Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876 by Roy Morris Jr. tells the harrowing story of the 1876 presidential election. Ironically occurring in the year of our centennial, this election is probably the only presidential election [?] with historical, documented proof of outright systemic fraud.
Morris shows how this election was essentially stolen from Tilden though a series of moves on the state and federal level. Perhaps the most shameful outcome of this was that Hayes and his associates agreed to remove the last troops from South Carolina, formally ending Reconstruction (which was already on its last legs). Now nothing prevented white domination of the south, and the formalization of Jim Crow laws.
This is an important books. First, it shows how terrible fraud can occur even without an overtly conscious attempt to commit it (although much conscious fraud was initiated in 1876). Fraud is sometimes stumbled into; a sobering though. Second, in a bizarre sense this book is heartening, If our republican institutions can survive an election like 1876, perhaps they are elastic enough to weather Trump.
Morris shows how this election was essentially stolen from Tilden though a series of moves on the state and federal level. Perhaps the most shameful outcome of this was that Hayes and his associates agreed to remove the last troops from South Carolina, formally ending Reconstruction (which was already on its last legs). Now nothing prevented white domination of the south, and the formalization of Jim Crow laws.
This is an important books. First, it shows how terrible fraud can occur even without an overtly conscious attempt to commit it (although much conscious fraud was initiated in 1876). Fraud is sometimes stumbled into; a sobering though. Second, in a bizarre sense this book is heartening, If our republican institutions can survive an election like 1876, perhaps they are elastic enough to weather Trump.
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