The Specter of Corruption

Throughout election history, corruption has functioned as a fear mongering tool that uses justice (imagined or realized) as a bargaining chip. However, it is impossible to ignore the hypocritical nature of most corruption accusations, which set a strange precedent regarding “acceptable” corruption and raises questions about the broader implications of corruption.

Weaponizing Corruption

The election of 1876 saw how Republicans and Democrats used actualized corruption as leverage in bargaining with each other. Southern states had recently re-joined the union, albeit reluctantly, post-Civil War. In the wake of the battle between the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, Republicans contested the vote count, leading Democrats to decry corruption.

Up to and during the election, Democrats in the South targeted the remaining Republican-controlled Southern states—South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana—using intimidation towards voters and their state government to relinquish control. South Carolina Democrats organized and deployed armies to declare war on Reconstruction, blatantly using militaristic violence against Southern black voters (such as in the Hamburg Riot) to influence the election of state and federal officials. During the election, they used flagrant voter-fraud tactics like simply throwing ballot boxes out or violent voter intimidation.

In response to corruption allegations, Republicans devised a compromise and created a seemingly bipartisan election ratification committee. By strategizing with filibustering, Democrats attempted to build power & rapport in the contested states and drag out the election. However, the prolongation of the hearings worked against them when Republicans certified election results through a newly appointed Republican member of the committee, swinging the votes in Hayes’ favor. The Democrats may have lost the election, but their protest against corruption combined with Hayes’ anxiety around reunification allowed the South to gain a hand in negotiating Reconstruction. As a result, Hayes withdrew Union troops in the South and stopped Reconstruction efforts, expecting Democrats to create and enforce laws to protect Black Southern voters, which they in fact, did not.

Revenge Against the Rule of Law

On the surface, it appears that one would require great mental disconnect to engage in such hypocritical behavior. But what if the Democrats weren’t adhering to the same rule of law as the Republicans? From the beginning, they had undermined the Constitution in their attempts to thwart Black voting and civil rights. They operated on their own terms post-secession, reinforced by 1) the loss of the Civil War and 2) Republican corruption (intervention) that threatened white Southerners’ economic, social, and political control if Black voters gained power. In that warped sense, if the election, and by extension government, were deemed corrupt, why should they be taken seriously?

In 2023, a legitimacy crisis regarding the judicial system gained prominence from President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and his infamous trial(s). Details about his alcohol and drug-fueled escapades, possession of firearms, tax evasion, and questionable foreign collaboration were brought to light and subsequently used to attack Joe Biden’s character. Public eye shifted the spotlight to Trump as his faction chastised Hunter Biden for offenses Trump had committed several times over. Trump’s connection to tax evasion and civil fraud, controversial Trump family foreign profits, and numerous (alleged) sex-crimes should have compromised Trump as much, if not more, than Hunter Biden—but they didn’t. Instead, Republicans (including Trump) claimed that the courts were “unfair” and partial to Democrats, rendering their deliberation and judgement illegitimate to Republicans. By eroding trust in the judicial system and casting them as a corrupt institution, Republicans created a justification that, in good conscience, allows them to disregard all accusations directed at Trump from Hunter Biden’s trial to the present-day Trump indictments. The implications of said self-imposed legitimacy are grim in the face of a tense political climate where many of America’s foundational principles are at risk and executive power seems to have no bounds. If the judicial system is able to be so loosely adhered to at convenience, who’s to say what else that logical framework applies to? As U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland puts it,

“The Justice Department will continue to uphold its obligation under the Constitution to fiercely defend the right of all Americans to peacefully express opinions, beliefs and ideas. Disagreements about politics are good for our democracy. They are normal.

But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not normal. The short-term political benefits of those tactics will never make up for the long-term cost to our country.

Continued unfounded attacks against the Justice Department’s employees are dangerous for people’s safety. They are dangerous for our democracy. This must stop.”

Sources

David Jackson & Inge Amundsen (March 29, 2022): The flipside of corruption: when anti-corruption becomes politicised

Ella Lee (June 13, 2024): Trump, Hunter Biden convictions lead to starkly different political narratives

Jonathan Allen (June 11, 2024): Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict upends a top Trump talking point

Kate Côté Gillin, Shrill Hurrahs: Women, Gender, and Racial Violence in South Carolina, 1865-1900, Chapter 4 (2013): Sin and Redemption: The Election of 1876

Merrick Garland (June 11, 2024): Merrick Garland: Unfounded attacks on the Justice Department must end

Michael A. Ross, The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History, Chapter 19 (2016): Rutherford B. Hayes

Peter Stone (June 11, 2024): Claims of rigged system by convict Trump and allies ‘threaten rule of law’

Sheilla Blackford: Disputed Election of 1876 | Miller Center