Democrats express their anger at their own presidential candidate in 1877

“Hell has no fury like a lover scorned.” This phrase might have been applied to a group of Tammany Hall Democrats as they gathered on June 12, 1877 at Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York City to share their frustration after losing the 1876 presidential election. A few months earlier a panel of five senators, five congressmen and five members of the Supreme Court had voted 8-7 along party lines to award the presidency to Rutherford B. Hays after he had apparently lost the election at the polls.

During this process, Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic presidential nominee had remained oddly detached for the process and had done nothing to stick up for his interests and those of his party. For that reason, the Tammany Democrats were angrier with Tilden than they were with the Republicans who had stolen the election.

It all started on Election Night when Republican Party leader, Zachariah Chandler, did some arithmetic and found that he could save the presidency for his party if he could impound and perhaps steal 19 electoral votes from three southern states. The three states, South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida were under military rule and still under military occupation. Chandler sent telegraph messages to Republican officials in all three states asking them if they could hold their states. Officials from all three states reported that they could and the beginnings of the fix were set.

Both sides had been guilty of bribery, violence, forgery, ballot box stuffing and other forms of voter fraud. For their part the Democrats had prevented African-American voters from getting to polls though violence and intimidation. The Republicans, supported by the state governments and federal troops, had gotten as many African-Americans to the polls as possible and had allowed some of those voters to cast more than one ballot. It was hard to say what would have been the result of a totally clean election. But the best estimate was the Hays led in South Carolina while Tilden held the advantage in Florida and Louisiana. In order win Hays had to take all of the electoral votes from all three states, and that result appeared to be doubtful.

After Hays had been awarded the presidency, leaders in the South threatened open rebellion. To his credit Tilden asked his supporters to accept the results peacefully and embrace Hays as their new president. Then Tilden made a comment that was sure to rankle those who had worked for his election to the White House.

In the end, Tilden said, he been given the honor of actually winning the presidency without having to take the responsibility of holding the office. Needless to say, this comment did not go down well with many Democrats who missed out on the many patronage jobs that would have gone their way if Tilden had been elected.

Democrats issued this series of tokens after Hays took office. They are all critical of Tilden. Oddly enough, they are included with the pro-Tilden items in the political items reference books.

A funeral for the Democratic Party.

The “mother in law” phrase on the reverse refers to the fact the Tilden was a bachelor who never married. Perhaps he would find a wife in the after-life?



“I don’t care about your piece of cake. Let me show you my sore toe.”

The “piece of cake” was patronage jobs. The “sore toe” refers to Tilden’s tendency to be a hypochondriac.




“Cheats Uncle Sam on his income tax”

The obverse of this piece is a modified version of the previous two tokens. Tilden was a self-made millionaire. As such he was one of those unusual high-income individuals who were asked to pay income taxes during the Civil War. The Republicans made the false charge that Tilden cheated on his income taxes. Angry Democrats are only repeating that charge here.



All of these tokens are quite scarce with the second one the most common in white metal. They are known in silver (very rare), copper, brass and white metal. I owned them all in white metal at one time, but sold those pieces as I upgraded to copper and brass examples.

 

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I do need to post one correction. Samuel J. Tilden was born into a wealthy family. He was not a self made man. He got an excellent education and was a highly successful lawyer. That was were he became even more wealthy.

He was an admirer of former President, Martin Van Buren, who was also from New York. Tilden was a loyal Democrat who supported the party, until he had had enough of the corruption that came from Tammany Hall. This was during the era of “Boss” Tweed. He broke with them and became a reformer as Governor of New York, which brought him to national political prominence.

 

Great info. Thanks for posting.

 

Fantastic post and not something I knew. Thanks for posting it & the tokens.

Some things will never change with politcs.

 

Most of my political items can fit into a 2X2 space, but a fair number of them cannot. I was going though my box of larger pieces when I saw this one which has a diameter of 45 mm and is a bit too thick to fit in a flip.

The reverse shows four historic Democratic presidential figures. This piece was issued during Grover Cleveland's 1892 presidential campaign.



Grover Cleveland is shown at the top. Thomas Jefferson, whom most historians credit as the founder of the Democratic Party is at the left. Andrew Jackson, could be credited as the founder of the modern Democratic Party is to the right, and Samuel J. Tilden is shown at the bottom, with the phrase, "Elected and counted out." The Democrats had not forgotten the 1876 election, not even 16 years later.

Here is the obverse of the piece.

 

I think this would make a great featured post.

 

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." -William Congreve, The Mourning Bride, 1697, Act 3, Scene 8.

I just got this thing with sloppy quotes. Monkey-See-Monkey-Do and pretty soon we're running around like monkeys, we don't know who said it, much less what--or, for that matter, even whether--it was said. Hey, sorry. Carry on...

 

Looks like you need a 2.5" flip for that one.

 

Great write up and pieces. I am a sucker for a good political piece myself.

 

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

 

Super-interesting, really makes learning about coins and other stuff interesting.

Love these stories that go along with what we collect.

 

Nothing new under the sun. Corruption rules still. Most of my life I was naïve enough to believe we (Americans) were the good guys with white hats and those like Superman, who endeavored to preserve Truth, Justice and the American way were the great heroes. Now I am older and wiser and have lost faith in all those fantasies. I do like the old political tokens and medals, great collectors items. I will keep an eye out for something like that.

 

Nobody, no nation is perfect, but you have realize is that there is good and evil. I'll admit that I am more on the conservative side of fence, but that has not stopped me from butting heads with other conservatives over certain issues.

The United States was wrong about Vietnam and conducted an imperialist war in 1848 to against Mexico to get California and the other states in that region. The question is, what were the results? One was a total mistake, and the other may have made the human condition better in the long run. The Spanish - American War was another example although the results have been less. clear.

There are few things that have black and white conclusions. One needs to judge things on a point by point basis.

 

Here is another satirical token concerning the 1876 presidential election.

Charles Dana is best remembered as the newspaper editor, Edmund Stanton hired to check up on Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War. Grant had a reputation is a drunkard, and his detractors were quick to point that out whenever there were proposals to promote him. Dana strongly recommended that Grant should be promoted to head the Union Army over the strong objections of Henry Halleck who was general in chief of the Army.

After the War, Dana became part owner and managing editor of The New York Sun newspaper. Dana was a Republican, but he often took independent positions. He opposed the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, but strongly support Ulysses S. Grant for president in 1868. In 1872, he endorsed his old boss, Horace Greely, and opposed Grant’s re-election as president.

In 1876 he opposed the actions of the Republican Party to deny the election to Tilden. On March 4, 1877, which was the day Rutherford B. Hays was inaugurated president, Dana had the front page of The New York Sun surrounded by black crape symbolizing the death of democracy.



Some New York Republicans had had enough. Isaac Wood, who sponsored the striking of the three anti-Tilden medalets I posed earlier, had this piece made. The obverse reads:

"Dedicated to Chas. A. Dana, Editor of the New York Scum"

The reverse reads:

"The Chinese stink-pot of American journalism, Harmless but oh so foul, Phew!"

And you thought that people were nice to each other "in the good old days!"

 

First, we hang all the lawyers.