Election of 1876 -> New Civil War?

I was listening to a radio program about two weeks ago about Presidential Inaugurations. The historians interviewed claimed that, during the election of 1876, people were pushing Tilden to have New York secede, and none other than George McClellan was offering to march on Washington...

Now after a few cursory google searches and skimming the indices of some of the books on that period that I have I haven't found anything even suggesting that this is true. That being said I think it's a really interesting possibility and I was wondering if you guys had heard anything about it?
 
I was listening to a radio program about two weeks ago about Presidential Inaugurations. The historians interviewed claimed that, during the election of 1876, people were pushing Tilden to have New York secede, and none other than George McClellan was offering to march on Washington...

Now after a few cursory google searches and skimming the indices of some of the books on that period that I have I haven't found anything even suggesting that this is true. That being said I think it's a really interesting possibility and I was wondering if you guys had heard anything about it?

Well the US is dead. All the Ex-Confederates (remember, at this point Reconstruction is still going on, though about to end) and McClellan and all the angry people are going to literally tear the US apart into a million different sections. Basically, a balkanize-fest.

Of course, you could have it fail. That results in just about everyone in the country being subjected as "rebels". Fun.
 
A nightmare for the Union. Hayes would have been executed and the Union would have been torn asunder. But Tilden could keep it together, given plenty luck.
 
I was listening to a radio program about two weeks ago about Presidential Inaugurations. The historians interviewed claimed that, during the election of 1876, people were pushing Tilden to have New York secede, and none other than George McClellan was offering to march on Washington...

Now after a few cursory google searches and skimming the indices of some of the books on that period that I have I haven't found anything even suggesting that this is true. That being said I think it's a really interesting possibility and I was wondering if you guys had heard anything about it?

I don't think this is true. But if it were, and it happened, the US would become a Banana-Republic where the President is whoever has the backing of the military.
 
I would love to see a timeline made of this, if only to provide some break from all the US-centric timelines that seem to be so popular on this site.
 
I had never heard this before. If such a move were made, it wouldn't get very far. It would, to use a contemporary example,have only a fraction of the success that the occupy movement has (appears to have) had.


Off Topic:

I would love to see a timeline made of this, if only to provide some break from all the US-centric timelines that seem to be so popular on this site.

How is a "US tears itself apart over a contested election" TL any less US-centric than any other "US [fill in the blank with positive words]" thread?
 
I would love to see a timeline made of this, if only to provide some break from all the US-centric timelines that seem to be so popular on this site.

You mean you'd rather see an Ameriscrew than a "Oh look what America did" timeline.

And face it, you're going to see a lot of American timelines. There's some 250 million regular internet users from the US and most of us know American history best - and if you don't know an aspect of history well, you're gonna have a hard time writing an alternate history for that aspect.
 
I don't think this is true. But if it were, and it happened, the US would become a Banana-Republic where the President is whoever has the backing of the military.

I don't think that it would get to that point, most of the armed forces would surely remain loyal to the sitting President. In any case I think the most likely outcome is that people get sick of the bickering and Grant just holds on for another term. That in and of itself would have pretty far-reaching consequences though.
 
I'm all for a timeline, in which Grant gets tossed out on his head. The man had no business being President. The only President with less business being such, is our current one
 
While the Tilden-Hayes Affair was truly slimy back-room politics at their worse, not to mention the major back-stab it was for blacks, I have never heard of any plotting to seize the White House. If it was attempted McClellan might raise an Army of several thousand map-contents only to get his ass whopped by the Regular Army led by Grant and Sherman. This would severely damage the Democratic Party's reputation and major long term repercussions. Another bout of political violence so soon after the Civil War may have killed the Democrats.

Grant wasn't a great President, but he also wasn't a bad one either. His problem was being too trusting. The corruption his administration had wasn't much worse it was just more blatant than at other times.

Benjamin
 
I don't think this is true. But if it were, and it happened, the US would become a Banana-Republic where the President is whoever has the backing of the military.

Possibly, maybe even probably. But I am not so sure that is totally true. I would surmise that should a coup succeed in 1876, a civilian or civilian looking government would form not so long after. I cannot imagine such a government staying very popular if it needed to keep the army at any sort of expanded size. As soon as it chooses or is pressured to reduce the army to its usual 19th Century level of near-nothingess, the chances of a coup go down very quickly. If there are only a few thousand soldiers and all of them are in the West, the capacity for the military forces needed for a coup shrink every year as Civil War veterans age and then begin to die off.

A coup in 1876 (which I have never heard as an idea expressed back then) may have ended up playing out in a way that is not very dissimilar from the aftermath of the English Civil War: within a generation of the coup everything goes back to normal. Of course that does assume that massive successions do not play a factor in this situation.
 
There would only be a war if the Republicans are in the mood to fight. Which might not be the case. People could conclude that Tilden was the legitimate president because he had won the popular vote and accept his 'enthronization' after an army marches on Washington unopposed.

But it would be a very bad precedent for the future as others have said however. People would soon forget the bit about the popular vote and conclude that everything one needs to achieve the presidency is the backing of the military. So, while there might not be a civil war in 1876, it could lie the seeds for one, for different reasons, some decades later.
 
There would only be a war if the Republicans are in the mood to fight. Which might not be the case. People could conclude that Tilden was the legitimate president because he had won the popular vote and accept his 'enthronization' after an army marches on Washington unopposed.

But it would be a very bad precedent for the future as others have said however. People would soon forget the bit about the popular vote and conclude that everything one needs to achieve the presidency is the backing of the military. So, while there might not be a civil war in 1876, it could lie the seeds for one, for different reasons, some decades later.

I think we've pretty much concluded that the story as I presented it isn't actually going to happen. That being said a lot of people were surprised when Tilden did not argue his point. Apparently when the deadlock started he retreated from the public for a month compiling the records of past contested elections for Congress to see. He also played an integral role in calming down his supporters when the Electoral Commission made its decision.

Perhaps if Tilden hadn't been so acquiescent there would have been some kind of violence anyway. Probably not a march on Washington, but it's not unreasonable to get some federally-suppressed rioting out of something like this.
 
I'm all for a timeline, in which Grant gets tossed out on his head. The man had no business being President. The only President with less business being such, is our current one

Grant had pretty moderate policies toward American Indians. That's probably the best I can say about his presidency.
 
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