The Fever of 1876: Seattle’s Election Anxiety
While Seattle had no formal vote in the 1876 presidential contest, residents were whipped into a frenzy of speculation as they waited for news from the national election.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The agitation over the recent elections has reached a fever point. Now, if a man walks down the street, he meets others who have fallen into the line and are soliciting the latest news. The country is either excited according to their political opinions or uncertain over the result of the local and national contest. This uncertainty may tend to retard the spirit of improvement, as every item of news is devoured with anxiety. As the electric wires tell the story, it is flashed over the city, where it is sought up by men and clamoring for a look at the bulletin board. Each one receives the news differently but views it with a spirit of agitation. There is probably no city in the Union, according to its population, where the political fever has run higher than in this community, notwithstanding the fact that our local ballot has put a quietus on our vote, and allowed us no voice in the great national contest. Though we have no vote in the matter, our interest in the final result is no less than that of the most favored citizens of the Union. All this must soon come to an end. The time is near when the matter will be finally settled for the next four years for the weal or the woe of the nation.
“There is probably no city in the Union, according to its population, where the political fever has run higher than in this community.”
In 1876, Seattleites—then a disenfranchised territory without a presidential vote—still felt the intense, disruptive pressure of national political polarization. Today, the feeling of powerlessness in the face of national crises, combined with a local obsession with election updates, mirrors this 19th-century 'political fever' almost exactly.
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