Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876
by Roy Morris Jr.
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"In this work of popular history and scholarship, acclaimed historian and biographer Roy Morris, Jr., tells the extraordinary story of how, in America's centennial year, the presidency was stolen, the Civil War was almost reignited, and black Americans were consigned to nearly ninety years of legalized segregation in the South." "The bitter 1876 contest between Ohio Republican governor Rutherford B. Hayes and New York Democratic governor Samuel J. Tilden is the most sensational, ethically show more sordid, and legally questionable presidential election in American history. The first since Lincoln's in 1860 in which the Democrats had a real chance of recapturing the White House, the election was in some ways the last battle of the Civil War, as the two parties fought to preserve or overturn what had been decided by armies just eleven years earlier." "Riding a wave of popular revulsion at the numerous scandals of the Grant administration and a sluggish economy, Tilden received some 260,000 more votes than his opponent. But contested returns in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina ultimately led to Hayes's being declared the winner by a specially created, Republican-dominated Electoral Commission after four tense months of political intrigue and threats of violence. President Grant took the threats seriously: he ordered armed federal troops into the streets of Washington to keep the peace."--Jacket. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is an interesting read, looking at one of the most important elections in American history, and overall, I found it quite good. That being said, I was a little concerned about how they reported some of the violence that surrounded the election. Talking about violence committed by both black and white Americans in the deep south, the book suggests that we don't really know about what both sides did and seems to suggest that the same amount of violence was perpetrated on both sides. I don't really think that black Americans in the 1870s were able to do the same amount of violence as their white counterparts. The argument that "but both sides did the same thing" doesn't really ring true in this situation.
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Author Information
22+ Works 938 Members
Roy Morris, Jr. is the editor of Military Heritage magazine and the author of five books on the Civil War and post-Civil War eras, including Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain and The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War.
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Rutherford B. Hayes; Samuel J. Tilden
- Important places
- USA
- Important events
- United States presidential election (1876)
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Politics and Government, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 324.973082 — Society, Government, and Culture Political science Politics & Elections Biography And History North America United States
- LCC
- E680 .M85 — History of the United States United States Late nineteenth century, 1865-1900 Grant's administrations, 1869-1877
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 216
- Popularity
- 150,627
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.48)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 1
