Compromise of 1877: Wormley Agreement Abandons Black Americans

Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats meet secretly at Wormley’s Hotel in Washington to negotiate the Compromise of 1877—an unwritten political deal settling the disputed 1876 presidential election by abandoning federal protection of Black civil rights. Southern Democrats agree to accept Republican Rutherford B. Hayes as president in exchange for withdrawal of all remaining federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

The agreement’s terms include: removing military forces from Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida; appointing at least one Southern Democrat to Hayes’ cabinet; funding another transcontinental railroad through the South; supporting Southern industrialization; and crucially, giving Southern states “the right to deal with African American citizens without northern interference.” This last provision effectively authorizes the Jim Crow regime of systematic racial oppression.

The deal follows a contentious electoral dispute where both parties claimed victory in three Southern states. An Electoral Commission created January 29, 1877 votes 8-7 along party lines on March 2 to award all disputed electoral votes to Hayes (185-184). Hayes takes office March 5, 1877, and promptly removes remaining federal troops. As soon as troops leave, white Republicans flee and “Redeemer” Democrats seize control, implementing Black Codes, convict leasing, poll taxes, literacy tests, and violent suppression of Black voting rights. The Compromise represents a calculated betrayal: Northern Republicans trade Black Americans’ constitutional rights for political power and railroad subsidies, establishing a template of racial oppression that persists for nearly a century until the Civil Rights Movement.