In what two ways did the 1876 elections signal the end of Reconstruction Quizlet

By 1873, Republicans were losing their enthusiasm for protecting black rights. Despite the presence of federal troops, sent by President Grant to protect black voting rights, white Democrats effectively resumed campaigns of violence and intimidation to suppress the Republican vote, with clearly observable effects depicted in this map. The formal end to Reconstruction was brought about in the disputed 1876 Presidential election. The Democratic candidate, Tilden, won the popular vote, but neither candidate initially had a majority of electoral votes due to disputes over returns in Florida, Louisiana and S. Carolina--the only states in which federal troops were still stationed in 1876. Although they were not numerous enough to stop white intimidation of black voters, the troops were considered an affront by white Democrats. In backroom negotiations, Democrats conceded the disputed election returns to Hayes in return for his agreement to withdraw the reamaining 3000 federal troops, thereby putting a formal end to Reconstruction and assuring Democratic control, based on a platform of white supremacy and black disenfranchisement, throughout the South. To learn more, see Hayes v. Tilden by Harper's Weekly.

United States presidential election of 1876, disputed American presidential election held on November 7, 1876, in which Republican Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden led Hayes by more than 260,000 popular votes, and preliminary returns showed Tilden with 184 electoral votes (one shy of the majority needed to win the election) to Hayes’s 165, with the 19 electoral votes of three states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina) and one elector from Oregon (originally awarded to Tilden) still in doubt. The U.S. Congress subsequently created an Electoral Commission, which by early March 1877 had resolved all the disputed electoral votes in favour of Hayes, giving him a 185–184 electoral college victory.

The candidates

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the Republicans held a stranglehold on the presidency, with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant winning easily in both 1868 and 1872. But Grant’s administration and the Republicans generally had been beset by scandals and allegations of corruption, such as the Crédit Mobilier Scandal and the Whiskey Ring. The Democrats entered 1876 on an upswing, having won control of the House of Representatives in 1874, and from the outset the election was expected to be competitive.

The Republicans held their convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, in mid-June, and the front-runner for their nomination was James G. Blaine of Maine, the speaker of the House of Representatives. Republican reformers, however, hoped to thwart his nomination. Blaine led after the first ballot but without enough votes to secure the nomination. Among the challengers to Blaine were Roscoe Conkling, a senator from New York and a prominent Republican leader in the post-Civil War period; Oliver H.P.T. Morton, a senator from Indiana and that state’s former governor; Benjamin Helm Bristow, the U.S. secretary of the Treasury (1874–76) and successful prosecutor of the Whiskey Ring; and Rutherford B. Hayes, the governor of Ohio. Eventually, with the withdrawal of Bristow, Conkling, and Morton in favour of Hayes, Hayes secured the nomination on the seventh ballot, and William A. Wheeler, a senator from New York, was selected as his running mate. Hayes’s unblemished public record and high moral tone (as well as his deep sympathy toward the South) offered a striking contrast to widely publicized accusations of corruption in the Grant administration.

The Democrats held their convention two weeks later in St. Louis, Missouri—the first time a national convention was held west of the Mississippi. Samuel J. Tilden, the governor of New York, strongly appealed to delegates from Southern states, and on the first ballot he led Thomas A. Hendricks, the governor of Indiana. After a second ballot Tilden secured the nomination, and Hendricks was chosen as his running mate.

The platforms

The 1876 election occurred in the midst of an economic depression in the United States and continuing sectional animosity, particularly in the South, where opposition to federal occupation and Reconstruction had grown. Many Republicans had grown weary of Reconstruction and had come to believe that the time for compromise with Southern whites was at hand. Still, the Republicans continued their strong commitment to the civil rights of emancipated slaves, their party platform stating that “the permanent pacification of the Southern section of the Union and the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their rights, are duties to which the Republican party is sacredly pledged.” It further criticized the Democratic Party for its lack of commitment to civil rights, arguing that the “party counts, as its chief hope of success, upon the electoral vote of a united South, secured through the efforts of those who were recently arrayed against the nation and we invoke the earnest attention of the country to the grave truth, that a success thus achieved would reopen sectional strife and imperil national honor and human rights.”

Meanwhile, the Democratic platform called for “immediate reform” of the federal government and, to forestall Republican charges of sectionalism, committed itself to the “permanence of the Federal Union.” It also called for civil service reform and restrictions on Chinese immigration to the United States.

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How did the election of 1876 lead to the end of Reconstruction quizlet?

After the disputed Presidential Election of 1876, Congress declared Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the winner, but Republicans promised to withdraw remaining troops from Southern states. This marked the end of Reconstruction.

What effect did the 1876 presidential election have on Reconstruction quizlet?

The Compromise of 1877 was a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era.

How did the election of Hayes effectively end Reconstruction quizlet?

In return for the Democrats' acquiescence in Hayes's election, the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction. The Compromise effectively ceded power in the Southern states to the Democratic Redeemers.

What was the major cause of the end of Reconstruction quizlet?

Reconstruction ended in 1877 because of an event known as the Great Betrayal, wherein the government pulled federal troops out of state politics in the South, and ended the Reconstruction Era.