Here's an excerpt from this morning's local rag. It was written by Mike Pope, the "Letters Editor", and a hell of a fine bassist with a local group called "Halcyon Daze", doing what Mike has described as "kind of a blues, rock, jazz, fusion mix". I can't describe their stuff any better, but it's toe-tapping good stuff. * * *

Reconstruction of a crisis: learning from the past

"Since Nov. 7, the nation had been waiting in suspense after a deadlocked electorate returned a vote that was so close, a handful of critical counties could swing the entire election. One of the main reasons the election was so close was that both candidates took remarkably similar positions on almost all the major issues. Despite this, the campaign became acrimonious and at times unseemly. Early returns made it look as if the Democrats had won. But then, Republicans went behind closed doors and plotted. Pretty soon, people thought the Republicans had won.

"When it became clear that election returns would be disputed in a lengthy legal process, each side sent 'visiting statesmen' to Florida and elsewhere to make sure the canvassing boards were on the up and up. Back in Washington, the current president, now in his second term of an administration marred by continuous scandals, privately wished that he could have a third term.

"How would this situation end?

"Unfortunately, the situation dragged on from Nov. 7, 1876, until march 2, 1877. Each side bitterly disputed the election returns and was sure that it was on the moral high ground. Accusations, bribes, intimidation and raw partisan politics stretched into the spring of the next year.

"The situation was finally resolved when Democrat Samuel Tilden announced that he would concede on three conditions: that when inaugurated, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes would pull federal troops out of Louisiana and South Carolina (the two remaining Republican carpetbag governments); appoint at least one Southerner to his Cabinet; and support federal aid to education and internal improvements in the South.

"With the 'Compromise of 1877,' the bitterly contested election of 1876 was finally resolved. Although Samuel Tilden probably won the popular vote, he conceded and therefore prevented the possibility of a second Southern insurrection."

Although there was certainly lingering resentment, I don't believe that the South was capable of mounting a "second insurrection" just 12 years after the close of the Civil War, but preventing "the possibility of" isn't quite the same as actually preventing, so I'll grant him the point as an "artistic device." :>)