Electoral Commission summary

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Electoral Commission, (1877)Commission created to resolve the disputed 1876 presidential election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden. Tilden had won the popular vote and was only one electoral vote short of victory, but the Republicans contested the tallies in four states, charging fraud. Unable to reach a consensus, Congress appointed a 15-member commission, evenly divided between the two parties, except for one justice, Joseph P. Bradley, a Republican considered nonpartisan; Republicans pressured him, and the tally went to Hayes, who was declared the winner on March 2. See also Wormley Conference.

Rutherford B. Hayes Summary

Rutherford B. Hayes was the 19th president of the United States (1877–81), who brought post-Civil War Reconstruction to an end in the South and who tried to establish new standards of official integrity after eight years of corruption in Washington, D.C. He was the only president to hold office by

election Summary

Election, the formal process of selecting a person for public office or of accepting or rejecting a political proposition by voting. It is important to distinguish between the form and the substance of elections. In some cases, electoral forms are present but the substance of an election is

United States Summary

United States, country in North America, a federal republic of 50 states. Besides the 48 conterminous states that occupy the middle latitudes of the continent, the United States includes the state of Alaska, at the northwestern extreme of North America, and the island state of Hawaii, in the

president Summary

President, in government, the officer in whom the chief executive power of a nation is vested. The president of a republic is the head of state, but the actual power of the president varies from country to country; in the United States, Africa, and Latin America the presidential office is charged