Rutherford Birchard Hayes, the nineteenth President of the United States, was an affable man, with a sunny smile and a long black beard. Though he was given to periods of profound self doubt, he always appeared in public as cheerful and self confident. His nomination to the Presidency in 1876 was an attempt by the Republican Party to save face after the revelations of widespread corruption of the Grant Administration. Hayes was nominated for his impressive record as a soldier, and spotless record as a congressman. He considered himself a reformer, and sought to rid government of the shady deals that had been so prevalent during the Grant administration. Though he did make appointments to his cabinet on merit rather than on the philosophy of the spoils system, Hayes' victory in the election, one of the most confusing and disputed in the history of the Presidency, was the result of a back-room political deal. Rutherford Hayes also considered himself a civil rights reformer, but though he spoke at length on the rights of African Americans, he did not put his words into action. If anything, the years of the Hayes Administration found African Americans worse off than they had been in quite some time. The deal that Hayes made with the southern Democrats in order to become President called for the removal of the remaining federal troops from the South. This deal ended the Reconstruction era and enabled southern whites to reassume their pre-war places in the federal government, thus ensuring that the issues of equality and fair treatment of ex-slaves would be forgotten.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born on October 4, 1822, in Delaware, Ohio. He was the youngest of five children born to Sophie and Rutherford Hayes, a wealthy merchant who died two months before his youngest son and namesake was born. Rutherford Jr. was raised by his mother who had enough money from her husband's estate to send all of her children to private schools. Rutherford was extremely bright, and achieved exemplary grades at private schools in Norwalk, Ohio and Middletown, Connecticut. He excelled at spelling and literature. When he was sixteen, Rutherford B. Hayes enrolled at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He graduated in 1842 as the valedictorian of his class. After college, Rutherford studied one year with a law firm in Columbus, Ohio, before enrolling at Harvard Law School. He graduated from Harvard in 1845 and passed the Ohio bar the same year.
Hayes moved to Lower Sandusky (now Fremont), Ohio, where he practiced law for four years. In 1850 he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and established a thriving law firm there. His interest in literature still very much alive, he joined the Literary Club of Cincinnati early in 1851.
On December 30, 1852 Rutherford Birchard Hayes married Lucy Ware Webb. The couple had seven sons and one daughter. Lucy Hayes was the first First Lady to have a college degree: she graduated from Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati. Because of her strict religious beliefs, she forbade the service of alcohol at the White House. Her strong stance against alcohol earned her the nickname "Lemonade Lucy" and the support of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
Rutherford B. Hayes became a Republican when the party formed in 1854. In 1858 the city council of Cincinnati appointed him to fill a vacancy as city solicitor. He was re-elected in 1859, but lost in his campaign for a third term in 1861.
When the Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, President Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the rebellion. The Literary Club of Cincinnati immediately organized itself into the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteers, and Rutherford B. Hayes assumed the rank of major. Hayes was promoted to lieutenant colonel in October 1861. In September of 1862, Lieutenant-Colonel Hayes led his troops to victory in the Battle of South Mountain, in Maryland. In the charge, Hayes was shot in the arm, recognized for bravery, and promoted to colonel.
Hayes was nominated to the United States House of Representatives by the Republican Party in August of 1864. He won the election, but refused to leave his post in the army for a seat in the House.
At the Battle of Cedar Creek, in Virginia, Hayes was wounded again, and promoted again-- this time to brigadier general. Two months after General Lee surrendered to General Grant at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia, Hayes resigned his commission in the army and took his seat in Congress.
Hayes was re-elected to the House two times before becoming governor of Ohio in 1867. In 1872 he ran for a fourth term in the House of Representatives, but was defeated. President Grant offered him the position of assistant to the Treasury Secretary in 1873, but Hayes turned it down and retired to Fremont. For the next two years Hayes practiced law and arranged the affairs of his estate, which had just doubled by way of inheritance upon the death of his uncle and guardian, Sardis Birchard.
Rutherford Hayes was pulled out of retirement when he accepted the Republican Party's draft nomination for governor of Ohio. He became governor of Ohio for the third time in 1875.
The Republican National Convention nominated Rutherford B. Hayes for President in 1876. He was nominated primarily because he was one of the few government officials who had managed to keep himself free of scandal during the years of the corrupt Grant Administration and because his moderate views on the issues of the day did not offend anybody. The Hayes campaign was hindered by the reputation of Republican leaders under the Grant Administration and the current depression. Hayes made few campaign appearances and lost to Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden by a slim margin in both the popular election and the electoral college. The Republicans claimed that fraud and corruption in the states of Oregon, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina, had kept African Americans from voting. They demanded a second election be taken in those states. The returns of the second election indicated Hayes as the winner. The Democrats protested and claimed fraud. Congress was forced to set up an Electoral Commission to decide the winner. The Democrats objected again and refused to submit to the decision of the commission because it was largely made up of Republicans. Finally a deal was struck: the Democrats agreed to submit to the decision of the Electoral Commission if Hayes agreed to remove all remaining federal troops from the South. Hayes agreed, and the Electoral Commission pronounced him winner on March 2, 1877. Rutherford Birchard Hayes became the nineteenth President of the United States on March 5, 1877.
Hayes's first act as President was to keep his end of the bargain with the Democrats by ordering the removal of all federal troops from the South. With the end of the federal occupation, white Democrats regained control of the southern states, and the Reconstruction era was over. President Hayes went on a tour of the South to usher in a "new era of good feeling" between North and South, but his optimistic speeches did little to prevent continued discrimination against former slaves.
In July of 1877, a nation-wide railroad strike escalated into riots in the states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, and Maryland. At the request of the governors of those states, President Hayes sent in the federal troops to quell the violence.
President Hayes's years in office were largely ineffective due to the constant opposition he received. He had kept his campaign promise and appointed the members of his cabinet according to merit, rather than using the spoils system, and as a result, he alienated himself from many of his own party members. The deal he had made with the Democrats hurt his credibility with reformers, and his few efforts at reform saw little support. President Hayes encountered most of his opposition from the newly-empowered southern Democrats who controlled the House from 1877 to 1879 and the Senate from 1879 to 1881. When Congress passed a bill that looked to stimulate the economy by getting off the gold standard and producing cheaper silver standard coins, President Hayes vetoed it. Congress had no trouble overriding his veto, and the bill became law in 1879.
President Hayes did not attempt to secure the nomination for re-election from the Republican Party. He left office on March 4, 1881. In his retirement, Rutherford B. Hayes continued to pursue reform as president of the National Prison Reform Association and the Edward Slater Educational Fund. He also served on the board of trustees at Wesleyean University, in Delaware, and the State University of Ohio at Columbus.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes suffered a heart attack while riding a train home from a business trip. He died three days later at his home in Fremont, Ohio on January 17, 1893.
