Donald Trump and the Spirit of 1876

Though it is mostly true, it is not completely true that Donald Trump is swinging around wildly trying to stay in power. He has a playbook, or at least his advisors do. It is an old playbook that has only worked once, but when it worked, it produced the most controversial election results in American history.: the election of 1876 between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden.

The 1876 election was the first national contest since 1860 that was not essentially about the Civil War. In his two terms as President, Ulysses S. Grant had made “Reconstruction” a priority. In practice, Reconstruction meant sending federal troops to the South to guarantee the voting rights of freed slaves. Grant understood, as Lincoln had also, that adding millions of new African-Americans to the voter rolls in the South would be tremendously difficult, but would fundamentally reshape the culture through democratic means.

Grant’s commitment to Reconstruction was real; he was serious about protecting the franchise throughout the South. White Southerners were furious, and most Northerners just wanted the war to be over. When the Democrats nominated New York Governor Samuel Tilden as their 1876 candidate, they were signaling to Northern states that it was time to move on to the issues that would dominate politics for the rest of the century: the gold standard…