President Tilden

I am in the process of reading an interesting book on the American Presidency. It's about 1000 pages long, but I haven't succeeded in putting it down yet.

The story of Samuel J. Tilden amazes me. Many people don't realize it, but he was the man who was actually elected president in 1876. Here's how it all went down....

Samuel J. Tilden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Samuel Jones Tilden (February 9, 1814 - August 4, 1886) was the Democratic candidate for the US presidency in the disputed election of 1876, the most controversial American election of the 19th century.

When two sets of returns were sent to Washington from the states of Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon, the two houses of Congress agreed to the appointment of an extra-constitutional body, the Electoral Commission. Though Tilden appears to have won the popular vote, there were enough Commission votes from the Republican-controlled states in the Reconstruction South to throw the election into the United States House of Representatives. The House awarded the presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes after he promised to end Reconstruction.

What this article didn't tell you is that the Electoral Commission was made up of 15 people, (5 Democrats from the House, 5 Republicans from the Senate, 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats from the Surpreme Court). The whole thing was a setup and the Commission knew they were going to choose Rutherford B. Hayes even before they met. Hayes himself did not expect to become president (he was an honest man). But 56 hours before the inauguration, Congress certified Hayes as the winner and he became the next president.

I admire Rutherford B. Hayes for many reasons, but Samuel J. Tilden was RIPPED OFF!