Southern Interests and the Election of 1876: A Reappraisal

SOUTHERN INTERESTS AND THE ELECTION OF 1876: A REAPPRAISAL George C. Rabie the election of 1876 and its aftermath are, to say the least, well-trodden historical ground. The details of the campaign, the election deadlock and the subsequent "settlement" are tales told more than twice. Scholars have generally accepted the broad outlines, if not all the details, of C. Vann Woodward's complex and subde explanation of the"Compromise of 1877."' Yet the economic calculus that drives the actors in Reunion and Reaction would have seemed curious to contemporary Southern political leaders. For these men and their constituents, the election of 1876 and the political maneuvering leading to the peaceful inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes meant far more than patronage or railroad subsidies. At stake for the South in 1876-1877 was what had been at stake for the South since the end of the war: the restoration of white racial hegemony and home rule. These considerations, and not the secret dealings of railroad magnate Tom Scott and Woodward's other conspirators , determined the South's reaction to events and shaped the final outcome of the election controversy. For all the attention lavished on this election, no one has undertaken a comprehensive treatment of the campaign or its aftermath in the South. This neglect is significant because the politics of this short period appeared much differently in Columbia, South Carolina, or New Orleans, Louisiana, than they did in Washington, D.C., or in the North. In the centennial year of American independence, the white South could not fully celebrate the country's nationhood. Despite the Democratic tidal wave in the elections of 1874, Republican "carpetbag" governments still held power in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. A presidential election complicated the course of Southern politics but did not change its direction. The determination of Southerners to throw 1 C. Vann Woodward, Reunion andReaction: The Compromise of 1877and theEnd of Reconstruction (Boston, 1966). Civil War History, Vol. XXVI, No. 4 Copyright · 1980 by The Kent State UniversityPress 0009-8078/80/26M-0004 $00.70/0 348CIVIL WAR HISTORY off the "foreign" yoke and resume control of their own destinies overrode national political considerations. To be sure, Southern Democrats gave solid, if not overly enthusiastic, support to their party's presidential nominee, Samuel J. Tilden of New York. However, the national contest never generated the furious passions aroused by the state elections. The Democratic candidate for the governorship in North Carolina, the redoubtable Zebulon Vance, ran his campaign entirely on local issues and referred to the presidential election as "small potatoes." The leading newspaper organ of the South Carolina conservatives admitted before election day that the voters in that state would gladly concede the presidency to the Republicans in exchange for the governorship. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wade Hampton reportedly even advised his red-shirted legions to vote for Hayes if they so desired.2 When the balloting on November7 failed to determine who would be the next president, Southerners became more concerned about Tilden's fate and the growing possibility that the Republicans might again overturn the verdict of the people, steal the prize, and sneak their man into the White House. Yet the attention of the South still turned inward. By January the Democrats had joyously inaugurated their own governor in Florida. However, Republicans still claimed victory in South Carolina and Louisiana, and the establishment of conservative governments in these states became the primary objective of Southern Democratic politicians for the next several months. Certainly the conservatives in South Carolina and Louisiana held the presidential contest to be of distinctly secondary importance. General C. C. Augur, in command of the federal troops in New Orleans, matter of factly informed his superiors in Washington that: "I do not understand that they [the people in Louisiana] care so much who is President." An aide to General William T. Sherman wrote from South Carolina that the people there were "largely indifferent" to the presidential imbroglio. Southerners generally showed little hostility to Hayes but were rather determined to remove the remaining vestiges of Republican rule from their land.3 In South Carolina the Democrats vowed to place Hampton in the governor's chair at all...