USA 250th: 1876 Election - South Carolina’s VIOLENT Voter Fraud

A single election can reveal the whole machinery behind voter suppression, and South Carolina in 1876 does exactly that. We walk through a period when Black Americans gain sweeping constitutional protections after the Civil War, then face an organized campaign of intimidation meant to erase those rights at the ballot box.

We follow the Reconstruction arc from the 13th Amendment’s abolition of slavery to the 14th Amendment’s promise of civil rights and due process, and then to the 15th Amendment’s protection of Black men’s voting rights. Against that backdrop, the Hayes vs Tilden presidential contest turns the South into the deciding battlefield. The language is raw and the methods are worse: political memos calling for bloodshed, armed groups disrupting meetings, Red Shirts riding from poll to poll, and the Hamburg Massacre becoming a warning to anyone who tries to vote Republican.

We also dig into how violence pairs with fraud: repeat voting, “tissue ballots,” and reported totals that exceed eligible voters. Then come the contested returns, the investigation, and later public statements that openly celebrate stuffing ballot boxes and ruling by force. 

The goal here isn’t to sanitize history, but to make it legible, because you can’t understand American voting rights, Jim Crow’s rise, or today’s debates about election integrity without seeing how power once tried to win with bullets instead of ballots.

• Why South Carolina becomes a flashpoint after the Civil War
• How the 13th Amendment ends slavery and reshapes citizenship
• How the 14th Amendment secures civil rights and due process
• How the 15th Amendment expands Black male voting rights
• Why the Hayes vs Tilden race raises the stakes in 1876
• The “Carnival Of Blood” memo and calls for violence at the polls
• Red Shirts, rifle clubs, and organized voter intimidation
• The Hamburg Massacre and targeted killings of Black voters
• Poll blocking in Edgefield and the mechanics of suppression
• Tissue ballots, repeaters, and vote totals exceeding eligible voters
• Investigations of disputed returns and competing claims to victory
• Later admissions and boasts about ballot box stuffing and murder
• Media outrage over Hayes and the label “fraudulency”
• A modern South Carolina note tied to Senator Tim Scott

If this story changes how you think about Reconstruction and election fraud, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Why 1876 South Carolina Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Mercer Moments in American History. Today is Voter Fraud, South Carolina in the year 1876. We're gonna talk about voter suppression, we're gonna talk about voter intimidation. I'm choosing South Carolina because South Carolina is one of the 11 Confederate states who left the Union, who formed the Confederacy, over slavery. Make no mistakes. I know historians and textbook writers try to change it. The primary item was that of slavery. And the 11 states had just finally come back into the Union. And this year, 1876, they felt was their chance if all 11 states stayed together, they could win the presidency. Stay tuned.

Reconstruction Gains And New Rights

SPEAKER_00 0:46

If you're an African American in the 1870s, it was a wonderful time. Look at what had happened. Lincoln, with the help of Frederick Douglass, had written the Emancipation Proclamation. Suddenly, 180,000 black men who were either former slaves or descendants of slaves said, Hey, if we're free, can we decide which side, which flag we want to fight for? Well, sure, which side do you want? One side means a return to slavery, that flag stood for slavery, the other side stood for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and Lincoln's promise of the 13th Amendment that would forever abolish all slavery. And if 180,000 black men said we're gonna choose to fight under the flag of the United States of America, because they knew that flag stood for freedom. That's not what they're taught in our colleges and universities today. But I have 180,000 eyewitnesses. And then the 13th Amendment was passed. Sadly, it was ratified, but after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. But then the Republicans realized they were in control of the House of Senate that we have a problem because the Democrat Supreme Court, the Dred Scott decision, seven Democrats against two Republicans, the seven Democrats said, Dred Scott, you're a black man. It did not matter if you were born free or born a slave, became free. You had no civil rights. No civil rights whatsoever, and you had no right to due process to be in a courtroom. So Republicans passed a law, but it was vetoed by Democrat President Andrew Johnson. And the Republicans came back, let's make a constitutional amendment to override the Supreme Court, the worst decision in U.S. history, the Dred Scott decision. And the Republicans passed the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed civil rights and due process to all African Americans. The congressional record says every Democrat member of the U.S. Senate voted no on civil rights and due process for African Americans. Every Democrat member of the U.S. House voted no on the 14th Amendment. It's a matter of public record, not partisan, it's a historical fact. Then they had an election of this Republican Ulysses S. Grant. The Democrats hated him and much of the media hated him, but he's the one who won the Civil War. Grant as president in his inauguration said we need to pass a 15th Amendment to our Constitution, guaranteeing black men the right to vote. He was suspicious of the South, what was going on in those 11 states who were trying to get back into the Union. But he felt the black man would be the most loyal American voter. Republicans passed that again, and guess what? Congressional record, every Democrat member of the U.S. Senate voted no on granting black men the right to vote. And every Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives voted no. So if you are a black man or a black family in the 1870s, what a wonderful time. Slavery is abolished. You have basic civil rights, the right for due process to appear in a court, and you have the right to vote for African American men.

The 1876 Presidential Stakes

SPEAKER_00 4:03

But then came the election of 1876. The Democrats ran the governor of New York Tilden against the governor of Ohio, Republican, Hayes. Tilden, Democrat, Hayes, Republican. The election of 1876, all eleven Democrat states had come back into the Union under the promise that they would support the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment. I'll be very kind. They lied. They lied. And if you follow history, you'll see the Jim Crow laws and the black code laws and the law surrendercy test. Those are all things put by Democrats in the South, in what was called for the next 125 years the solid Democrat South. But that election they knew that they had to have all eleven states of the South who had just entered the Union must vote Democrat Tilden to win the presidency.

A Violent Memo Targets Voters

SPEAKER_00 5:00

In fact, I have a memo here from October 18, 1876, from New York. Of course, New York was the state where Tilden was the governor. It's called the Carnival of Blood. Republicans to be massacred at the polls. Oh, by the way, because of the 13th and 14th and 15th Amendment, everybody knew that these new African American voters voted almost 100% Republican. In fact, they consider the Republican Party to be the party of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Abolition of Slavery, the 13th Amendment. They consider Democrats to be the party of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan. Let me repeat that. I have a memo here from October 18th, 1876 from New York. Again, the Democrat Tilden was the governor of New York. It says Republicans to be massacred at the polls. Massacred, a carnival of blood. It talks about how there are 11 Southern states, and their chance was now, if we all vote together, we can kick the Republicans out, stop all these reforms, get back in control, have a Democrat in the presidency. And the memo says, you have it in your power to rid yourselves of these oppressors, referring to the Republicans and the new black Republicans. It says, drive them with one swoop from the polls. Do not even let them come to the polls, whatever intimidation you can do. And it says, and if necessary, deluge your land with their blood. We're talking about a memo that's promoting violence. Violence. Voter suppression, voter intimidation was not voter ID. It was not proof of citizenship. No, it was violence. This memo was promoting violence against African American voters, their families, and any whites who would dare support them. It says if we lose even two of the eleven Southern states, we will lose the presidency. On the day of the election, November 7, 1876, evade Grant's minions as much as you can. Stop them all you can. And if necessary, use your unerring bullets to pierce the breast of these carpet baggers and score scallowags, they call them. By the way, what happened in South Carolina, in my belief, it happened in all eleven of the Southern Democrat states. Again, they had the promise to uphold these three new amendments to become states. Promise to uphold the abolition of slavery, the basic civil rights, the 14th Amendment for African-American families, and the right of black men to vote. They had the promise to uphold that. They promised that. They lied. This is not partisan. This is a political fact, 1876, voter fraud. And the problem was the state census. South Carolina had 74,000 white men over age 21 and 110,000 black men. So the Democrats knew the numbers were impossible. They could not mathematically overcome that. The Democrats nominated Wade Hampton III, the highest ranking Confederate officer to be their candidate for governor. And other Confederate officers filled out the ticket.

Red Shirts And Polling Place Terror

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Democrats sought to intimidate voters. They'd go to Republican gatherings, and wherever you're planning to speak, they created a disturbance. They would disrupt Republican speakers with loud shouting and start shaking guns around. And there was no way the Democrats could overcome those numbers. But they performed these groups of armed white men racist. They call them rifle clubs or red shirts and go to meetings and harass Republicans, not allow a Republican candidate to speak. The Redshirts actually killed six black men voters in Hamburg, South Carolina. It's called the Hamburg Massacre. Look that up. They killed six black men because they wanted to vote Republican. And they were backed by a Confederate general who actually threatened South Carolina had elected a Republican governor, Chamberlain, and they threatened to assassinate that Republican governor. This is wide open. They're killing African American voters. They threatened to assassinate the Republican governor. On election day in South Carolina, a town called Edgefield, there were 300 armed red shirts on horses. And they packed the horses side by side by the polls, so the African American voter could not get into the poll. If you wanted to vote, you had to literally crawl under the bellies of 300 horses. The Hamburg Massacre or Hamburg riot was one of just a series of disturbances that were planned and carried out by Democrats in the majority Republican district. The red shirts rode from polling place to polling place to intimidate, to suppress the black voters. And the Democrats had multiple ballots, tissue ballots. They call them repeating ballots, repeaters, where you vote once and you vote again, or you vote a different city or a different county. You can bring Democrats from outside the state of South Carolina come in and vote there too. But with all the voter suppression against black families, by a miracle, Edgewood County Democrats reported 2,000 more votes than it had eligible voters. They suppress and intimidate by murder, by torture, by violence the African-American voters, and somehow they had 2,000 more voters. And then the Democrat Party statewide said that they had won the election. That they had won the election for Tilden, Governor Tilden, defeated Republican Hayes, and because South Carolina won, Democrat Tilden was now president. And they said yes, there were 18,000 black men who voted for Democrat. They actually said that 18,000 black men, despite the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment of the Constitution, despite all the violence, the torture, the murder of African-American men and their families, that 18,000 black men actually came and voted a Democrat ticket. And you can see why there was an investigation that obviously that was overturned.

Investigations And A Senate Confession

SPEAKER_00 12:17

15 people, five members of the Supreme Court, five U.S. House, five U.S. Senate. They went through many states, but South Carolina was so clear, the evidence was so firm. They confirmed the voter fraud, the voter intimidation, the voter suppression. Again, that intimidation and suppression was not voter ID. It was not proof of your citizenship. No, it was terror. It was violence. It was murder of African American voters. And we forget sometimes any whites who would dare help them. Now, 30 years later, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, a senator from South Carolina named Benjamin Pitchfork Tillman. Tillman had become governor of South Carolina, and back then you appointed your U.S. senators. It wasn't until later we actually elect them. So the legislature, the Democrats had come back in control of South Carolina, appointed Tillman. And they called him Benjamin Pitchfork Tillman. He was one of the leaders of the red shirts in South Carolina, the murders, the violence. He was one of the leaders of voter intimidation, physical violence, torture, lynching, the riots of 1876. And he boasted on the floor of the United States Senate. He was discussing the election of 1876 and said, our platform of our Democrat Party had one plank only. You ready for this? Hold on to your seats. On the floor of the Senate, this is white man's country, and white men must govern it. Wow. And speaking of the violence in 1876, he said, under that banner, we went to battle. It was then that we shot them. It was then that we killed them. It was then that we stuffed the ballot boxes. Because this disease needed a strong remedy. My friends, that was South Carolina back in 1876. And again, suppression, voter intimidation, it's not voter ID. It's not proving your citizenship. Who would have a problem with that? Only U.S. citizens should vote. But no. It was members of the Democrat Party who said we must have violence. We do not have the numbers. So we have to go out and kill and suppress and torture. That's the only way they could win the election. And if all 11 states of the South went together, they'd have a Democrat president. But the election committee came in there, they found all the violence, all the voter fraud, the stuffing the balance, what the Democrats call repeater. See, Republicans said they had won. And the Democrats said no, they had won. And Democrats said we had won because 18,000 African-American men voted for the Democrat for president. Think about that. 1876, there were two ballots that came in there or two returns. Republicans said, we won South Carolina, we won the U.S. presidency. The Democrats said no, we won South Carolina, we won the presidency, and they actually had the gall to say we won because 18,000 African Americans chose to vote Democrat instead of Republican. Now, two last things. Back then the media, and much of it was Democrat controlled, they didn't like the fact that Republican Hayes won over Democrat Tilden. And when they referred to the presidency of Hayes, they called it the fraudulency. The fraudulency. And even though the media knew about the voter fraud, they knew about the violence, the massacres, the murders of African American voters and their families. Even though they knew that, they still wanted the Democrat to defeat the Republican for the United States presidency.

Hayes Backlash And A Modern Coda

SPEAKER_00 16:17

I gotta close with good news from my friends in South Carolina. I know this is a tough story, but God bless you because you've been able to change all these things. You elected a good, godly man as a United States senator. His name was Tim Scott. And I hope to meet him one day, shake his hand, and give him a big hug. Oh, I forgot to mention Tim Scott. He's the first African-American United States Senator in the state of South Carolina. It's a story. This is Ken Mercer, Mercer Moments American History. Today's program was Voter Fraud, South Carolina 1876. We talked about voter intimidation, voter suppression. I hope today's session blessed you. I know it blessed me. Thank you.