The following is en excerpt from the book, Uncle Joe Cannon, an autobiography of a former Speaker of the House (copyrighted 1927, Henry Holt and Co.). Notice the first sentence, how untrue that is today.

The history of the Electoral Count is known to every high school boy. I do not propose to add my contribution, but simply to tell you how the White House stood open to Tilden and was swung to in his face because one Democratic Member of the House outwitted another Democratic member. Had that one Member been a slower thinker and the other quicker to see how adroitly he was being tied and muzzled, Tilden and not Hayes would have been declared elected President. I do not recollect ever having seen the story in print.

Samuel J. Randall was the Speaker of the House, and on him devolved the chief responsibility to keep the House from Political anarchy and the country, for the second time in a little more than a decade, again being plunged into civil war. Partisanship was intense; on both sides of the Chamber as well as throughout the country passion raged fiercely. Every Republican was certain Hayes had been legally elected and the Democrats were trying to steal the Presidency; every Democrat was no less certain the Republicans, having conquered the South in battle and held it in subjection by Federal bayonets, was determined to prevent it from exercising the right of franchise. The fierce struggle began the day after election and lasted until the inauguration of President Hayes on March 4, 1877. No man was neutral, and in those days, perhaps because the wounds of war were still open and in every home there were poignant memories, we took our politics more savagely than we do today. Passion was everywhere.

The Republicans had a majority in the Senate, in the House the Democrats were in control. That threw upon them the major responsibility, and it made Mr. Randall, as the Speaker and leader of his party, the central figure. His chief lieutenants were Fernando Wood, of New York, and Henry Watterson, of Kentucky, famous and powerful as the Editor of the Louisville Courier Journal. Randall was a Protection Democrat, Wood a Tammany Brave, Watterson the parent of the Star-eyed Goddess of Tariff Reform. Temperamentally the three men were as different as they were in economic beliefs, but in fundamentals they were alike. All admired Tilden and believed he had been duly elected; all set their faces against revolution, and confronted with the choice between revolution and legal methods did not for a moment hesitate. At the time all three men were accused of betraying their party, but they lived to receive the plaudits of their fellow men.

The Republicans had carried all the Northern States except New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Indiana; the Democrats all the Southern States except South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. The Democrats claimed the electoral votes of these three Southern States and a majority of eighteen in the electoral college. If those votes were counted for Hayes, he had a majority of one. It was as certain as anything could be that the two houses would not agree and that no candidate would be declared elected.

Various plans were proposed as a way out of the deadlock, and finally, with the approval of Mr. Tilden, as generally understood at the time, the Electoral Commission was created to consist of fifteen members, five Senators, five Representatives and five Justices of the Supreme Court. The Democratic House selected three Democrats and two Republicans; the Republican Senate appointed three Republicans and two Democrats; and the law named four of the Justices by designating their circuits, these four to select the fifth member from the Court. The gods delight in odd numbers, and the tutelary deities must look with peculiar affection upon the politics of a democracy, because in this country we settle all our controversies by majorities, and usually by the odd man. It was the odd man of the Commission, that one Justice to be selected by the other four, who would decide who had been elected President.

On Friday, February 9, the Commission by a vote of eight to seven, decided the Florida contest in favor of Hayes, and the next day, when the result was reported to the House, there was wild excitement on the Democratic side. Proctor Knott, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and acknowledged author of the Commission plan, moved to recommit the report to the Commission. Randall ruled the motion out of order, his ruling was accepted, and the Commission's action was final. After that decision there was ceaseless and bitter partisan agitation throughout the country, for it was obvious that the Florida case would be the precedent for similar decisions in Louisiana and South Carolina, and Hayes would be declared President. The friends of Tilden now brought forward objections to the count of the vote of Oregon and Wisconsin.

The commission decided the South Carolina contest on February 27, and its report was laid before the House the next day, four days before the expiration of the Congress and the term of President Grant. Then began the last desperate filibuster, with Springer, of Illinois, leading it, supported by a majority of the Democrats. It was a peculiar situation, the conservative Democrats and all the Republicans lined up with the Democratic Speaker, while the radical Democrats were opposing him. Fernando Wood of New York was the floor leader of the men behind the Speaker and he had General Garfield, Eugene Hale, George F. Hoar and O. D. Conger, all Republicans; and Henry Watterson, Ben Hill, John Young Brown and L. Q. C. Lamar, all Democrats, as his lieutenants; Springer, of Illinois, and Roger Q. Mills of Texas, led the fight against him and the Commission. The Republicans at no time took the lead. They were simply the reserve column of the conservative democrats, ready to lead their support if needed.

The filibuster began on the last day of February and continued through the day to prevent the House from taking up the report of the Commission on the South Carolina contest; for with that case settled the count would be practically finished and Hayes elected. Just as the Wisconsin vote was about to be taken up Mills made the boldest and most dangerous contribution to the confusion. He offered what he claimed was a privilege resolution--that the House proceed immediately in obedience to the Constitution to choose a President from the three persons having the highest number of votes on the list of those voted for as President. This the Constitution requires, when no immediate candidate has received a majority of the electoral votes. Mills was determined to precipitate a conflict and compel his party to throw overboard the Commission and the law creating it, and he was a clever and stubborn fighter with a large following on the Democratic side. Randall instantly saw the danger of this move and the impossibility of refusing to recognize Mills whose right to present the resolution could not be denied. He promised Mills that his resolution should be considered at the proper time, and he permitted the debate to cover a wide field. It ran through Thursday and that night, and toward morning the late Joe Blackburn, of Kentucky, made a speech which was picturesque in its extravagance. It was not Friday morning, he said, the day on which the Savior of the world suffered crucifixion, and the night of the day when constitutional government, justice, honesty, fair dealing, manhood and decency were to suffer crucifixion among a number of thieves. He regretted that the blow had come, not from his political opponents, but from his misguided friends, and I have never forgotten his quotation:

     So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain,
     No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
     Views his own feather on the fatal dart,
     That winged the shaft that quivered in his heart.

After the Wisconsin vote had been canvassed, which settled the contest in favor of Hayes, Speaker Randall conceded it was the proper time for Mills to offer his resolution, but the fiery Texan saw how neatly he had been trapped and hotly declared he had been tricked by the Speaker and withdrew the resolution. Had Mills' resolution been put to a vote, Tilden and not Hayes would have gone to the White House. By throwing the presidential election into the House, the vote would have been taken by States, the majority in each State delegation determining how the vote should be case. That would have given Tilden twenty three states and Hayes fourteen with Florida not voting as the delegation was equally divided. If Mills had been a little quicker witted or Randall a less astute parliamentarian, how different history might have been written! At that moment Tilden had the presidency in his grasp, and Randall dashed it from his hands. Fame is not always statesmanship. Sometimes it is adroit manipulation.