Centennial Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876 Loses focus at the end – KinksRock – New York USA
I enjoyed this book and found it very informative about the 1876 election.
Then Rehnquist loses his focus at the end, including a lengthy chapter summarizing how the U.S. Supreme Court has played an extra-judiciary role in American government throughout American history. That chapter did not seem to belong in this book. It was as though Rehnquist wrote it as an essay to justify his Court’s role in the 2000 election, and he needed a place to put it. I got frustrated and bored during that chapter, and finally decided that I was not obligated to finish it, and I stopped.
I recommend reading this book until the last chapter, which you can skip.
This book, as it happens, came to my eyes just after I read another book also discussing the 1876 election, by Roy Morris, entitled “Fraud of the Century” (which I have also reviewed). The books could not have been more different. Morris’ book is a partisan polemic who uses his book on the 1876 election as a way to criticize the result on the 2000 election, which he considers to be “stolen,” just as he does the 1876 election. Rehnquist, of course, could (as one of the most important players in the drama that was the 2000 election) have used 1876 in the same manner to defend the 2000 result. But this is not what he does.
Instead, the book provides a lot of political background, so that one can put yourself in the position of an 1876 American. And he gives biographical information about the five Supreme Court Justices on the Electoral Commission, which essentially decided the result, as well as about David Davis, who was intended to be on the Commission, but felt he could not serve when the Illinois legislature chose him to a Senate seat. (Rehnquist points out that Davis’ Senate term would not have begun until after the Commission rendered its decisions, so that he probably could have served, but he felt honor-bound to decline to serve.) I had always wondered why the Democrats controlling the Illinois legislature would “shoot themselves in the foot” by choosing Davis; this book actually makes it understandable.
Of course, there were fifteen members of that commission, five Senators and five Representatives as well as those five Justices. The Democratic-controlled Senate chose three Democrats and two Republicans while the Republican-controlled House reversed those numbers. (Among those Republicans was James A. Garfield, who became President four years later!) Since Rehnquist felt that those political people would obviously vote according to their partisan inclinations, he concentrates on the Supreme Court Justices. It might have been interesting, however, to know more about some of those Congressional members as well, I think.
Another thing that occupies Rehnquist in this book, and which some reviewers seem to have objected to his including, is a summary of the various times that Supreme Court justices have acted outside the judicial arena. But I think that Rehnquist is justified in doing this. He is in this book attempting to decide whether Justice Bradley especially, but also the other four Justices on the Commission, were doing something that judges should not do. And his conclusion, that it was probably not the sort of thing that a Justice should normally do, but in this case it probably was necessary to save the country, seems a reasonable one in the light of the circumstances.
I very much preferred this book to Morris’ book, and I think, as befits the judicial position of its author, it comes much closer to impartiality. But it is probably as hard to write about 1876 impartially, even more than a century later, as to write about 2000 impartially. And so, while this book falls short of total impartiality, it comes closer enough to make it the better book by far. : Near midnight on Election Day in November 1876, the returns coming into Republican National headquarters signaled a victory for the Democratic presidential candidate, Samuel J. Tilden. But alert Republican leaders saw that if all the states still doubtful or disputed went for their candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes would be elected. Word was sent out to four southern states that their returns were crucial for a Hayes victory. Thus Chief Justice William Rehnquist begins this remarkable account of one of American’s greatest political dramas, a crisis that was not resolved for nearly four months, on March 2, 1877, only two days before Inauguration Day.
In his gripping story, Rehnquist tells how each party maneuvered to buy votes in the southern states, how the country slid into Congressional, judicial and public turmoil, and how the creation in January of an Electoral Commission (comprised of five Democrats, five Republicans and five Supreme Court justices) was opposed by both candidates. When that body’s deciding vote was cast by Justice Joseph Bradley, public outcry reached such a fever pitch that the presidential swearing-in had to be held on a Sunday in near secrecry.
Reaching beyond the history of a contentious election, the Chief Justice describes the political climate and economy of America in the 1870’s, packing his narrative with biographical sketches of the central participants and opening a window on events in that decade that have long been overlooked. In a compelling epilogue we learn the occasions when Presidents, ranging from George Washington to Lyndon Johnson, have asked Supreme Court justices to arbitrate disputes, settle treaties or serve on investigating commissions. Almost always the justices were berated and attacked for their decisions.
Would it be better for them to have refused the president’s request? The Chief Justice has some surprising answers.
From the Hardcover edition. Centennial Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876
