By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876

With electoral votes disputed in three states, a Democrat winning the popular vote, and the Supreme Court stepping in to overrule Florida court decisions, the presidential election of 1876 was an eerie precursor to that of 2000. Rutherford Hayes’s defeat of Samuel Tilden has been dubbed the “fraud of the century”; now one of America’s preeminent political historians digs deeper to unravel its real significance.

This election saw the highest voter turnout of any in U.S. history—a whopping 82 ...