It's election night on November 7th, 1876.

America is now 100 years old, and in those 100 years it has argued over slavery.

It's then violently fought over it throughout the Civil War, and now it's trying to figure

out what a United States of America looks like without slavery.

Once the Civil War, only Republicans have held the White House.

Lincoln, Johnson, Grant.

But now as the results for the 1876 election are rolling in by telegraph, it doesn't look

good for a Republican candidate, Brotherford B. Hayes.

He's behind by a significant number of electoral votes, and it's not just the south that

he's losing.

He also is finding out he's lost Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland.

The list keeps growing.

By the time he heads to sleep that November night, he is sure that the election is over and

that he's lost.

He has no clue that it's going to take another four months, four crazy, contentious, chaotic

months full of congressional commissions and Supreme Court justices, to find out for

him.

And he has absolutely no idea that after all of that, he will actually be declared the winner.

And Lillian, cutting him with the Washington Post, and this is the 19th episode of Presidential.

The

National Assembly

The

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