Amazon.com Stop me if you've heard this one: election night comes and goes and the race between two American presidential candidates is too close to call. The popular vote supports the reticent Democrat, but the well-connected Republican is named president after a lengthy and controversial fight over recounts and electoral votes. Of course, we're speaking of the 1876 contest between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden as chronicled in Fraud of the Century by historian Roy Morris J... [more]
Conspiracy theorists still passing around stories about the 2000 presidential election will love this book. Roy Morris walks readers through the out and out (much more black and white than the 2000 election) theft of the 1876 election by Rutherford B. Hayes. Samuel Tilden, not just the better choice for the office, but the surefire popular vote winner, lost the election to Hayes as money passed under the tables of smoky back room offices of electoral commissions from Oregon to Louisiana -- and, no joke, Florida.
Although Andrew Jackson charged John Quincy Adams with all kinds of electoral hijinx and shenanigans, the 1876 election is the first, solidly documented theft of the oval office. And it's one of those stories that wasn't funny 130 years ago, but it's pretty funny now.
It's a solid, fun read that puts electoral politics into historical perspective and gives readers a great introduction to the little-known cogs and wheels (constitutionally mandated, of course) behind presidential elections.
Highest possible recommendation.