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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;johnmilton, post: 7613239, member: 101855&quot;]“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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>A funeral for the Democratic Party. </b></p><p><br /></p><p>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?</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1310552[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><b>“I don’t care about your piece of cake. Let me show you my sore toe.” </b></p><p><br /></p><p>The “piece of cake” was patronage jobs. The “sore toe” refers to Tilden’s tendency to be a hypochondriac.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1310553[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>“Cheats Uncle Sam on his income tax”</b></p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1310554[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>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.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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