The Compromise of 1877 is one of the most consequential and misunderstood events in American history. The standard telling presents it as a straightforward bargain: Republican Rutherford B. Hayes received the disputed presidency in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction. The truth is considerably more complicated, involving backroom deals, broken promises, railroad interests, and a web of political calculations that betrayed millions of Black Southerners and shaped the trajectory of American racial politics for nearly a century. The 1876 presidential election between Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden produced one of the most contested results in American history. Tilden won the popular vote, but returns from three Southern states, Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, were fiercely disputed. Both  ...