Compromise of 1877

An informal political agreement that settled the disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election by securing Rutherford B. Hayes’s presidency and ending federal military support for Reconstruction in the South.

United States presidential election of 1876: The contest between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden, whose disputed returns left the presidency unresolved. Its contested results created the immediate crisis the agreement settled.
United States Electoral College: The system in which state-appointed electors formally choose the president and vice president of the United States. Disputed electoral votes, rather than the popular vote, determined the bargaining crisis.
End of Reconstruction: The conclusion of federal efforts to remake Southern governments and protect formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. The troop withdrawal is commonly treated as the political endpoint of Reconstruction.
United States presidential election of 1880: The presidential contest won by Republican James A. Garfield over Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock. Unlike the 1876 contest, its outcome was accepted without a comparable national settlement.
Electoral Commission Act: An 1877 law that created a commission to decide disputed electoral votes from the 1876 presidential election. The commission’s partisan decisions intensified negotiations over the presidency.
United States Army: The land warfare service of the United States federal government. Withdrawing its troops from the South was the bargain’s decisive practical consequence.
Jim Crow laws: State and local laws that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised Black Americans, especially in the South. The retreat of federal enforcement helped Southern white governments impose racial subordination.
Popular vote: The total number of votes cast for each candidate by individual voters in an election. Tilden won the popular vote, while the compromise gave Hayes the presidency through electoral votes.
Reconstruction era: The period after the American Civil War when the federal government reshaped Southern politics and society. The agreement’s bargain ended federal military enforcement of this postwar transformation.
Home rule: Local or regional self-government within a larger political state. Southern Democrats sought control of state governments without federal military intervention.

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