order, delivered to Cronin and
withheld from the Electors legally chosen by the voters of the State.
The two Electors who had received certificates of their election then
obtained a certified copy of the returns, met and elected Watts to
fill the vacancy, and then proceeded to cast three votes for Hayes.
Cronin thereupon immediately elected to fill the vacancies, two men who
had not been voted for at all by the people, organized a fraudulent
Electoral College, and went through the farce of casting his own vote
for Tilden, while his two confederates (J. N. T. Miller and John
Parker) voted for Hayes. The extraordinary and illegal action of
Governor Grover had been urged through telegrams by Mr. Abram S.
Hewitt, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and by Mr. Manton
Marble, a close personal friend of Mr. Tilden. The Electoral
Commission summarily condemned the fraudulent proceedings and gave the
three Electoral votes of Oregon to Hayes and Wheeler. The Democratic
members of the Commission united with the Republicans in rejecting the
factitious votes cast by the men associated with Cronin, but at the
same time they voted to deprive Hayes of Watts' vote and to give the
vote of Cronin to Tilden.

The proceedings in the Commission and in Congress were not closed until
the second day of March (1877). Meanwhile the capital and indeed the
country, were filled with sensational and distracting rumors: First,
that the Democratic majority in the House would "filibuster" and
destroy the count; second, that they had agreed not to "filibuster" by
reason of some arrangement made with Mr. Hayes in regard to future
policies in the South. Every mischievous report was spread; and for
five weeks the country was kept in a state of uneasiness and alarm,
not knowing what a day might bring forth. But in the end the work of
the Commission was confirmed; and Mr. Hayes was declared to have been
elected by the precise vote which Mr. Chandler, on behalf of the
Republican National Committee, claimed the day after the polls closed
in November--185 Republican electors, 184 Democratic electors. It was
the first instance in the history of the country where a succession to
the Presidency had been disputed. Differences of opinion in regard to
the legality and regularity of the election in single States had arisen
in more than one Presidential election; but it happened in these
cases that the counting of the vote of the disputed States either