Facing an unparalleled constitutional crisis and intense public pressure, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate agreed to the formation of the bipartisan Electoral Commission to settle the election.

Congress, meeting in a joint session on March 2, 1877, affirmed that decision, officially declaring Hayes the winner by one vote.

The presidential election was held on November 7, 1876, and Tilden won the electors of his home state of New York and most of the South, while Hayes' strength lay in New England, the Midwest, and the West.

[1] In each of the three disputed Southern states, the pattern that followed was largely the same: the returning board invalidated numerous ballots on the grounds of fraud or voter intimidation, delivering a popular majority to Hayes and the Republican candidate for Governor.

[4] The Louisiana Returning Board was composed of James Madison Wells, Thomas C. Anderson, Gardene Casanave, and Louis M.

As in Louisiana, the Republican-controlled returning board rejected several thousand votes, ensuring the election of a Republican governor, Daniel Henry Chamberlain, and legislature.

The Democratic Party promptly organized a rival state government, led by Hampton, and this body declared Tilden the victor in the presidential election.

[4] In addition to sending Democrats to observe the vote count in the South, Hewitt also responded to Chandler by directing Governor La Fayette Grover of Oregon to reject the election of a Republican elector.

Though the popular vote in Oregon had clearly favored Hayes, the elector, John W. Watts, was a United States postmaster, calling into question his constitutional eligibility to serve.

[1] Article II, section 1, clause 2 of the Constitution reads "no … person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall be appointed an elector."

[2] Thus, the question hinged on whether Watts was "appointed" at the time of his election in November or at the meeting of the electoral college in December.

Historian C. Vann Woodward suggests this was done to provide a legal pretext to look behind the official state certification in the disputed states; if Republicans questioned Cronin's credentials as an elector (which they would have to do in order to win), they would be forced to permit questions against the apparently certified slates in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads in part, "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;" but gives no explicit indication as to whom "the votes shall then be counted" by or where the authority rested to decide between competing slates of electors.

[b] Many Democrats argued that Congress, in joint session, should determine which certificates to count; because they controlled the much larger House, this would ensure Tilden's victory.

Other Democrats posited that because neither candidate had a clear majority of the electoral vote, the election should be thrown to the House of Representatives, per the explicit terms of the Twelfth Amendment.

In the background of the legal and political arguments lay the threat of armed violence, which did not clearly favor either side in the dispute.

The United States was just over a decade removed from the American Civil War and sectional, racial, and ideological tensions had remained fraught during the Reconstruction Era.

[citation needed] The 44th United States Congress met in a lame-duck session beginning December 7, the day after the disputed electoral votes were submitted.

Tilden was represented by Jeremiah S. Black, Montgomery Blair, John Archibald Campbell, Matthew H. Carpenter, Ashbel Green, George Hoadly, Richard T. Merrick, Charles O'Conor, Lyman Trumbull, and William C. Whitney.

Conversely, Hayes' counsel suggested that the commission should merely accept the official returns certified by the state governor without inquiring into their validity.

Congressman Abram Hewitt, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made a spurious challenge to the electoral votes from Vermont, even though Hayes had clearly carried the state.

On March 3, the House of Representatives went so far as to pass a resolution declaring its opinion that Tilden had been "duly elected President of the United States."

At approximately the same time, the New York Tribune published a series of coded telegrams that Democratic Party operatives had sent during the weeks following the 1876 election.

One major outcome of the electoral commission and the Compromise of 1877 was the return of the South to "home rule" via the removal of federal troops, effectively ending the Reconstruction era.

These new "Redeemer" governments implemented Jim Crow laws which imposed a system of racial discrimination, reversing the gains of Reconstruction and disenfranchising black people in the South until 1965.