November 7, 1876: A Day that Changed History
There are certain historical dates that the mere mention of conjures up an immediate recognition of their significance (at least among those of us who value history): July 4, 1776; November 11, 1918; December 7, 1941 or September 11, 2001. Others, such as November 7, 1876 do not receive the publicity they deserve. Since we are fast approaching the 130th anniversary of this important day, please allow me to explain further.
November 7, 1876 was election day in the United States of America (as it will be in 2006). While it is still too early to tell whether the 2006 election will be a major turning point in American political history, as it promises to be; the Election of 1876 certainly was. Not only was it a presidential contest, but the Election of 1876 was also a referendom on Reconstruction--the period of Northern efforts to dominate the South politically, socially and economically, in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War. As in 2006, the U. S. Senate, Supreme Court and the Presidency were controlled by Republicans. In 1876, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives. Ever since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the "Radical" faction of the Republican Party had dominated efforts to restore peace and stability in the war ravaged South. The Radical Republicans had imposed harsh Reconstruction measures on their former Confederate adversaries as a way to punish them for seceeding from the Union during the Civil War. Although there were some genuine efforts on the part of Radical Republicans in Congress to give former Black slaves voting rights and other attributes of American citizenship, much of the Radicals' efforts were devoted to preserving their own power by constantly reminding the American people that they alone were the "party of Lincoln," and that the Democratic opposition was the party of treason. Most white Southerners had been Democrats even before the war. It was the Democrats who had supported the continued spread of slavery. It was also the Democrats, who during the Civil War, had been willing to make peace with the South even if it meant the recognition of Southern independence. Worst of all, now that the war had been won, it was the Democrats who still opposed giving civil rights to blacks, even though those rights had been purchased with Northern lives. "Waving the bloody shirt" as it was called reached its zenith in the Election of 1876.
The Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes to be their candidate. The Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden as their standard bearer. (Had General George A. Custer not been anhiliated at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, he would have likely been the Democrats' nominee.) The Election of 1876 proved to be the most contentious one in American history. It remains so to this day, although their are striking similarities between it and the election of 2000. Hayes received 4,034,311 popular votes to Tilden's 4,288,546. But neither candidate had the neccessary 185 electoral votes to become president. To everyone's dismay it was discovered that four states: Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida and Oregon had sent in double election returns. Which set of voter returns, the Democratic or Republican would be used to determine the electoral votes of each state? Tilden only needed one more electoral vote to win--he already had 184. Oregon's dispute was soon resolved in favor of Hayes, but he still needed all 20 of the votes still in contention in the three Southern states to win by one electoral vote. Who would count the votes to ensure fairness? The country waited with baited breath. Nothing quite like this had ever happened before.
To resolve the dispute, a joint Congressional committee created a special electoral commission to consist of five senators, five representatives and five supreme court justices. Three from the majority party and two from the minority party of each house were chosen. Each party also received 2 supreme court justices. The fifth and most decisive justice would be an independent. This commission would have final authority to rule in cases of double sets of electoral votes, unless overruled by both houses. At the last minute, Judge David Davis of Illinois (Executor of Abraham Lincoln's estate) was appointed to the U.S. Senate by a coalition of Democrats and Independents in Illinois. He was therefore inelligible to be on the Electoral Commission. Joseph Bradley, a Republican was appointed, instead. Although he had the support of Democratic leaders, Bradley voted with his party when the electoral votes were counted on February 1, 1877. Starting with Florida, the Commission voted 8 to 7 to give Hayes all of the disputed electoral votes. The Democratic House of Representatives protested the outcome, but to no avail.
There was some concern that the Democrats in the House might organize a filibuster movement against Hayes while South Carolina's case was being considered, but this situation was remedied by the fact that Hayes had already promised that if he was elected President, he would give the Democrats in the South what they wanted most--removal of the hated federal troops from the region. This promise, known to history as the infamous "Compromise of 1877," did more than anything else to set back black civil rights in the southern United States for almost another century. No longer would there be Union soldiers present to ensure that Southern elections were run fairly and that former slaves were allowed to participate, to say nothing of holding public office themselves.
All of this was in the future; however. At the time, most Americans North and South breathed a collective sigh of relief that the election crisis had been narrowly averted and a possibe renewal of civil war had been averted. Due to the controversy generated by the election, and fearing a coup, it was decided by outgoing President U.S. Grant and other government leaders that Hayes would be privately sworn in as President of the United States on the evening of March 3, 1877. The ceremony took place in the Red Room of the White House. Because Inauguration Day (March 4) was a Sunday that year, Hayes was inaugurated in a public ceremony on Monday, March 5, 1877.
Election night, November 7, 1876, was significant for another reason. It gave a group of counterfeiters, who were determined to spring one of their own comrades from jail, the opportunity to commit one of the most horrific crimes of the nineteenth century--the unsuccessful attempt to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln from his tomb in Springfield, Illinois, in order to hold it hostage in exchange for their comrade's freedom.
The gang, headed by "Big Jim" Kneally was headquartered in Lincoln, Illinois, only twenty-five miles from Springfield. Their master engraver, Ben Boyd had been caught in his workshop and was sent to prison at Joliet, Illinois. He was sentenced to serve ten years. "Big Jim" was unable to find an artist anywhere as talanted as Boyd had been. In order for Kneally's counterfeiting racket to succeed, Boyd must be released from jail. The only way to convince the state of Illinois to give him up was to steal its most precious possession--the body of Abraham Lincoln.
The plan was initially hatched in the spring of 1876, and after some difficulties in organizing, election night was chosen as the best time to break in Lincoln's tomb and steal the body. It would be done after dark, when the crowds of pilgrims had gone home. The contentious nature of the election, in which the Democrats had their first real chance of recapturing the presidency for the first time since the Civil War, further ensured success, because it guaranteed Oak Ridge Cemetery would be deserted both by crowds awaiting election returns and the police who were monitoring rowdy crowds of campaign partisans. Fortunately, the United States Secret Service had infilterated the gang months before, and knew all about the plot. With the support of Lincoln's only surviving son Robert, now a Chicago attorney, they resolved to let the plot go forward and catch the thieves in the act of trying to steal Lincoln's body. Several detectives hid themselves in the series of passages between Memorial Hall (public receiving area of the tomb) and the catacomb where Lincoln's body had been placed in a marble sarcophagus with an easy to open lid on it. The grave robbers almost succeded in their attempt. The casket, containing Lincoln's corpse was halfway out of the sarcophagus before the detectives, hidden on the other side of the inner wall of the catacomb, made it out of the tomb through Memorial Hall and came around the outside of the tomb to intercept the thieves as they left the catacomb. One of the detective's pistols fired accidently and the thieves bolted, leaving the casket behind. After an unsuccessful cemetery chase, the detectives returned to the tomb and reinterred Lincoln's remains the best they could until better improvements could be made. It was months before the thieves were finally caught, tried and convicted.
Although unsuccessful, the raid on Lincoln's tomb proved that the structure was unsecure. Between the fear of having the body stolen again and the need to reconstruct the tomb several times due to structural defects, Lincoln's body was moved a total of seventeen times from 1865 to 1901, when the casket was finally embedded in a cage of steel bars, ten feet below the catacomb floor. Concrete was poured over it and through the bars of the cage, forming a solid cube. Robert Lincoln ordered this procedure to stop the charade of moving his father's body around. He was inspired by the recent death of Chicago's unpopular railroad tycoon, George Pullman, who had been buried this way to prevent desecration of his grave by his own workers, whom he had refused to negotiate with in the Pullman Railroad Strike of the 1890s. When visitors go to see Lincoln's grave site today, they encounter a solid chunk of Arkansas granite inscribed with, "Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865." It is a physical reminder of the influence November 7, 1876 had on the history of the United States.
--Bryce O. Stenzel
Sources:
Lewis, Lloyd. Myths After Lincoln. 1941. 266-281.
Roseboom, Eugene H. and Alfred Eckes Jr. A History of Presidential Elections: From George Washington to Jimmy Carter. Fourth Edition. 1979. 93-97.
Speer, Bonnie Stahlman. The Great Abraham Lincoln Hijack: 1876 Attempt to Steal Body of President Lincoln, 1997. 83-93.
There are certain historical dates that the mere mention of conjures up an immediate recognition of their significance (at least among those of us who value history): July 4, 1776; November 11, 1918; December 7, 1941 or September 11, 2001. Others, such as November 7, 1876 do not receive the publicity they deserve. Since we are fast approaching the 130th anniversary of this important day, please allow me to explain further.
November 7, 1876 was election day in the United States of America (as it will be in 2006). While it is still too early to tell whether the 2006 election will be a major turning point in American political history, as it promises to be; the Election of 1876 certainly was. Not only was it a presidential contest, but the Election of 1876 was also a referendom on Reconstruction--the period of Northern efforts to dominate the South politically, socially and economically, in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War. As in 2006, the U. S. Senate, Supreme Court and the Presidency were controlled by Republicans. In 1876, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives. Ever since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the "Radical" faction of the Republican Party had dominated efforts to restore peace and stability in the war ravaged South. The Radical Republicans had imposed harsh Reconstruction measures on their former Confederate adversaries as a way to punish them for seceeding from the Union during the Civil War. Although there were some genuine efforts on the part of Radical Republicans in Congress to give former Black slaves voting rights and other attributes of American citizenship, much of the Radicals' efforts were devoted to preserving their own power by constantly reminding the American people that they alone were the "party of Lincoln," and that the Democratic opposition was the party of treason. Most white Southerners had been Democrats even before the war. It was the Democrats who had supported the continued spread of slavery. It was also the Democrats, who during the Civil War, had been willing to make peace with the South even if it meant the recognition of Southern independence. Worst of all, now that the war had been won, it was the Democrats who still opposed giving civil rights to blacks, even though those rights had been purchased with Northern lives. "Waving the bloody shirt" as it was called reached its zenith in the Election of 1876.
The Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes to be their candidate. The Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden as their standard bearer. (Had General George A. Custer not been anhiliated at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, he would have likely been the Democrats' nominee.) The Election of 1876 proved to be the most contentious one in American history. It remains so to this day, although their are striking similarities between it and the election of 2000. Hayes received 4,034,311 popular votes to Tilden's 4,288,546. But neither candidate had the neccessary 185 electoral votes to become president. To everyone's dismay it was discovered that four states: Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida and Oregon had sent in double election returns. Which set of voter returns, the Democratic or Republican would be used to determine the electoral votes of each state? Tilden only needed one more electoral vote to win--he already had 184. Oregon's dispute was soon resolved in favor of Hayes, but he still needed all 20 of the votes still in contention in the three Southern states to win by one electoral vote. Who would count the votes to ensure fairness? The country waited with baited breath. Nothing quite like this had ever happened before.
To resolve the dispute, a joint Congressional committee created a special electoral commission to consist of five senators, five representatives and five supreme court justices. Three from the majority party and two from the minority party of each house were chosen. Each party also received 2 supreme court justices. The fifth and most decisive justice would be an independent. This commission would have final authority to rule in cases of double sets of electoral votes, unless overruled by both houses. At the last minute, Judge David Davis of Illinois (Executor of Abraham Lincoln's estate) was appointed to the U.S. Senate by a coalition of Democrats and Independents in Illinois. He was therefore inelligible to be on the Electoral Commission. Joseph Bradley, a Republican was appointed, instead. Although he had the support of Democratic leaders, Bradley voted with his party when the electoral votes were counted on February 1, 1877. Starting with Florida, the Commission voted 8 to 7 to give Hayes all of the disputed electoral votes. The Democratic House of Representatives protested the outcome, but to no avail.
There was some concern that the Democrats in the House might organize a filibuster movement against Hayes while South Carolina's case was being considered, but this situation was remedied by the fact that Hayes had already promised that if he was elected President, he would give the Democrats in the South what they wanted most--removal of the hated federal troops from the region. This promise, known to history as the infamous "Compromise of 1877," did more than anything else to set back black civil rights in the southern United States for almost another century. No longer would there be Union soldiers present to ensure that Southern elections were run fairly and that former slaves were allowed to participate, to say nothing of holding public office themselves.
All of this was in the future; however. At the time, most Americans North and South breathed a collective sigh of relief that the election crisis had been narrowly averted and a possibe renewal of civil war had been averted. Due to the controversy generated by the election, and fearing a coup, it was decided by outgoing President U.S. Grant and other government leaders that Hayes would be privately sworn in as President of the United States on the evening of March 3, 1877. The ceremony took place in the Red Room of the White House. Because Inauguration Day (March 4) was a Sunday that year, Hayes was inaugurated in a public ceremony on Monday, March 5, 1877.
Election night, November 7, 1876, was significant for another reason. It gave a group of counterfeiters, who were determined to spring one of their own comrades from jail, the opportunity to commit one of the most horrific crimes of the nineteenth century--the unsuccessful attempt to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln from his tomb in Springfield, Illinois, in order to hold it hostage in exchange for their comrade's freedom.
The gang, headed by "Big Jim" Kneally was headquartered in Lincoln, Illinois, only twenty-five miles from Springfield. Their master engraver, Ben Boyd had been caught in his workshop and was sent to prison at Joliet, Illinois. He was sentenced to serve ten years. "Big Jim" was unable to find an artist anywhere as talanted as Boyd had been. In order for Kneally's counterfeiting racket to succeed, Boyd must be released from jail. The only way to convince the state of Illinois to give him up was to steal its most precious possession--the body of Abraham Lincoln.
The plan was initially hatched in the spring of 1876, and after some difficulties in organizing, election night was chosen as the best time to break in Lincoln's tomb and steal the body. It would be done after dark, when the crowds of pilgrims had gone home. The contentious nature of the election, in which the Democrats had their first real chance of recapturing the presidency for the first time since the Civil War, further ensured success, because it guaranteed Oak Ridge Cemetery would be deserted both by crowds awaiting election returns and the police who were monitoring rowdy crowds of campaign partisans. Fortunately, the United States Secret Service had infilterated the gang months before, and knew all about the plot. With the support of Lincoln's only surviving son Robert, now a Chicago attorney, they resolved to let the plot go forward and catch the thieves in the act of trying to steal Lincoln's body. Several detectives hid themselves in the series of passages between Memorial Hall (public receiving area of the tomb) and the catacomb where Lincoln's body had been placed in a marble sarcophagus with an easy to open lid on it. The grave robbers almost succeded in their attempt. The casket, containing Lincoln's corpse was halfway out of the sarcophagus before the detectives, hidden on the other side of the inner wall of the catacomb, made it out of the tomb through Memorial Hall and came around the outside of the tomb to intercept the thieves as they left the catacomb. One of the detective's pistols fired accidently and the thieves bolted, leaving the casket behind. After an unsuccessful cemetery chase, the detectives returned to the tomb and reinterred Lincoln's remains the best they could until better improvements could be made. It was months before the thieves were finally caught, tried and convicted.
Although unsuccessful, the raid on Lincoln's tomb proved that the structure was unsecure. Between the fear of having the body stolen again and the need to reconstruct the tomb several times due to structural defects, Lincoln's body was moved a total of seventeen times from 1865 to 1901, when the casket was finally embedded in a cage of steel bars, ten feet below the catacomb floor. Concrete was poured over it and through the bars of the cage, forming a solid cube. Robert Lincoln ordered this procedure to stop the charade of moving his father's body around. He was inspired by the recent death of Chicago's unpopular railroad tycoon, George Pullman, who had been buried this way to prevent desecration of his grave by his own workers, whom he had refused to negotiate with in the Pullman Railroad Strike of the 1890s. When visitors go to see Lincoln's grave site today, they encounter a solid chunk of Arkansas granite inscribed with, "Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865." It is a physical reminder of the influence November 7, 1876 had on the history of the United States.
--Bryce O. Stenzel
Sources:
Lewis, Lloyd. Myths After Lincoln. 1941. 266-281.
Roseboom, Eugene H. and Alfred Eckes Jr. A History of Presidential Elections: From George Washington to Jimmy Carter. Fourth Edition. 1979. 93-97.
Speer, Bonnie Stahlman. The Great Abraham Lincoln Hijack: 1876 Attempt to Steal Body of President Lincoln, 1997. 83-93.
posted by History Haters | 1:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home