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<p align="right"><font size="2" face="Arial"><img border="0" src="images/wormley-hotel.jpg" width="422" height="309"><br>
</font><i><font face="Arial" size="1">Courtesy of Washingtoniana
Collection</font></i></td>
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<td width="100%"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2">WORMLEY HOTEL catered
to the rich and powerful -- Washington's political elite in the 1870s.<br>
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<h3 align="center"><font face="Arial" size="3">INFAMOUS FINAL SCENE OF
THE �CRIME OF 1876�?</font></h3>
<h2 align="center" style="text-align:center"><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times New Roman"><a href="Battle-Liberty.htm"><font face="Arial" size="3">The
Wormley Agreement</font></a></span></h2>
<p align="center" style="text-align:center"><font size="2" face="Arial"> by<br>
Nicholas E. Hollis</font></p>
<p align="center" style="text-align:center"><font face="Arial" size="2"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">(All Rights Reserved)</i></font></p>
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<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">After months of stalemate and rising
tensions over the contested <a href="jameswormley.htm"> Election of 1876</a>, emissaries from the
Hayes-Tilden camps privately met several times at the Wormley Hotel and
negotiated a settlement (�The Bargain�), arguably one of the most
important in our Nation�s history which remains shrouded in denials to
the present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The �secret
deal� was formulated only days before the end of the Grant
Administration under threat of filibuster and violence on Monday
evening, February 26, 1877, chiefly, in the rooms of W.M. Evarts (a key
Hayes backer who served as counsel to the Electoral Commission and later
became as Secretary of State in the Hayes Administration).</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial" size="2">The Wormley Agreement paved the way for
the end of the Reconstruction Era, providing assurances for the early
withdrawal of remaining Federal troops in three southern states
(Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida) and the right of these states to
�control their own affairs.�<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The
written pledge provided by trusted Hayes� aide (Charles Foster) to
John Young Brown (D-KY) of the Tilden group cemented a strange alliance
between Hayes� Ohio Republicans and Tilden�s southern Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>�The Bargain� probably staved off anarchy which
threatened to ignite from congressional indignation and the partisan
tilt for Hayes in the Electoral Commission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>A veiled threat of violence, with echoes from �<a href="Battle-Liberty.htm">The
Battle of Liberty Place</a>� in New Orleans and other bloody
confrontations, provided <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">political
gravitas</i> amidst an atmosphere of near-panic and coercion.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial" size="2">On February 28, when southern Democrats
refused to join with plans for a rebellious protest in the House of
Representatives over challenges to the seating of disputed South
Carolina electors the tide shifted. During the afternoon in one of the
most tumultuous sessions witnessed since before the Civil War, House
Speaker Samuel J. Randall (D-PA), in a reversal, blocked the protestors,
and Hayes� forces reigned supreme. Hayes was proclaimed the winner on
March 2, 1877 and was quietly sworn in at the White House. Two days
later Rutherford B. Hayes was officially inaugurated as the 19<sup>th</sup>
President of the United States.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial" size="2">As the election crisis subsided,
President Hayes promptly ordered troops withdrawn from the South (an
action Tilden would have found much more difficult to achieve
politically).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But Hayes
quickly became stunned and disillusioned at the effect this decision had
on black suffrage and other civil rights in the South.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Despite extensive congressional investigations, little was
revealed about the Wormley conferences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">Recognizing there was some obloquy in the
trade, Hayes maintained his denial that he was an actual party to the
Wormley Agreement (although his personal papers show beyond a doubt
otherwise).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As one
historian noted: �In this way was consummated the most spectacular act
of injustice in American history . . . a majority of American people
believed the decision was wrong, the country has not to this day been
convinced that it was right.�<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hayes
left office after one term, turning over the presidency to another Ohio
Republican colleague, ill-fated James A. Garfield, who won by a tiny
plurality and was assassinated after only four months in office. Hayes
spent much energy and resources in his later years on the issue of black
education.</font></p>
<center>
<p align="center" style="text-align:center"><font size="2" face="Arial"><a href="Battle-Liberty.htm">Battle
of Liberty Place</a></font></p>
<p align="center" style="text-align:center"><font size="2" face="Arial"><a href="heritage.htm">Heritage
Preservation Committee</a></font></p>
<p align="center" style="text-align:center"><a href="mailto:[email protected]"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"><font size="2" face="Arial">[email protected]</font></span></a></p>
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<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">1. <u>Washington Evening Star</u>
(February 19, 22, and 24, 1877).<br>
2. </font><font size="2" face="Arial">H.J. Eckenrode, <u>Rutherford
B. Hayes: Statesman of Reunion</u> (1930), p. 231.<br>
3. W.A. Dunning, <u>Reconstruction:
Political and Economic, 1865-1877</u> (1907), p. 310.<br>
4. <u>Washington Evening Star</u>
(September 19, 1970).<br>
5. Theodore Clarke
Smith, <u><i>Life and Letters of James A. Garfield</i></u>, (1925),
pp. 643-44.</font>
<p align="left"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Note: </font></b></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">In one of history�s ironies
it is worth noting that the Wormley Hotel was owned and managed by one of the
capital�s leading citizens, <a href="jameswormley.htm"> James Wormley</a>, an African-American
entrepreneur, who
personally fought against increasing segregation after the Civil War and
helped establish the first public school for blacks in Washington, D.C.
(Wormley Resolution of July 26, 1871). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>When Wormley died in 1884, flags were flown at half-mast and
a former chief justice of the U.S. District Court and a former Washington
mayor were among the pallbearers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At
his funeral Wormley was described as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">�manly
man who respected himself and who demanded respect from others . . . A man
was a man with him . . . There was nothing cringing or obsequious about
him in his contact with white people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>He was a race man </i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">I</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">n
the sense that he was thoroughly interested in the welfare of the race�</i>
(Rev. Francis J. Grimke).</font>
<p align="center"><b><font face="Arial"><font size="2">ELECTION OF 1876</font><br>
</font></b>
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<p align="right"><img border="0" src="images/1870map2.jpg" width="390" height="279"><br>
<font size="1" face="Times New Roman">W.A. Dunning
Reconstruction Political and Economic 186-1877 (1907)</font></p>
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