After a decade of turmoil, America was ready to move on — but at what cost? This episode unpacks the disputed election of 1876, a political standoff that ended with a deal: Rutherford B. Hayes would become president, and federal troops would withdraw from the South. Reconstruction was over. The Compromise of 1877 restored "peace," but it also abandoned millions of freed people to a new era of racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Listeners will see how a backroom bargain reshaped America's future — closing one chapter of freedom while quietly opening another of inequality.