THE ELECTION OF 1876.--The Republican candidate for President was Rutherford B. Hayes; [6] the Democratic candidate was Samuel J. Tilden. The admission of Colorado in August, 1876, made thirty-eight states, casting 369 electoral votes. A candidate to be elected therefore needed at least 185 electoral votes. So close was the contest that the election of Hayes was claimed by exactly 185 votes. This number included the votes of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon, in each of which a dispute was raging as to whether Republican or Democratic electors were chosen. Both sets claimed to have been elected, and both met and voted. ELECTORAL COMMISSION.--The electoral votes of the states are counted in the presence of the House and Senate. The question then became, Which of these duplicate sets shall Congress count? To determine the question an electoral commission of fifteen members was created. [7] It decided that the votes of the Republican electors In the four states should be counted, and Hayes was therefore declared elected. [8] END OF CARPETBAG GOVERNMENTS.--The inauguration of Hayes was followed by the recall of United States troops from the South, and the downfall of carpetbag governments in South Carolina and Louisiana. During the first half of Hayes's term the. Democrats had control of the House of Representatives, and during the second half, of the Senate as well. As a result, proposed partisan measures either failed to pass Congress, or were vetoed by the President. THE YEAR 1877 was one of great business depression. A strike on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the summer of 1877 spread to other railroads and became almost an industrial insurrection. Traffic was stopped, millions of dollars' worth of freight cars, machine shops, and other property was destroyed, and in the battles fought around Pittsburg many lives were lost. [9] Failures were numerous; in 1878 more business men failed than in the panic year 1873. SILVER COINAGE.--For much of this business depression the financial policy of the government was blamed, and when Congress assembled in 1877, this policy was at once attacked. An attempt to repeal the act for resuming specie payment (p. 408) was made, but failed. [10] Another measure, however, concerning silver coinage, was more successful. Congress had dropped (1873) the silver dollar from the list of coins to be made at the mint. [11] Soon afterward the silver mines of Nevada began to yield astonishingly, and the price of silver fell. This led to a demand (by inflationists and silver-producers) that the silver dollar should again be coined; and in 1878 Congress passed (over Hayes's veto) the Bland-Allison Act, which required the Secretary of the Treasury to buy not less than $2,000,000 nor more than $4,000,000 worth of silver bullion each month and coin it into dollars. [12]