“I Trust the People” but not the Electoral College…a recurring theme for the Democratic Party in American politics.  Despite a popular vote majority of 50.9% to 47.9% over the Republican in 1876, the Electoral College handed the presidency to Samuel Tilden’s opponent by a 185-184 margin.  Read about it here, or better yet, read 1876 by Gore Vidal.

This previous post shows Tilden’s upstate New York birthplace in an early twentieth-century postcard view.  Tilden came from New Lebanon, the center of which is located at the intersection of US Route 20 and New York Route 22 in Columbia County.