Dem Subterfuge – Unchanged in 140 Years

Here is another remarkable case of Presidential history not only repeating itself, but of an ongoing attempt to re-write a critical part of that history. We’ve written before about striking similarities between the personal styles of President Andrew Jackson and President Trump. However, even though many disliked Jackson’s style and personality and thought him unsuited to the prestige of the office (just like Trump), his opponents accepted the results of his election in 1828 and thereafter challenged Jackson’s policies and not his legitimacy as President. In that regard, the Presidencies of Jackson and Trump differed. However, the election of our 19th President, Rutherford B. Hayes, and how he was treated in his first two years in office bear a suprising resemblance to the 2016 election and the treatment of the 45th President in its aftermath.

Rutherford B. Hayes was elected the 19th President of our country in 1876. While Hayes’s style and personality were very different from that of President Trump, their Presidencies are amazingly similar in other ways. Since we all know the general circumstances surrounding the 2016 election, we need to briefly describe the corresponding circumstances surrounding the 1876 election to illustrate these uncanny parallels.

The Civil War had been over for 11 years in 1876, and Ulysses Grant (1868 – 1876) had brought some order to the tumultuous battle between Congress and Andrew Johnson (1865 – 1868) over the correct course for Reconstruction of the south. One of the most difficult problems was how to ensure that the local and state governments in the former Confederate states would honor the newly ratified 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution as well as the country’s first Civil Rights Act passed in 1866. Among other things, these amendments abolished slavery and granted citizenship and equal rights, including the right to vote, to former slaves. At the time, black Americans in the south overwhelmingly favored Republicans politically because of their commitment to end slavery and their legislative efforts since the end of the war to preserve in law that long overdue and hard-won freedom. However, Democrat leaders in many former Confederate states resisted the new reality of former slaves having the same rights and privileges as white Americans. Those politicians recognized that if most freed black slaves voted in post-war elections, they would heavily favor Republican candidates (as was evident in the vote totals for both terms of Ulysses Grant). To counter this, southern Democrats used intimidation and fear against former slaves to suppress the black vote. With this backdrop, Rutherford B. Hayes came onto the scene as the Republican nominee for President in 1876.

Here’s what transpired, 140 years apart, during the first two-plus years of both the Hayes and Trump administrations:

1. Hayes and Trump were behind in public opinion polls late into their Presidential campaigns. Each of them ended up losing the popular vote in their respective elections by a wide margin.¹

2. Each man was accused of having won his election by fraudulent means. In the case of Trump, it was alleged that he colluded with the Russians to win the election. In Hayes’s case, it was charged that the Republican Congress and Hayes himself conspired to prevent the electoral votes in the heavily Democrat states of Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana from being counted.

3. In both these elections, the opposition party never fully accepted the results. The Democrat parties of 1876 and 2016 tirelessly went about denying the President’s legitimacy so as to try and gain the upper hand in every policy debate and decision.

4. The major news media hounded both men right from the start as fraudulent Presidents. We’re all aware of the myriad over-the-top headlines intended to undermine President Trump. President Hayes had it just as bad, if not worse. Just after Hayes took the oath of office in 1877, the headline in the New York Sun read “THE FRAUD CONSUMMATED”, followed a few days later with “MR. HAYES IS NOT PRESIDENT”. They continually published Hayes’s portrait with the word “FRAUD” printed on his forehead. He was also mockingly referred to as “Rutherfraud” by other news agencies.

5. While the basis for the claim of fraudulence was different in each case, it was the pre- and post-election activities of the opposing party, not those of the eventual winner, where the chicanery occurred. In Trump’s case, the Mueller report concluded there was no Russian collusion. Now, evidence is becoming overwhelming that the whole collusion story was fabricated by the opposition party to create the illusion of an illegitimate Presidency. In Hayes’s case, it turned out to be family members of his opponent (Samuel J. Tilden), not Hayes, who were involved in bribing election boards in three southern states to sway the outcome in their favor. A congressional committee also concluded that Democrat intimidation against black voters did in fact occur on a large enough scale to change the election result in three states.²

6. In both cases, the opposition Democrat party launched an investigation into the alleged improprieties claimed to have taken place in the elections. The loser of each contest, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Samuel Tilden in 1876, proclaimed they were the rightful winners and enthusiastically supported these investigations. During the 1877 investigation, Hayes said to a friend that if Tilden tried to take over his Presidency, he would be “arrested and shot”. Although Trump famously threatened to have Hillary arrested for her gross negligence in handling classified material (…”lock her up”…), he did not suggest she be shot. Even if he had, Rutherford Hayes’ statement established that it would not be unprecedented.

7. Criticism of both men was not restricted to the opposition party. Some members of their own party opposed them – in Trump’s case for his style and dismissiveness of “establishment” politics, and in Hayes’s case for wanting to pacify the south too prematurely.³

8. In the face of all the opposition against them in their first two years as President, both men made remarkable progress toward the promises they made at the start of their respective administrations. In Trump’s case he lowered taxes, improved the economy, reduced unemployment, appointed conservative federal Judges, and stemmed the tide of unvetted refugees into the country. In Hayes’s case his push for a hard currency standard (gold specie) secured national credit and financial obligations, his reforms of the civil service system took hold, and he sustained vetoes of repeated attempts from the Democrats to repeal federal supervision of state elections.

An incredible irony accompanying all the above was the nature of Democrat party policies toward black Americans in the period during and after the Civil War. It was the Democrat party, particularly southern Democrats, who fought against freedom and equal rights for former slaves. Democrats overwhelmingly supported the Confederacy during the Civil War and in the aftermath led the opposition to the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. If Democrat leaders had prevailed in the 1876 election by way of suppressing the southern black vote, the civil rights gained by former slaves would likely have been reversed and pushed much further into the future.

Maybe it shouldn’t be too surprising that many of today’s Democrat leaders are the ones primarily supporting efforts to remove or cover statues and monuments having almost any connection to that period in our history. In obvious attempts to re-write that history, the racist politicians of the time (mostly southern Democrats) are now described more generally as “white leaders”, removing their political affiliation. “White supremacist”, once applied only to the fanatical fringe, is now the go-to term to tar any white conservative political opponent with “bigotry”. Finally, generally associating the “white supremacist” moniker  with conservative Republican leaders, and most frequently with President Trump, completes a clever 180-degree transposition of the perception of Republican party policies toward African Americans with the Democrat party’s actual racial injustices 140 years ago. Given the strength of today’s universally accepted premise that slavery was the greatest blight on our country’s history, the tremendous political advantage in being able to assign blame for this evil is clear. Present day Democrats, with help from the media, have masterfully accomplished this feat. On the other hand, Republicans consistently pass up the opportunity to articulate the true history of their legislative accomplishments for African American civil rights immediately after the Civil War. These are just and good actions of which they and the country can and should be quite proud. Correcting the many moral and human injustices toward black Americans at that time would have been much delayed if the Democrats had their way.

Thanks to President Hayes for standing his ground.

¹The 1876 election was the 2nd of 5 occurrences where the electoral college winner did not win the popular vote (not as rare an event as is often characterized). Those five were – 1824 (Adams), 1876 (Hayes), 1888 (Harrison), 2000 (Bush), 2016 (Trump). The Hayes election of 1876 was the only one of these cases when the loser (Tilden) won more than 50% of the popular vote.

²When the votes were counted in the 1876 election, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana were cited for widespread fraud by preventing black Americans from voting and enabling the Democrat candidate to win in those states. A Congressional investigation followed determining that because of the misconduct in those three states, their electoral votes would not be counted. The result gave Hayes a one-vote victory in the electoral college.

³Hayes (and Grant before him) realized that federal troops left in the south to enforce the law after the Civil War would eventually have to be pulled out. Hayes decided early in his administration to do so in order to sow good will with the states at the heart of his disputed election. Hayes also stated he would only be a one-term President as a further appeasement. None of that mattered. After the federal troops left, the locally elected politicians, nearly all Democrats, quickly returned to their Confederate ways: barely recognizing, much less honoring, the overdue and now legally binding equality of black Americans.