(Friday, March 2, 1877, 4:10 a.m. local time) — Just three days before his public inauguration, Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election today, defeating the Democrat Samuel J. Tilden in one of the most disputed elections in American history.

Hayes had lost the popular vote to Tilden and on election night appeared to have lost the electoral vote as well. But Tilden, with 184 electoral votes, had fallen one vote short of a majority necessary for election, with 20 electoral votes of Florida, South Carolina, Louisiana and Oregon in dispute.

Tilden had carried Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana, but there were many instances of voter fraud and voter intimidation — primarily toward black voters, who were likely to support Republicans.

In February, the commission decided in a series of party-line 8-7 votes to award all 20 contested electoral votes to Hayes, giving him the victory.

The Democrat-controlled House conducted filibusters to delay the election results from becoming official. Ultimately the dispute was settled today with a deal known as the Compromise of 1877.

Democrats agreed to drop their objections to Hayes’s election in exchange for the Hayes administration appointing a Democratic postmaster-general and agreeing to remove federal troops from state government buildings in Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana. The decision to remove federal troops effectively ended the federal government’s Reconstruction efforts.

Black Republicans felt betrayed as they lost power and were subject to discrimination and harassment to suppress their voting, opening the path for Jim Crow laws enforcing racial segregation.