The Misunderstood Election of 1876 and Colorado's Rocky Quest for Statehood

• Maxwell D. Rotbart, University of Nebraska at KearneyFollow

Date of Award

Fall 12-2-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

First Advisor

Will Stoutamire

Committee Members

Mark Ellis

Chuck Rowling

Will Stoutamire

Nathan Tye

Keywords

Election of 1876, Colorado, Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel J. Tilden, Ulysses S. Grant, Jerome B. Chaffee, Henry M. Teller, Statehood, Reconstruction, American West

Abstract

On December 8, 1873, Representative Jerome B. Chaffee, the non-voting delegate of the Colorado Territory, submitted a proposal in the House of Representatives to make Colorado the 38th state in the Union. What should have been a routine matter — Colorado had the sizable population and economic stability necessary to achieve statehood — dragged on for more than three years. At stake was the outcome of the 1876 presidential election, in which Colorado’s electoral votes had the potential to — and ultimately did — decide which party would control the Executive Branch into the 1880s.

When historians consider the factors that most contributed to the creation of states in the Mountain West — and especially Colorado — they typically look to the economy: What mineral resources did the territory offer to the rest of the Union, how extensive was the railroad network, and how self-sufficient were the residents? More recently, historians have proposed that the ratio of white to non-white citizens in the territories also influenced their chances of becoming states. Typically, those historians who have weighed the role of politics in Western statehood movements saw political factors as inhibiting — rather than advancing — statehood.

Although historians have argued that Colorado and other Western states entered the Union as the result of economic and racial conditions, the main factor in Western territories becoming states was rank partisanship. The evidence of party politics dictating the future of Colorado Territory can be seen in Democratic attempts to prevent Colorado statehood, Republican efforts to force the creation of the Centennial State before Election Day 1876, and — after Colorado became a state — a Democratic plot to annul statehood and, with it, the results of the presidential election. The partisanship inherent in Colorado’s statehood process reverberated over the next two decades as other Mountain West territories navigated national politics to achieve statehood.

Recommended Citation

Rotbart, Maxwell D., "The Misunderstood Election of 1876 and Colorado's Rocky Quest for Statehood" (2025). History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity. 50.
https://openspaces.unk.edu/hist-etd/50

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