❦ THE CENTENNIAL OBSERVER ❦

A UNION PRESERVED.
THEN QUIETLY UN-FIXED.

A centennial record of hard-won settlements, traded away — faithfully sourced and cited.

❦ A Record of Compromises

Disputed Election Resolved by Awarding Presidency to the Man Who Lost It

The fix: The election of 1876 deadlocked: Tilden led the popular vote by a quarter-million and sat one electoral vote shy, with Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and a stray Oregon elector in dispute. Rather than count again, Congress conjured an Electoral Commission of fifteen — five congressmen, five senators, five justices — to decide it.

★★★★★ CatastrophicRead the case →

The Frontier · Treaties, Amended

Army Sent to Force Sioux Onto Reservation Locates Sioux, Regrets It Immediately

The fix: In 1874 an Army expedition under George Armstrong Custer confirmed gold in the Black Hills. Prospectors flooded in, the government decided the treaty had been a clerical inconvenience, and in late 1875 ordered every Lakota and Cheyenne band onto the reservations by January 31, 1876 — those who declined to be deemed 'hostile' and handled accordingly.

★★★★★ SevereRead the case → The Economy · Sound Money, Painful

Government Cures Cheap Money by Making Money Scarce; Farmers Decline to Send Thanks

The fix: The Specie Resumption Act of January 14, 1875 set the dollar marching back to gold, pledging that on January 1, 1879, paper would again be redeemable in coin — and instructing the Treasury to shrink the greenback supply from over $430 million toward $300 million to make the promise good.

★★★★★ NotableRead the case →

What Wasn’t Broken

We start with the thing that was working fine — boring, dependable, doing its job.

The "Fix"

Then the improvement: bold, expensive, announced with confidence. Usually unrequested.

The Result

And the receipts — what it cost, what broke, and the citations to prove it.

A UNION PRESERVED.THEN QUIETLY UN-FIXED.