January 3, 2024: 2024 Anniversaries: The 1874 Midterms

[As I’vedone for each of thelast few years, this week I’ll start 2024 by AmericanStudying a fewanniversaries for the new year. Leading up to a special post on the 200thanniversary of a frustratingly familiar election.]

On extending ourconcept of historical turning points, but also resisting ideas ofinevitability.

I’ve written bothhere and elsewhereabout our tendency to focus too much on presidents to narrate our eras andhistories, and there’s a corollary and complementary trend (one I’m as frequentlyguilty of as anyone, to be clear) of focusing on presidential elections assingular and key historical moments and turning points. A particularly clearcase in point would be the hugely contested and controversial presidentialelection of 1876, the eventual results of which, as I’vewritten before in this space, seem to have directly produced one of themost significant turning points in the nation’s history: newly electedPresident Rutherford B. Hayes’s 1877 decision to endFederal Reconstruction throughout the South. Whether Hayes did so as adirect result of a “crookedbargain” to secure the presidency remains a point of contention amonghistorians and perhaps always will; but even if he did not, there’s no doubtthat ending Reconstruction was one of his first actions as president, and thus thatthis particular moment reinforces the broader narrative that it is presidentialelections which especially represent and contribute to historical turningpoints. 

But while it wasHayes who made that particular 1877 call to end Federal Reconstruction, therewas of course a long, complex series of moments and events that led up to thattragic decision. Any such list would have to include many of AndrewJohnson’s white supremacist actions as president and many of the and racially motivated massacreswith which the white South so thoroughly resisted Reconstruction. But alongsidesuch longstanding historical trends we could also locate the contested andinfluential 1874 midtermelections as a direct predecessor to 1876’s electoral result. Due in partto those broader Reconstruction-era trends (which among other things greatlylimited African American voting throughout the South), and in part to a numberof other factors (the Panicof 1873, the Grant Administration’s manyprominent scandals), Congressional Republicans lost 93 seats and theirmajority in the House of Representatives (the second-largest swing in Househistory), with Southern Democrats in particular dominating the elections atevery level. Congressional Republicans’ abilities to work with Grant and helpadvance Reconstruction’s goals were severely curtailed, and the stage was setfor 1876’s contested results and their tragic aftermaths.

Or was it?Another historical move we tend to make a bit too quickly (and again, I’m justas guilty of this as anyone) is to read back from what we know happened intoprior events that can thus seem to foreshadow those future trends. Certainlyit’s fair and important to think about the relationship between differentmoments and events, and it seems clear that the 1874 election results reflectedsome shifting regional, national, and political realities that continued toinfluence subsequent events such as (especially) the 1876 presidentialelection. But of course a great deal can happen over the two years betweennational elections, and it would be both inaccurate and highly dangerous tosuggest that 1874 led in any direct way to 1876. Highly dangerous, that is,because it might lead to inaction or apathy in the aftermath of a midtermelection that doesn’t go as we hope, rather than a renewed commitment to thebattle ahead of the next elections (and everything else still to come). We canand should learn from historical moments, but should never treat them asnecessarily or inevitably predictive of what follows.

Nextanniversary tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?