E--led to a southerner being named postmaster general.
The Compromise of 1877 came as the 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden became heated, violent, and then too close to call. To avoid a drawn out election process, Republicans approached Democrats with a deal--Hayes wins the election, Reconstruction ends in the South, a leading Democrat named in Hayes' cabinet, and approval of federal funding for a railroad line in Texas. Hayes is named president and he follows through with removal of troops from the South and naming a southerner to the cabinet as Postmaster General.
