that?

I think the answer is simple but the solution is complex to the point of nonexistence: we are in late-stage capitalism, and it isn't working very well. The last time capitalism had as big a problem, we saw the rise of Mussolini and Hitler.

But wait, you say: The economy was doing great before the pandemic hit--capitalism isn't the problem!

We could have a big discussion about that, but here's a problem with capitalism as it exists now that perhaps we can agree on: the rate of growth goes down as an economy develops. At first, the fruit are hanging low, and people see their standards of living rise at a rapid pace. As the economic and technological base is built, things seem to accelerate even more. People see their kids doing better than they did. The future seems bright.

But then, inevitably, that growth isn't sustainable. Japan was the wonder of the world, then hit a wall from which it never recovered, either economically or psychologically. Today, Japan is on track to lose one-third of its population by 2050. It is literally dying.

Speaking fertility, the world average is 2.4, whereas replacement is 2.1:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate#Country_ranking_by_most_recent_year

There are barely any developed countries above 2.1, and most of those are just barely above that level.

But wait a sec, these are rich countries--so the average person should feel they can enough kids to replace the population, right? And the economy was "doing great," so fertility should be high, right?

Apparently not. People feel, rightly so, that having kids is more or less unaffordable. Expectations are high. Each child must have the best medical care, education, and so on. Anything less is socially unacceptable. Well then, better to pour all one's resources into one child than raise two at a less than perfect level.

According to this cite (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fertility-rate),

"The current fertility rate for U.S. in 2020 is 1.779 births per woman, a 0.06% increase from 2019."

According to the same cite, the last time fertility in the US was above replacement was 1972 (though it got close again in the 1990s and early 2000s). It hit 3.528 in 1958.

Things have changed, but one problem is that many people alive today remember "the good old days" when capitalism hit what was arguably its sweet spot in the years 1945-1970. They remember when a person go just go out and get a good job without a college education, and people could raise a largish family with one breadwinner. They remember things not just being good but getting better all the time.

Conservatives (and now fascists--they deserve no other moniker) in the US have preyed upon this collective memory and told us we could have it back again--if only government would get out of the way. Here again the choice has been made not to compare the US to any other country in the world or cite a country that has actually done this and could teach us best practices (one possible reason: there isn't one). No, the US is a cultural and economic island, and we need only worry about ourselves. Far be it from us to learn from others (I think in this sense, yes, we are a stupid country).

I think it is this environment of *global* stagnation and frustration that has been the breeding ground of political polarization in the US. Neither party has had the secret recipe for getting us back to the good old days or creating an amazing new future, so the Democrats have become the adult-in-the-room party trying to govern with what we've got, and the Republicans have become the oppose-everything-and-sell-the-past (and now the sell-white-supremacy-and-rage) party.

Mind you, I don't think it was really clear until after the year 2000 that we *couldn't* get back to the economic sweet spot. I don't think, for example, that Reagan was disingenuous in what we was trying to do, and some of what he did worked for a time. Now, however, that Communism is gone and we have enough examples from other wealthy, well-socialized countries (like Japan) about how late-stage capitalism progresses, denial is just denial, and it's no longer responsible.

So what's the solution? Not Communism! Not socialism, either, though some socialistic programs such as universal health care and housing the homeless are no-brainers (they will ultimately produce more genuine wealth and happiness than they cost). I think fertility is a genuine crisis that no one is noticing (well, almost no one: https://www.amazon.com/Empty-Planet-Global-Population-Decline/dp/1984823221/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=empty+planet&qid=1601155060&sr=8-1) or that Liberals tend to blow off with a stupid, "Well, the planet is overpopulated anyway--plus climate change!" Republicans also have the stupid idea that, if we ban abortion, people will have more babies and things will be fine (hint: a lot of people getting abortions because they don't feel they can afford to raise a kid will be correct).

So are we a dumb country? Or a dumb planet? I don't think so. I think the issue comes down to our having believed that technology and economic development would only make things easier and never make them harder. We are at a difficult place in history, but we were a lot more "stupid" in the 1940s when we were dropping bombs on each other and committing genocide, thinking that that was some type of solution.

[Michael Prescott]

"Democrats have become the adult-in-the-room party trying to govern with what we've got."

Wow, the one expression I would never use to describe today's national Democrats is "the adult in the room." Seems to me that their answer to everything is, "Give us what we want or we will burn things." If you reelect Trump, America, we will burn the country down ... If you appoint Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court, Republicans, we will "blow up the whole system" ... If you disrespect the transgender movement, J.K. Rowling, we will burn your books in public bonfires (which they are now doing) ...

But then, I don't think modern conservatives are fascists, either. They're populists with a rightward tilt, which is not the same thing, though there can be points of similarity.

And yes, the economy was very, very good before the COVID panic and the entirely unnecessary, hugely counterproductive lockdown.

In the Obama years, I predicted we could double our rate of growth (from below 2% annually to around 4%) just by cutting regulations. If I recall correctly, you told me that even if we rolled back regulations to 1980 levels, it would make no difference, because late-stage capitalism entails low growth.

Well, Trump cut back regulations and we had something close to 4% growth until Dr. Fauci shut it down with his magic wand.

I don't actually think there is such a thing as late-stage capitalism. "Late-stage capitalism," to me, makes as much sense as saying the dinosaurs ran into trouble because they were "late-stage reptiles." Capitalism does not know what year it is or how long it's been around, and besides, it's constantly evolving. Today's capitalism is not the same as FDR's or Teddy Roosevelt's or Andrew Jackson's capitalism. It's a very flexible and resilient system - at least until the Sweet Meteor of Death comes along.

Japan, unfortunately, is not a flexible and resilient country; they did well for a while by copying the West, but when their system broke down, they couldn't fix it. I don't think their culture encourages independent thought. It seems to be more about conformity, which can be good for promoting civil order, but not so good when you need to think outside the box. (The US, on the other hand, has probably gone too far in the opposite direction, with many people having little commitment to social norms and a fair number seeking actively to destroy them.)

From 1945-60, the US was in the historically unusual position of being the only industrial power that was still intact. Unlike our rivals, our factories hadn't been bombed into rubble. So the livin' was easy - not because of an inevitable historical stage of capitalism but because of temporary circumstances.

Circumstances changed, and we faced renewed competition from reviving economies. Our policies didn't change fast enough. We continued to think we could compete even while hamstrung by high taxes and burdensome regulations.

Even today you hear people like Bernie Sanders say we did just fine with a 95% marginal tax rate for high earners, not comprehending that we did fine because we had no competition and could afford to indulge in bad policies.

But yeah, sadly, we are a stupid country. A lot of people think Bernie knows what he's talking about, which is demoralizing enough. Even worse, we threw away a world-class economy so we could collect unemployment bonuses and virtue-signal with useless masks. A goodly percentage of us don't want the lockdowns to end, ever. They *like* being under house arrest. And while our elected officials are having people tasered, handcuffed, and hauled off to jail for not wearing masks, they are doing nothing to curtail the ongoing riots that have already reduced major US cities to no-go zones. And plenty of Americans support both policies - they are gung ho for arresting and jailing social-distance violators (one guy in California just got a year in jail for hosting a house party!) and blasé about hordes of "peaceful protesters" putting whole neighborhoods to the torch.

Come onnnnnn, cockroaches ...

[Art]

\\"reduced major US cities to no-go zones." - Michael Prescott//
----------------------

That has been my feelings about big cities for decades. I don't like any of them. When I have to drive through Atlanta when I'm driving down I-75 on our way to Florida I make sure I got a full tank of gas before I even close to the city so I don't have to stop until I am well on the other side. I went to High School in Atlanta, Georgia and then a few years ago I had to drive my wife to a meeting in a big hotel in downtown Atlanta and it was sheer and utter torture. The traffic was horrendous.

I originally was thinking about staying there in the hotel with her but after that nerve wracking drive down I-75/85 to get to downtown Atlanta I decided to get the hell out of there and drive over to Athens, Georgia where I have family and stay with them. Athens is about 70 miles due east of Atlanta so there is a good bit of rural buffer between Atlanta and Athens.

My nerves just can't take big cities anymore. I think they are horrendous and I'll be honest... I hate them. People living in those cities reminds me of experiments with overcrowded rats that I read about in psychology books. It's no wonder that the people who live there end up acting insane.

And by the way when I was working at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine for 17 years about once a year I had to fly to AALAS meetings in big cities around the country. I hated everything about it, especially having to fly to get there. I prefer trees and forests and meadows and mountains and lakes and rivers and oceans and natural settings with lots of wild animals roaming free.