Elections Revisited: 1876 General Election

[Rob]

Tilden, making this the first time I would have supported a Democrat for president. As noted by someone upthread, he was an antislavery Democrat who supported Van Buren in 1848 and fiercely opposed the anti-American wing of his party during the Civil War. He had the best civil rights record of any Democratic candidate from the party's founding to FDR.

Most importantly, though, a Tilden victory would have meant the continuation of Reconstruction. Hayes' "victory" under such peculiar circumstances was the worst thing that could have happened to African-Americans, as his backers sold them down the river in exchange for white southern compliance with the results. The corrupt bargain marked the GOP's shift from idealism and progressivism to big business sleaze.