A hundred and forty years before the upset caused by Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential election victory, there was another, similar brouhaha with claims of ballot fraud, mail tampering and the injustice of the Electoral College system.
The Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, had only 165 College votes as against the 184 won by his Democrat opponent, Samuel J. Tilden. The hurdle number was 185.
Disputing the results came into play, together with partisan supervision of the vote counting. Wiki says:
Early returns suggested that Tilden had won the election, and on election night Republican Party chair Zachariah Chandler believed Hayes had lost. However, Chandler gave permission early the next morning to William E. Chandler and John C. Reid, managing editor of The New York Times (which had run the headline "The Results Still Uncertain"), to wire Republican officials in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina to hold their states for Hayes. In each state, Republicans controlled the partisan returning boards, tasked with certifying the popular results of the election. In response to Chandler's directive, Democratic Party chair Abram S. Hewitt organized committees of prominent Democrats to travel South and oversee the vote counting. President Grant, in turn, sent Republican delegations to follow the Democratic observers.
The political fight was intense. Hewitt had sent many personalised letters to drum up support in the election and, before the recount, claimed that the Post Office had tampered with his mail. He also used a Constitutional technicality to object to the use of a postmaster as elector in Oregon, which had favoured Hayes for President.
Each Party accused the other of fraud, and the Republicans further claimed that Democrat victories in the South were partly owing to intimidation. The threat of armed violence was in the air - less than a generation after the awful Civil War.
In what became known as the Compromise Of 1877, the Democrats conceded a further 20 electoral college votes in favour of Hayes, in return for the withdrawal of Federal troops from Southern states and the ending of the ‘Reconstruction’ era.
A cartoon of Hewitt (above) by Thomas Nast appeared on the cover of Harper’s Weekly for January 27, 1877. This site explains:
Additional text reads "Don Hewitt (on his journey in search of a country for Sancho Usufruct to rule). 'I wonder if there is any thing left in the Post-Office after my charge upon it? and what shall I destroy next?'"
In this cartoon Abram Hewitt is depicted as Don Quixote and Samuel Tilden as his sidekick, Sancho Panza (riding the Democratic donkey). The title plays on the events that had transpired in Mexico just the year before - Porfirio Diaz had seized power of the government through a coup. In this way, the artist, Thomas Nast, likens the actions of Hewitt to Diaz.
The story of Don Quixote is played out with Hewitt's failed assault on the infamous windmill, which Nast has illustrated as the "U.S. Post Office." In the story these windmills represented imaginary enemies, and so is true for Hewitt. During the 1876 election Hewitt managed Tilden's presidential campaign. Hoping to sway Republican voters, many personalized letters were mailed out. After the election (but before the ballots were re-counted, due to electoral fraud) Hewitt used his congressional power to attack the Post Office. He claimed his letters had been tampered with and information about the Democratic Committee had been leaked. Outraged, the Postmaster General, James N. Tyner, offered full support in investigating the matter, but Hewitt refused to give details or even speak with investigators. It later turned out a member of the Democratic Committee had been the one behind the leaks.
In the bottom left of the cartoon a tea kettle pours hot water into the building river, which Hewitt has fallen into. The words "Mr. Hewitt, the little tea kettle is at work again. Anonymous" is written on its side. Hewitt's lance reads, "This is the lance that will prove my letters were opened in the Post Office." It is broken, like his words, and the Post Office remains completely unharmed.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.