Election to the United States House of Representatives in 1876

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The election to the 1876 House of Representatives of the United States took place from June 5, 1876. The House of Representatives was elected on various election days in the United States . The majority of states voted on November 7, 1876. The election was part of the general election to the 45th United States Congress that year, in which one-third of the US Senators were also elected. At the same time, the controversial presidential election of 1876 took place, which the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won. As a compromise with the Democrats, whose candidate Samuel J. Tilden was only narrowly defeated and after fierce disputes, the reconstruction in the south was ended.

At the time of the elections, the United States consisted of 38 states, Colorado had since been added. The number of MPs to be elected was 293. The distribution of seats was based on the 1870 census .

In the elections, the Republicans were able to easily recover from their severe election defeat two years earlier. They won 33 mandates, which made up about a third of the losses at that time. On the other hand, the Democrats lost 27 seats. However, they were able to maintain their absolute majority. The reason for the slight swing in favor of the Republicans lay in the gradual economic recovery from the crisis of 1873. However, many Republicans still found it difficult to distance themselves from the corruption allegations against members of the former federal government under President Ulysses S. Grant .

Only men were entitled to vote and eligible for election. Women were still banned from voting at the federal level until 1920. In the southern states in particular, the right to vote was restricted by laws that linked the right to vote to a certain tax revenue. As a result, poor whites, but above all many African-Americans, were excluded from voting.

Election result

Total: 293

Distribution of seats
   
A total of 293 seats
  • Dem . : 155
  • Rep .: 136
  • Otherwise: 2

The results of the last election two years earlier are in brackets. Changes during the legislative period that do not affect the elections themselves are not included in these figures, but are noted in the article on the 45th Congress in the section on the members of the House of Representatives under the relevant names of the representatives. The same applies to elections in states that joined the Union after the beginning of the legislative period. As a result, the sources sometimes contain different information, as changes during the legislative period were sometimes incorporated into the figures and sometimes not.

See also

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