In a secret meeting at the Wormley Hotel in Washington, D.C., Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats reached an agreement on Feb. 26, less than a week before the inauguration. As a result of this pact, often referred to as the Compromise of 1877, the Southerners refused to support the obstruction efforts of the Northern Democrats on tilden`s behalf, which ensured Hayes` election to the presidency. In return, Hayes and leading Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the three “unreacted” states, appoint a Southerner to his cabinet, support spending on increased federal funding for internal improvements in those three states, promote the construction of a transcontinental railroad with a terminus in the South, and let the president visit the South. In South Carolina, the election had been overshadowed by bloodshed on both sides of the party line. Supporters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wade Hampton, a former Confederate general, had used violence and intimidation to confront the African-American majority of voters. A clash between black and white armed militias in Hamburg in July ended in the deaths of five militiamen after their surrender, while in Camboy (near Charleston), six white men were killed when armed blacks opened fire at a political rally. Since both sides accused each other of electoral fraud, South Carolina, as well as Florida and Louisiana, submitted two election results with different results. Meanwhile, the Democratic governor of the state of Oregon replaced a Republican voter with a Democrat (claiming that the Republican was not eligible), which also called into question Hayes` victory in that state.

The incumbent president, Republican Ulysses S. Grant, withdrew the troops from Florida and, as president, Hayes withdrew the remaining troops from South Carolina and Louisiana. As soon as the troops withdrew, many white Republicans also withdrew, and the “savior” Democrats, who already dominated other southern state governments, took control. The exact terms of the agreement are somewhat controversial as the documentation is inadequate. [1] It is striking, however, that the provisions of the compromise of 1877 lacked protective measures for those released in the South. They were, in the words of Frederick Douglass, “left naked to their enemies.” Known as the “Jim Crow Laws” (after a popular minstrel law that developed in the prewar years), these segregationist laws ruled life in the South until the middle of the next century and only ended after the hard-won successes of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. The election year of 1876 ended with a challenge to the presidential race and the election for governor in Louisiana. Louisiana`s role in what became known as the Compromise of 1877 was ensured by the White House for Rutherford B.

Hayes, Confederate veteran Francis T. Nicholls became governor of Louisiana and ended the occupation and federal reconstruction of the state — with the hope that African Americans would achieve equality before the law in decades to come. Hayes was inaugurated peacefully. Points 1 and 2 of the compromise have entered into force. Hayes had already announced before the election his support for the restoration of “Home Rule”, which would include the withdrawal of federal troops. It was neither unusual nor unexpected for a president, especially a president who was so narrowly elected, to choose a cabinet member preferred by the other party. Items 3 and 4 have never been implemented; It is possible that there was no firm agreement on them. Congress established an electoral commission, which was established on January 29, 1877, to settle the dispute. It consisted of 15 members: five from the House of Representatives and the Senate, and five judges from the Supreme Court. Eight members were Republicans; seven were Democrats. An informal agreement was reached, which became known as the Compromise of 1877.

After the compromise, the commission voted along party lines to allocate the 20 contested electoral votes to Hayes, thus ensuring his electoral victory by a margin of 185 to 184.