Wormley Conference (redirected from Compromise of 1877)

Wormley Conference

(Feb. 26, 1877) Meeting to resolve the disputed U.S. presidential election of 1876 between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes. Leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties met at Wormley's Hotel in Washington, D.C., to reach a compromise that would forestall the Democrats' protest of the Electoral Commission's decision to award the disputed electoral votes from three Southern states to Hayes, enabling him to defeat Tilden 185 to 184. In return for the Democrats' acquiescence in the decision, Republicans promised to withdraw troops from the South, end Reconstruction and Northern interference in Southern politics, and vote for railroad construction and other internal improvements in the South. The compromise satisfied the Southern Democrats, and Hayes was declared the winner on March 2, 1877.