Fragile Freedom

The Inauguration of the 19th President was but three days away. The problem was that though the election had been held four month prior, there was little telling who that would have been. New York Governor Samuel Tilden had won the popular vote by over 280,000, he had a clear majority of 50.9% to Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes 47.9%. What’s more is he had to believe that he had edged out his Republican opponent in the Electoral College. He had taken 184 seats, one shy of the majority he needed to be sworn in, compared to Haye’s 165. With 19 out of the 20 electors in question being from the South, Tilden had to believe that he could manage to pick up 1 state before his opponent in that bitterly fought race would take all 20. After all, even if Hayes did take those three states, which seemed unlikely, Oregon Governor LaFayette Grover had given him the vote he needed when he replaced a Republican Elector John Watts with Democrat C.A. Cronin. The truth was that the Democrats had every right to believe that the