Rutherford B. Hayes

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Template:Infobox President Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was an American politician, lawyer, and military leader from the U.S. state of Ohio. A Republican, he defeated Samuel Tilden in the 1876 presidential election in an election marked by controversy over the true winner and served a single term as president of the United States (1877-1881).

He did not run again in the 1880 presidential election, keeping his pledge that he would not run for a second term. Hayes died of complications of a heart attack in Fremont, Ohio in 1893.

Contents 1 Early political career 2 After the civil war 3 Election of 1876 4 Presidency 1877-1881 4.1 Notable legislation 4.2 Significant events during his presidency 4.3 South America 4.4 Administration and Cabinet 4.5 Supreme Court appointments 4.6 States admitted to the Union 5 Post-Presidency 6 Trivia 7 See also 8 External links

Early political career

Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, on October 4, 1822. His parents were Rutherford Hayes and Sophia Birchard. Hayes's father died before Hayes was born and an uncle, Sardis Birchard, lived with the family and served as Hayes's guardian. Hayes attended the common schools and the Methodist Academy in Norwalk. He graduated from Kenyon College in Gambier in August 1842 and from Harvard Law School in January 1845. He was admitted to the bar on May 10, 1845, and commenced practice in Lower Sandusky (now Fremont). He moved to Cincinnati in 1849 and resumed the practice of law. He was city solicitor from 1857 to 1859.

He was close to his sister as can be seen in this diary entry:

July, 1856. —My dear only sister, my beloved Fanny, is dead! The dearest friend of childhood, the affectionate adviser, the confidante of all my life, the one I loved best, is gone; alas! never again to be seen on earth.

After the civil war

After the fighting, he was elected from Ohio as a Republican to the Thirty-ninth and again to the Fortieth Congresses and served from March 4, 1865, to July 20, 1867, when he resigned, having been nominated for Governor of Ohio. He was Governor from 1868 to 1872, and an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Forty-third Congress. He was again elected Governor and served from January 1876 to March 2, 1877.

Election of 1876

Template:Main Hayes became president after the tumultuous, scandal-ridden years of the Grant administration. He had a reputation for honesty dating back to his Civil War years, when as a major general he had refused to campaign for Congress, saying that any officer who left his command to run for office "ought to be scalped." As Governor of Ohio, his scrupulousness sometimes dismayed even his political allies, and Hayes was nicknamed "Old Granny." Hayes was quite famous for his ability to not offend anyone. Henry Adams, a prominent politician at the time asserted that Hayes was "a third rate nonentity, whose only recommendation is that he is obnoxious to no one." Nevertheless, his opponent in the presidential election, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, was the favorite to win the presidential election and, in fact, won the popular vote by about 250,000 votes (with about 8.5 million voters in total).

Four states' electoral college votes were contested. In order to win, the candidates had to muster 185 votes: Tilden was short just one, with 184 votes, Hayes had 165, with 20 votes representing four states which were contested. To make matters worse, three of these states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina) were in the South, which was still under military occupation, the fourth being Oregon. Additionally, historians note, the election wasn't fair due to the improper fraud and intimidation perpetrated from both sides. A popular phrase of the day called it an election without "a free ballot and a fair count."

To peacefully decide the results of the election, the two houses of Congress set up the Electoral Commission to investigate and decide upon the actual winner. The commission constituted of 15 members; five from the House, five from the Senate and five from the Supreme Court. Additionally, the Commission was bi-partisan consisting of 7 Democrats, 7 Republicans and a "swing" vote in Joseph P. Bradley, a Supreme Court Justice. Bradley however was a Republican at heart and thus the ruling followed party lines: 8 to 7 voted for Hayes winning in all of the contested 20 electoral votes.

Key Ohio Republicans like James A. Garfield and the Democrats, however, agreed at a Washington hotel on the Wormley House Agreement. Southern Democrats were given assurances that if Hayes became president, he would pull federal troops out of the South and end Reconstruction. An agreement was made between them and the Republicans--if Hayes's cabinet consisted of at least one Southerner and he withdrew all Union troops from the South, then he would become president. This Compromise of 1877 is sometimes considered to be the second Corrupt Bargain.

Presidency 1877-1881

Since March 4, 1877 was a Sunday, Hayes took the oath of office in the Red Room of the White House on March 3. He took the oath again publicly on March 5 on the East Portico of the United States Capitol, and he served until March 3, 1881.

Notable legislation

During his presidency, Hayes signed a number of bills including one signed on February 15, 1879 which, for the first time, allowed female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Other acts include:

• Compromise of 1877
• Desert Land Act (1877)
• Bland-Allison Act (1878)
• Timber and Stone Act (1878)

Significant events during his presidency

• Munn v. Illinois (1876)
• Great Railroad Strike (1877)

South America

In 1878, Hayes was asked by the Argentines to act as arbitrator following the War of the Triple Alliance between Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay. The Argentines hoped that Hayes would give the Chaco region to them, however he decided in favor of the Paraguayans. His decision made him a hero in Paraguay, and a city (Villa Hayes) and a department (Presidente Hayes) was named in his honor.

Administration and Cabinet

Image:Rhayes.png

OFFICE	NAME	TERM
President	Rutherford B. Hayes	1877–1881
Vice President	William A. Wheeler	1877–1881
Secretary of State	William M. Evarts	1877–1881
Secretary of the Treasury	John Sherman	1877–1881
Secretary of War	George W. McCrary	1877–1879
	Alex Ramsey	1879–1881
Attorney General	Charles Devens	1877–1881
Postmaster General	David M. Key	1877–1880
	Horace Maynard	1880 – 1881
Secretary of the Navy	Richard W. Thompson	1877–1880
	Nathan Goff, Jr.	1881
Secretary of the Interior	Carl Schurz	1877–1881

Supreme Court appointments

Hayes appointed two Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States:

• John Marshall Harlan - 1877
• William Burnham Woods - 1881

States admitted to the Union

none

Post-Presidency

Hayes did not seek re-election in 1880, keeping his pledge that he would not run for a second term. He had, in his inaugural address, proposed a one-term limit for the presidency combined with an increase in the term length to six years.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes died of complications of a heart attack in Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio, at 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday January 17, 1893. Interment was in Oakwood Cemetery. Following the gift of his home to the State of Ohio for the Spiegel Grove State Park he was reinterred there in 1915.

Trivia

• Hayes was the last U.S. President born before the Monroe Doctrine came into effect.
• Hayes was the first U.S. President to visit the U.S. West Coast while in office.
• Hayes is also reputed to be the first President to have had his voice recorded, by Thomas Edison in 1877 with his newly-invented phonograph. Unfortunately, the tin it was recorded on has been lost. As the recording cannot be located, some say that it never existed, and therefore the first President to have his voice recorded was Benjamin Harrison in the 1890s. However, it is a hotly debated subject.
• Some members of the Cao Dai religion claim to have received messages and spiritual healing from Hayes. The Hayesian movement has been slowly gaining adherents within among Caodaists.

See also

• History of the United States (1865-1918)
• Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center

External links

Template:Wikiquote Template:Wikisource author

• Inaugural Address
• The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center Fremont, Ohio
• White House Biography
• Grant Succumbs to Temptation, Hayes Gets the Nod (1876) William Archibald Dunning recounts how President Grant refuses a third term in language so equivocal that it amounts to encouragement for his partisans. The result is a Congressional warning and the nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes.
• http://www.ohiohistory.org/onlinedoc/hayes/chapterxii.html
• Template:Gutenberg author

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