Election Of 1876 Essay, Research Paper

Why Hayes Should Not Have Won the Election

The position of President is the most important position in the United States government. Wouldn t you think that we should have the very best man in that position that we can get? I, Samuel Tilden, feel that the Election of 1876 was a disgrace to the history of our government. I still believe that I should have won that election because of corruption of the voting process itself, he didn t have the organization a president should have and because the people wanted me to win, not Rutherford. I certainly believe that the chosen president should reflect the people s choice.

One reason why Hayes should not be president is because of the Election of 1876 itself. When the votes were counted and sent in to Washington, I was the clear winner; 203 to 165 electoral votes (Haworth 76). However, the vile Republicans decided to change the votes of the three states they still controlled by throwing away Democratic votes! Obviously this isn t how the leaders of the United States should be acting. You can t change what the people want by throwing out votes. Later, when Congress held a meeting to decide whom the winner should be, there was an unfair amount of Republicans over Democrats, so we were bound to lose. We accepted the Compromise of 1877 because another Civil War would not be worth it (Robinson 111).

After Hayes became president, he didn t know what to do with his new position. He didn t have the confidence a President of the United States should have. Of course, he had a couple of ideas he wanted to try, such as wiping out the color line and abolishing sectionalism, but his major plans didn t work (Haworth 125). When he assigned a southerner as postmaster general and withdrew troops from the south, the last two Republican states turned Democratic. Hayes was quoted saying, I am reluctantly forced to admit that the experiment was a failure (Robinson 12). Everyone makes mistakes, but a mistake this large has large repercussions. I m sure everyone knows that I would have never made a mistake such as this.

Finally, the people wanted me to win over Hayes. I easily won the popular vote by over 250,000 votes. Don t you think that what the majority of the population wants should be done? I am not criticizing the United States Government, but new measures should have been taken when the Republicans cheated to win the election.

Although I happen to love this country very much, I do believe there were many mistakes made in the Election of 1876. The Democrats were put at a severe disadvantage in the election and if it were fair, like the way an election should have been, I would have been the 19th President of the United States of America. I can only dream that the future generations and presidents will not fall victim to the greed of more Republicans.