The Compromise of 1877 involved an informal, unwritten deal that brought an end to Reconstruction in the American South. Following the disputed presidential election of 1876, Democrats and Republicans reached a compromise under which Republican Rutherford B. Hayes became president in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the Southern states still under military occupation, thus leaving Southern state governments in the hands of white Democrats again and ending political Reconstruction (or the Second Reconstruction) at the national level.