Contentious

So, the United States has just been through one of the most divisive presidential elections in the last 70 years. The contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will be talked about by Russian historians for untold generations… whoops, I mean talked about by historians for untold generations.
Now, as contentious as that contest was, there were some elections that rivaled it in the amount of rhetoric and violence the events of the day elicited from citizens and politicians.
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Komala: (Knock… knock… knock…) Hello, one moment… I’ll be right there… Yes, can I help you?
Door: Yes Mam, I have a letter for you… please sign here… thank you.
Komala: I wonder who this is from…??

November 6, 2024
Office Of the President Elect: Donald Triumphant
To Ex-Vice President Horris

It has come to the attention of my office, that during your campaign you said some really “nasty” things about me. In particular, I took great offence to how you kept referring to me by a sexual act concerning someone’s mother. I thought that was really unfair.
As you know, I have made a list of those who have aggrieved me and I intend on exacting my revenge on them on inaugural day as soon as the Chief Justice says, “Congratulations Mr. President.”
I have placed my aggressor’s punishment into five categories. They are A, B, C, D, and E.
A. Re-education Then Firing squad
B. Military Tribunal Then Firing Squad
C. Firing Squad
D. BRING THEM TO ME IN THE ROSE GARDEN BEHIND THE WHITE HOUSE!!
E. TOP SECRECT: LEVEL 10 SECURITY. BUNKER ALPHA DELTA ONE.
Although, I think you deserve to be a Level E aggressor, my staff thinks that because of your service to our nation, you should be classified as a Level D. I have given in to their demands.
Your co-aggressors, Michelle Odama and Nancy Peloski will not be as fortunate as you. I have classified them as Level E, and they have already been drugged, arrested and are being held at a secure place until I can get there and drop it like it’s hot.
As a courtesy, I am sending you letter to let you know that your presence is required at 2:00 am on the morning of January 20, 2025, in the Rose Garden behind the White House…. come alone.
Sincerely,
President-Elect: Donald Triumphant
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So yeah, this hasn’t been the only contentious election campaign. Of course, we all know about the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln. He was called everything but a child of God during his campaign, and although he won the election, the opposition swore to gawd he better not “physically” come into the Oval Office.
Racist Southerner: “Okay boys, wait until he sits down… and then open fire!!
So yeah, it was pretty rough.
Anyway, the election we are going to focus on happened in 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilman.

How Long? Not Long…

So, the presidential election of 1876 was one of the most hostile contests in American political history. It’s amazing that these two men didn’t just say screw this shat… meet me outside. I guess they didn’t do that because the first man who walked out the door would have probably been shot in the back by the other man.
Now by the time 1876 rolled around Reconstruction was almost ten years old. So, in a lot of depictions of reconstruction, some of you may have come away with the idea that reconstruction was primarily for and aimed at black folks. Now I don’t want to be the person known for doing something to the greens, but that’s not entirely accurate. Reconstruction was the policy of integrating the Confederate South back into the Union. Now black folks did benefit during reconstruction… but that was because of the freedoms that the 13th 14th and 15th amendments gave them. Reconstruction was to stop them white folks from falling into despair and feeling some kind of way over their burned down cities and towns, burned down to the ground because you know who wanted their freedom.
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Black Store Owner: Yes sir! What can I get you?
Racist Customer: You can go get me a rope and stand by that tree outside…
Black Store Owner: Wait! What!!??
Racist Customer: I said you can go get me a rope and stand by that tree outside…
Black Store Owner: Sir I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave my store!
Racist Customer: Your store boy? Before the war my pappy owned this store, and we would sell naggars just like you right on that porch outside… two for a nickel…
Black Store Owner: Okay… okay…. now I see… Ima whip yo azz…!!
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So yeah, there were white folks still feeling some kind of way… and there were black folks who because of the skills they possessed were able to capitalize monetarily on rebuilding the South. So, as I said earlier… the year was 1876 and little did any black folks know, it was to be the last year of reconstruction and the beginning of one of the most treacherous backstabbing betrayals in African American history… all predicated on one of the most hostile presidential elections in American history.

Look Miss Scarlett!!!

The Candidates
So, let’s talk about the candidates first. Now Rutherford B. Hayes was born in 1822 in Delaware, Ohio, which is about 30 miles from Columbus, Ohio. Ohio fought on the side of the Union against the southern aggressors in the Civil War… and it’s a good thing because two of the Union’s greatest generals came from Ohio. They were Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. Now while there wouldn’t have been many tears shed by the confederates if Grant had got shot in the face with a cannon ball… Sherman was a different story. They wanted to shoot him in the face two or three times with a cannon ball… a rusty cannon ball at that… during and after the war. Remember that scene in “Gone with the Wind where Prissy cries out… “Oh Miss Scarlett, look… look… look!!” Well, she was looking at Sherman burning Atlanta down to a nub. He went on to burn down a whole lot of other cities and towns too in his strategy of total war. His motto was…”If it doesn’t burn… pee on it…” They would have freed all of us… just turn him over… that’s all they prayed for. As a matter of fact, when the war ended, they wanted him tried as a war criminal. Of course, that didn’t happen. He was a bonified red, white and blue all-American hero in the North. After he left military service he moved in New York in 1883, where unfortunately he died of pneumonia in 1891. He is buried at Calvary Cemetary in Saint Louis, Missouri… Well, I hope he is still buried there… like I said, they wanted him… they might have dug him up…
Confederates: “Aw hell no!! hell no!!! You ain’t sleeping peacefully on any of gawds earth I’m still walking on!!”
Anyway, back to Rutherford, So, after attending college, getting his law degree, and opening up shop for a couple of years, he joined the service. He was commissioned as a major after a call up from Lincoln for volunteers to fight in the Civil War. Now Rutherford was a nothing but a bonafide azz kicking machine. Let there be no doubt about it… he was whipping it and taking names…
He distinguished himself in several battles and rose to the rank of Brevet Major General. So, for real, back in those days a Brevet title was an honorary title. Since you were out there kicking a lot of it, why ruin a good thing? The title didn’t have any authority or privilege.
In October of 1864 he ran for and was elected to the House of Representatives from Ohio’s Second District. After resigning his commission in October, he took his seat In December of that year.
Later on in 1867, he was nominated for and won the governor’s seat in Ohio. He won the seat three times!! They were like… “you are gonna be a president one day my man.” In June of 1876 he was nominated for President by the Republican National Convention along with a dude named William Wheeler from New York to be his Vice President. Thus, set in motion the events which would lead to one of the most hostile campaigns in American history and to a calamity that would ensnare generations of African Americans. I’m gonna tell you right now… when I use the word “thus…” it’s going to get real…real soon.
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General: Thats a lot of confederate azz you kicking down here major? Here is the case of toilet paper you asked for… The running joke up in command is with all that azz kicking, you need all this toilet paper to wipe your boots off after you come from the field… (general laughing)
Rutherford: Well no sir… a note pad isn’t big enough…
General: A notepad?
Rutherford: I need rolls of toilet paper to write all the names I’m taking down…
General: Wait!! What!!! I’m going to telling you something right now!! You are a gawd darn general!! You hear me boy!! A gosh darn General!! Come up to my office later this evening… Wait until they hear this!! Yes, siree a gawd darn general!!
Rutherford: Yes sir!!
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He Changed His Mind!?

So, the dude he was running against name was Samuel Tilden. Now before I start ripping anything off, I want to say that although Tilden was a Democrat, he was against slavery. Tilden was born into a wealthy family from New York, unlike pro-slavery Democrats whose families often owned enslaved people or represented former plantation owner’s interest in the beaten Confederacy.
Tilden: “You know I’m against slavery man!! Take that negro around the corner and hang him!!”
So yeah, Tilden, being from New York and New York being an enslave free state during the civil war sort of dictated Tilden’s political agenda. Tilden opposed Lincoln for president, but later supported him, when he saw the Confederates getting their azz whooped like mash potatoes at Thanksgiving… okay I don’t know that, but later he did support him during the Civil War.
So let go back a little way in Tilden life to around the 1840’s. That’s when he first begins to get into politics. In 1843 he was appointed as the New York City Corporate Council for his campaign work. After leaving that post, he was elected to the New York State Assembly. After a couple of years in that Mafia organization, he left to pursue his opportunities in his own legal practice.
Wait… what!!? Did I say being in the New York State Assembly in the 1840’s was like being in the Mafia?
Ever hear of Tammany Hall? Well, we are not going say that much about Tammany Hall in this article, except to say… back in that time Tammany owned New York local and state government, and when they offer you a deal, unlike Jack Woltz in the Godfather, you usually took it.
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Tammany: Hi Samuel! Hey, we need to talk to you. We have a guy we want to put in your seat.
In the next election, we don’t want you to run. Do that… and we will make sure you are taken care of…
Tilden: Look!!! I am not afraid of you guys! I worked hard for that seat and I’m keeping it… got that slimeball!!
Tammany: Okay Sam…
Later:
Tilden: Has anyone seen my horse…? I know I tied him up right here…
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So yeah, Tilden started his own law practice. It was a good move and Tilden became extremely wealthy. He was also very good at money management. That particular talent had him making dough hand over foot by managing other people finances… including one Martin Van Buren, a former president.
Tilden was also the head of a group named the Barnburners. It was an anti-slavery group which rallied against having slavery in the lands taken from Mexico during the Mexican American War. He was also active in the Free Soil Party, which opposed slavery in the Western United States. If he hadn’t screwed us and stabbed us in the back with an icepick, he might have even gone down as a hero in African American history. As the leader of the Barnburners, he ran for office and was defeated in 1848 vying for the position of Attorney General of New York. He tried his hand again in 1859 and lost again in a bid to recapture the Corporation Counsel position. After this loss, he said y’all can have this “cuss word”… “cuss word”…. and said he was through with politics. However, history had other plans.

Twenty-Five Bottles of Beer…

So, following the Civil War, Tilden backed a candidate named Horatio Seymour for president. Seymour ran against Ulysess Grant. Of course, Grant ripped out Seymour’s heart and stomped on it in the election and Tilden got to feeling some kind of way about how Tammany Hall’s influence had “cuss word” their “cuss word” up. His ire was specifically aimed at a man named William M. Tweed. Through bribery, patronage, and control of Irish-American voters, Tweed and his Tammany Hall allies had become the dominant power in both New York City and the state of New York. So, remember how I told you that Tammany Hall was akin to being in the Mafia. Well, it was a dirty cutthroat business. Another Tammany Hall bigwig named James O’Brien looking to take Tweed’s place, leaked Tweed’s account books to the New York Times and all hell broke loose! The Times began a public crusade against Tammany Hall, and Tilden launched an investigation into Tweed’s bank records. In the meantime, Tilden also ran for a seat in the State Assembly and at their convention said, “It was time to proclaim that whoever plunders the people, though he (meaning Tweed…) steal the livery of heaven to serve the devil in, he is no Democrat!!!” They say if Tilden hadn’t tripped over that chair… Tweed probably wouldn’t have caught him and did him like that… it was horrible… okay I’m kidding:>) As a matter of fact, Tilden’s appearance and speech at the State Assembly Convention in 1871 was what propelled him into the governor’s seat. As for Tweed, he was indicted on 120 counts of fraud and other violations. Before he went to trial, he left New York but was caught and extradited back, where he died in prison in 1878.
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Tweed: Now I got you!!! So, what was that about the devil… and plundering people…?
Tilden: Look man… you know how politics works… I was just talking….!!
Tweed: (Pulls out a pair of the biggest brass knuckles you ever saw…)
Tilden: Wait… let me tell you something… LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING!!! LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING!!!
Tweed: PUNCHING!! BANGING!!! HURTING!! BLEEDING!! CUSSING!! STOMPING!! CRACKING!!
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So, with the taking down of Tweed and his involvement in exposing other scandals, Tilden became a national figure. The other scandals I’m talking about came during the Grant administration. Historians say that the Grant administration was among the most corrupt administrations in U.S history. I mean them folks were so bad, that they would even change a paragraph in the constitution for somebody for a couple of bucks…
Anyway, Tilden was on his way to being nominated by the Democrats for the President of the United States.
So, like I said earlier, Tilden was great at managing money. One of the issues of the day was whether or not the U.S should stay with the gold standard. I mean paying the U.S debt with gold. Tilden being a Democrats thought we should stay with the gold standard, while Republicans thought printing more money would be the better way to run the economy. Now while Tilden focused his campaign message on social reforms and keeping the gold standard, many of his supporters were concerned with ending Reconstruction in the South.
So, on the day of the election and after everything had been tallied up, Tilden had won the popular vote by more than 250,000 people. However, he and Hayes did not have the needed electoral votes to win the presidency. So, this is where the backstabbing and treachery starts and would lead to the establishment of Jim Crow for the next 70 years.

Shenanigans

So, there were four states which played a part in the decision to elect Hayes as president. They were South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Oregon. I don’t know if we should include Oregon, because it wasn’t about the number of ballots there, but some shenanigans going on about who was going to replace an elector who had dropped out.
Anyway, the election results had shown that Hayes had won South Carolina, but Tilden had won Florida and Louisiana. All three states were run by Republican state legislators. So, what happened was that although Tilden had won Florida and Louisiana, the Republican’s in those states declared that Hayes had won the electoral votes! The Democrats were like… “So, you are asking us not to believe our lying eyes!!” The Republicans were like… “We don’t care what you believe, Hayes is the president…”
The last time folks were selling those kinds of wolf tickets, people all over the country started bleeding. Anyway, the Constitution says that any dispute or tie concerning the electoral vote count is to be settled in the House of Representatives. At the time the House was controlled by the Democrats. The Republicans controlled the Senate. Now Ima tells you… ain’t no way in an Alabama alligator tail sausage was the Republicans going to let the election go to the House. The Republicans were like… “If y’all want to throw hands again… we can do that…. The Democrats didn’t want no more of that smoke, so a compromise was struck. Well, it wasn’t exactly like that, and we will get to why in a little bit.
So, the compromise was that an Electoral Commision would be created.
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Aide: Mr. Hayes sir, there are some of Mr. Tilden’s representatives waiting to see you and they don’t seem pleased…
Hayes: Send them in…
Reps: Mr. Hayes, we want you to know we think it’s outrageous what your men are doing in….
Hayes: Hold on for a minute gentlemen… Yes, that’s it… a little higher… higher… that’s perfect! Nail it right there… I think it looks good in the oval office… what do you think gentleman?
Reps: Is that the “Welcome To Atlanta” sign, that Sherman took before he burned the city down to the ground…?
Hayes: Yep… couldn’t use the Richmond sign… because there was a big cannon ball hole in the middle of it… now what can I do for you gentleman?
Reps: Uh.. well sir we have a compromise we want to talk to you about…
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In The Name of Whateva…

So, the commission was made up of five Democratic members of Congress, five Republican members of Congress, and five justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Of the Supreme Court justices, two were to be Democrats, two were to be Republicans, and the fifth justice would be selected by the other four justices. The fifth judge chosen was an independent. However, he resigned after being offered a seat in the Senate… (Wink… Wink…) he was replaced by another Republican. As you can imagine, Hayes was elected president 8-7 along party lines.
Now although, both Democrats and Republicans had agreed upon honoring the commission’s ruling, some Democrats were not happy with the outcome, including Tilden.
Historians are not sure what happened next, but they think that the Compromise of 1877 was agreed upon so that House Democrats would not object to the ruling and filibuster it. A filibuster is when a speaker gets to speak for as long as he wants, and nothing can happen until they have finished. You might say, so what? Let them speak… they can’t talk forever. They don’t have too. Strom Thurman, who holds the record for filibustering at over 24 hours, didn’t have to speak any longer… he could yield his time to another colleague who would speak for a few hours about anything in the world and then that colleague could yield his time to another colleague who would speak for another few hours and so on and so on, for however many colleagues it took for Thurman to rest for 24 hours and then come back and start again. He could even do the same speech again… A serious filibuster could go on for days… weeks… months… if they wanted it to.
Anyway, a prominent historian named C. Vann Woodward, have argued that the Compromise of 1877 played the decisive role in determining the outcome of the election. Woodward identified five points of compromise by the federal government during the Hayes administration:
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1. The removal of all remaining U.S. military forces from the former Confederate states. At the time, U.S. troops remained only in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, but the Compromise completed their withdrawal from the region.
2. The appointment of at least one Southern Democrat to Hayes’ cabinet. David M. Key of Tennessee was appointed as Postmaster General.
3. The construction of another transcontinental railroad using the Texas and Pacific in the South, part of the “Scott Plan”, proposed by Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who initiated negotiations resulting in the final compromise.
4. Legislation to industrialize the South and restore its economy following the Civil War and Reconstruction… minus the Nigras…
5. The right to deal with black people without northern interference.
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As far as number 4 is concerned, I added “minus the Nigras,” because the South still wanted Reconstruction, but without black folks profiting from it… and of course number 5 speaks for itself.
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Racist: Naw nigra!!! Naw!! Is that a feather in your hat!!? Take that damn hat off!!! I got you now! Ain’t gonna be no more back sass… walking around with white women… smacking folks across the lips and snitching to the Feds… all that is over!!
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Not every historian agrees with Woodards’s conclusion. They point to Henry Cabot Lodges Federal Elections Bill of 1890, which sought to shore up the constitutional 15th Amendment law giving all Americans the right to vote. The bill was specifically aimed at black Americans. However, the Democrats filibustered the bill when it came to the floor, and it was traded away for other concessions on both sides.
So, a while back, I insinuated that if the Democrats didn’t accept Hayes as their next president, they better start pulling out those shot up grey uniforms again and storing up on grits and fatback, however I said that it wasn’t really like that, and we would be getting back to it later…
The truth of the matter is that Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden were both “against” slavery!! That’s where the betrayal part comes in… that’s where the corrupt part comes in. They both sacrificed the lives of generations of black folks to the suffering and humiliation of Jim Crow.
Now, we talked about how not every historian agrees with Woodards’s conclusion. You want to know what the main reason is why they don’t agree with his conclusions?
Because there is no written document called the “Compromise of 1877…” The deal was made behind closed doors in secret and there are no notes taken on what was said. It is only by word of mouth that we can guess some of elements of the compromise struck by both men…
So, they can’t prove Woodard wrong, and Woodard can’t prove he is right, except by circumstantial evidence, which to me indicates he is right. Not soon after the election of Rutherford B. Hayes, the remaining federal troops were removed from the South and Jim Crow became the law of the land in Dixie.

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