Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, and apparently had won in the Electoral College as well. But the Republicans, who had held the White House since the Civil War, were not willing to give it up easily. They challenged the elector slates from the four states of Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon. The number of votes involved was just enough to give Republican Rutherford B. Hayes a one vote victory in the Electoral College, if they were all awarded to the Republicans. Considerable maneuvering took place, with the Presidency up for grabs. Without detailing every maneuver, a special commission chose to honor the Republican claims, and Hayes won the Presidency by one vote just a few days before Inauguration Day. But historians generally agree that the commission finding merely served to ratify a back-room deal between Republicans and southern Democrats. The southern Democrats agreed not to contest the commission findings if the new Republican President would agree to withdraw Federal troops from the South immediately. It is unlikely that Samuel Tilden, from New York, would have been so quick to take this action. So the 1876 election was the only election decided by a special commission.
The 1800 election was decided in the House of Representatives when there was a tie in the Electoral College between Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr. (Surprisingly, four states voted for Burr.) The 1824 election was also decided in the House of Representatives when four candidates nominally from the Democratic-Republican party split the Electoral College votes four ways. John Quincy Adams won the election, though Andrew Jackson received the most popular and electoral votes. The 1960 and 1860 elections were decided in the Electoral College.
Copyright © 2000 by Richard Warren Field