Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-1893)
Nineteenth President of the United States
(1877-1881)
Interesting Facts:
In
1879, President Hayes installed the first
telephone in the White House. At first it was
hardly used, because there weren't many other
phones in Washington to call.
Quotation:
"He
serves his party best who serves the country
best." - F
"I
would prefer to go into it if I knew I was to
die or be killed in the course of it, than to
live through and after it without taking any
part in it" - Rutherford wrote in his
diary writing about the Civil War.
Biography:
Born in Delaware, Ohio on October 4, 1822,
Rutherford B. Hayes grew up in a brick house
with his mother, Sophia Hayes and his uncle
Sardis Birchard (his father died a two months
before he was born). Before Ruddy was two
years old his brother, Lorenzo, then nine
years old, was drowned while skating. Mrs.
Hayes determined to protect little Ruddy, who
was delicate, from all perils. She would not
allow him to play with the boys in the
neighborhood or go to school; and she herself
taught him reading and spelling. The boy's
sole companion was his sister Fanny, a bright,
active girl two years older than himself. The
two children read together and played
together. Fanny loved poetry; she was also a
tomboy and could always think of something
exciting to do.
At
14, Rutherford was sent to a school in
Norwalk, Ohio. The next year he attended an
academy in Middletown, Conn. At 16 he entered
Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio. The next
year Fanny married William Platt, who had a
jewelry store in Columbus. Mrs. Hayes gave up
the old home to live with the Platts in
Columbus.
Rutherford was a serious student, and his
diary (which he kept all his life) shows that
he tried constantly to improve his character
as well as his mind. At 19 he wrote: "I am
determined to acquire a character
distinguished for energy, firmness, and
perseverance." He resolved also to "preserve a
reputation for honesty and benevolence." He
even decided to stop laughing "entirely in
future, if I can" because "the tendency to
carry it to extremes is so great." His chief
interest in school was debating, in which he
excelled. His recreations were fishing,
playing chess, and reading novels (though he
called novels "trash").
After graduating from Kenyon, Hayes spent a
year in Fanny's home reading law and studying
German and French. Then his Uncle Sardis
furnished money for him to study at the
Harvard Law School. Hayes was almost 21 when
he arrived in Cambridge, Mass. Dressed in a
modish manner, he looked like a proper
Bostonian. He studied until he was weary and
tried hard to be still more serious. "Trifling
remarks, boyish conduct, are my crying sins.
Mend! Mend!" In January 1845 he received the
bachelor of laws degree.
Instead of returning to Columbus, Hayes went
into a law office in Lower Sandusky (later
called Fremont), where his Uncle Sardis lived.
He spent nearly five years in the small
village waiting for clients. Then he became
restless and despondent and had spells of
weeping. After a vacation in the East, he
decided to move to Cincinnati, then a growing,
thriving city.
In
Cincinnati, Hayes and another young man rented
an office and partitioned off one corner for a
bedroom. Hayes joined the Literary Club, where
he made influential friends, and the Sons of
Temperance, for whom he made his first public
speech. He also entered local politics in the
new Republican party. Within a few years he
had made a name for himself as a criminal
lawyer and began to think of marriage.
Hayes's mother chose a girl for him. She was
Lucy Ware Webb, whom Hayes had first met at
his home in Delaware when she was 15. They
became engaged after she was graduated from
Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati and were
married in December 1852. Hayes was then 30.
Lucy, nine years younger, was warmhearted,
popular, and very religious. "A better wife I
never hoped to have," Hayes confided to his
diary. Their first son, Birchard Austin, was
born in 1853.
Hayes, despite his hopes for compromise, on
the issue of the Civic War was a strong
supporter of the federal Union. As soon as the
Civil War broke out and the North called for
troops in April 1861, he became involved. "I
would prefer to go into it if I knew I was to
die or be killed in the course of it, than to
live through and after it without taking any
part in it," he wrote in his diary. For the
next four years he served ably in the Union
Army.
Hayes was nominated and elected to Congress
while still in the army, but he refused to
leave his command until the war was over. He
took his seat in the House in December 1865
and was reelected in 1866. He made few
speeches and took no part in the bitter
debates over reconstruction but voted
consistently with his party.
In
1867 and again in 1869 Hayes was elected
governor of Ohio. He proved a capable and
economical administrator. He took great
interest in prison reform and in hospitals for
the mentally ill. His beloved sister Fanny had
been hospitalized more than once for mental
illness.
In
1873 Hayes declared he was finished with
politics and moved his family to his uncle's
house at Fremont, called Spiegel Grove. His
uncle died the next year and left the bulk of
his large estate (chiefly land) to Hayes. The
Hayeses now had five children (three had died
in childhood). The oldest boys, Birchard,
Webb, and Rutherford, were at college. At home
were Fanny, seven; and Scott Russell, four.
Hayes was the leading citizen of Fremont and
was listed in the directory as a "capitalist."
Hayes's retirement was brief. After one year
he was persuaded to run for Congress; but the
Democrats swept the country in 1874 and he was
defeated. Ohio itself had elected a Democratic
governor in 1873. The Republicans, knowing
Hayes to be a good vote getter, nominated him
for governor again in 1875. Hayes's success in
a hard-fought campaign made him a presidential
possibility in 1876.
During the election of 1876 James G.
Blaine of Maine, speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, was the leading contender for
the Republican presidential nomination.
However, a congressional investigating
committee had recently charged Blaine with
using his political influence to benefit a
railroad company. The Republican national
convention therefore nominated Hayes for
president. Congressman William A. Wheeler of
New York was nominated for vice president. The
Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden, reform
governor of New York, who had broken the
notorious Tweed ring, which had corrupted
politics in New York City. The Greenback
Party, representing the interests of
debt-ridden Midwestern and Southern farmers,
nominated industrialist and philanthropist
Peter Cooper of New York. When the votes came
in, Tilden won the popular vote by a thin
margin of 250,000 votes. However, both Hayes
and Tilden claimed victory in the electoral
votes. To settle the dispute, the Electoral
Commission of 1877 was appointed, consisting
of five U.S. senators, five U.S.
representatives, and five U.S. Supreme Court
justices. Seven of these men were Democrats,
and seven were Republicans. The 15th member
was expected to be Justice David Davis, who
had no clear party affiliation. Before the
commission voted, however, Davis resigned from
the Court to become senator from Illinois. A
Republican justice filled his place, giving
the Republicans a majority on the commission.
It awarded all the disputed electoral votes to
Hayes, who was declared elected by 185 to
Tilden's 184. It is thought that the Southern
Democrats and the Hayes supporters reached a
friendly agreement, called the Compromise of
1877, even before the commission voted.
According to this theory, Hayes, if elected,
was to withdraw troops from South Carolina and
Louisiana, put through appropriations to
rebuild the war-torn South, and name a
Southerner to the Cabinet.
The
presidency was weak and Congress strong when
Hayes moved into the White House. Powerful
senators had impeached President Johnson and
overawed Grant.
They
expected to control Hayes also and were by no
means pleased with the tone of his inaugural
address. The people of the country, however,
applauded his much-quoted statement, "He
serves his party best who serves his country
best."
Hayes incurred the enmity of many Republican
leaders by carrying out the "bargain." The
"carpetbag" governments to which Hayes owed
his election at once collapsed, and the South
thereafter became solidly Democratic.
In
April 1877 the last Federal troops were
withdrawn from the South, and the long bitter
period of reconstruction that followed the
Civil War was at last ended.
Hayes next attacked the corrupt "spoils
system"--the giving of government jobs to
party workers as a reward for securing votes.
In this he had the help of his secretary of
the interior, Carl Schurz. Congress refused to
pass civil service legislation or to
appropriate money for examinations; but Hayes
did succeed in awakening public interest, and
civil service reform clubs sprang up in many
states.
The
worst abuses of the spoils system were in the
customhouse of New York City. Hayes incurred
the bitter enmity of Senator Roscoe Conkling
of New York by dismissing Conkling's political
friends from the top posts. One of the
officials he dismissed was Chester A. Arthur,
collector of the port of New York, who was
later to become the twenty-first President of
the United States. The other official he
dismissed, Alonzo B. Cornell, became governor
of New York in 1879.
The Money Question:
Hayes was anxious to return the country to the
gold standard by carrying out the provisions
of the Specie Resumption Act passed in Grant's
administration. This act called for making
United States paper money redeemable in coin
by Jan. 1, 1879. Hayes's secretary of the
treasury, John Sherman of Ohio, sold bonds to
build up a gold reserve to be used on the day
of resumption of specie payments.
In
Congress there were inflationist groups in
both the major parties that wanted plentiful,
cheap money. There was also the small
Greenback party, which demanded a larger
circulation of paper money. These groups
passed, over the president's veto, the
Bland-Allison Act of 1878, which required the
secretary of the treasury to purchase not less
than 2 million dollars of silver bullion each
month and coin it into dollars. Silver dollars
had not been coined since 1806. Because of
their weight and bulk they proved unpopular,
and most did not circulate but remained in the
treasury.
Resumption of specie payments began quietly on
Jan. 1, 1879. Knowledge that every paper
dollar was worth a gold dollar gave confidence
to the businessmen, and the run on the
treasury that had been expected did not take
place. Foreign trade revived, and the
depression began to lift. When Hayes left the
White House the country was again prosperous.
EVENTS
DURING HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 1877-81
Civil
Service reform begun.
Federal
troops removed from the South and
Reconstruction ended (1877).
Halifax
award in fisheries dispute with Great Britain
(1877).
Miners'
strikes ("Molly McGuire" outrages) and
railroad strikes (1876-77).
Right of
states to regulate railroad rates upheld
(1877).
Greenback
party at height of its power (1878).
Bland-Allison Act passed over the president's
veto (1878).
Specie
payments resumed (1879).
Cabinet and Supreme Court of Rutherford B.
Hayes
Vice-President. William Almon Wheeler
(1877-81).
Secretary of State. William M. Evarts
(1877-81).
Secretary of the Treasury. John Sherman
(1877-81).
Secretaries of War. George W. McCrary
(1877-79); Alexander Ramsey (1879-81).
Attorney General. Charles Devens (1877-81).
Secretaries of the Navy. Richard W. Thompson
(1877-80); Nathan Goff (1881).
Postmasters General. David M. Key (1877-80);
Horace Maynard (1880-81).
Secretary of the Interior. Carl Schurz
(1877-81).
Appointments to the Supreme Court. John
Marshall Harlan (1877-1911); William B. Woods
(1881-87).
Fellow-Citizens:
WE have assembled to repeat the public
ceremonial, begun by Washington, observed by
all my predecessors, and now
a
time-honored custom, which marks the
commencement of a new term of the Presidential
office. Called to the duties of
this
great trust, I proceed, in compliance with
usage, to announce some of the leading
principles, on the subjects that now
chiefly engage the public attention, by which
it is my desire to be guided in the discharge
of those duties. I shall not
undertake to lay down irrevocably principles
or measures of administration, but rather to
speak of the motives which
should
animate us, and to suggest certain important
ends to be attained in accordance with our
institutions and essential to
the
welfare of our country.
1
At
the outset of the discussions which preceded
the recent Presidential election it seemed to
me fitting that I should fully
make
known my sentiments in regard to several of
the important questions which then appeared to
demand the
consideration of the country. Following the
example, and in part adopting the language, of
one of my predecessors, I wish
now,
when every motive for misrepresentation has
passed away, to repeat what was said before
the election, trusting that
my
countrymen will candidly weigh and understand
it, and that they will feel assured that the
sentiments declared in
accepting the nomination for the Presidency
will be the standard of my conduct in the path
before me, charged, as I now
am,
with the grave and difficult task of carrying
them out in the practical administration of
the Government so far as
depends, under the Constitution and laws on
the Chief Executive of the nation.
2
The
permanent pacification of the country upon
such principles and by such measures as will
secure the complete
protection of all its citizens in the free
enjoyment of all their constitutional rights
is now the one subject in our public affairs
which
all thoughtful and patriotic citizens regard
as of supreme importance.
3
Many
of the calamitous efforts of the tremendous
revolution which has passed over the Southern
States still remain. The
immeasurable benefits which will surely
follow, sooner or later, the hearty and
generous acceptance of the legitimate
results of that revolution have not yet been
realized. Difficult and embarrassing questions
meet us at the threshold of this
subject. The people of those States are still
impoverished, and the inestimable blessing of
wise, honest, and peaceful local
self-government is not fully enjoyed.
Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to
the cause of this condition of things,
the
fact is clear that in the progress of events
the time has come when such government is the
imperative necessity
required by all the varied interests, public
and private, of those States. But it must not
be forgotten that only a local
government which recognizes and maintains
inviolate the rights of all is a true
self-government.
4
With
respect to the two distinct races whose
peculiar relations to each other have brought
upon us the deplorable
complications and perplexities which exist in
those States, it must be a government which
guards the interests of both
races
carefully and equally. It must be a government
which submits loyally and heartily to the
Constitution and the
laws—the laws of the nation and the laws of
the States themselves—accepting and obeying
faithfully the whole
Constitution as it is.
5
Resting upon this sure and substantial
foundation, the superstructure of beneficent
local governments can be built up, and
not
otherwise. In furtherance of such obedience to
the letter and the spirit of the Constitution,
and in behalf of all that its
attainment implies, all so-called party
interests lose their apparent importance, and
party lines may well be permitted to
fade
into insignificance. The question we have to
consider for the immediate welfare of those
States of the Union is the
question of government or no government; of
social order and all the peaceful industries
and the happiness that belongs to
it, or
a return to barbarism. It is a question in
which every citizen of the nation is deeply
interested, and with respect to
which
we ought not to be, in a partisan sense,
either Republicans or Democrats, but
fellow-citizens and fellowmen, to
whom
the interests of a common country and a common
humanity are dear.
6
The
sweeping revolution of the entire labor system
of a large portion of our country and the
advance of 4,000,000
people
from a condition of servitude to that of
citizenship, upon an equal footing with their
former masters, could not
occur
without presenting problems of the gravest
moment, to be dealt with by the emancipated
race, by their former
masters, and by the General Government, the
author of the act of emancipation. That it was
a wise, just, and providential
act,
fraught with good for all concerned, is not
generally conceded throughout the country.
That a moral obligation rests
upon
the National Government to employ its
constitutional power and influence to
establish the rights of the people it has
emancipated, and to protect them in the
enjoyment of those rights when they are
infringed or assailed, is also generally
admitted.
7
The
evils which afflict the Southern States can
only be removed or remedied by the united and
harmonious efforts of
both
races, actuated by motives of mutual sympathy
and regard; and while in duty bound and fully
determined to protect
the
rights of all by every constitutional means at
the disposal of my Administration, I am
sincerely anxious to use every
legitimate influence in favor of honest and
efficient local self-government as the true
resource of those States for the
promotion of the contentment and prosperity
of their citizens. In the effort I shall make
to accomplish this purpose I ask
the
cordial cooperation of all who cherish an
interest in the welfare of the country,
trusting that party ties and the prejudice
of
race will be freely surrendered in behalf of
the great purpose to be accomplished. In the
important work of restoring
the
South it is not the political situation alone
that merits attention. The material
development of that section of the country
has
been arrested by the social and political
revolution through which it has passed, and
now needs and deserves the
considerate care of the National Government
within the just limits prescribed by the
Constitution and wise public
economy.
8
But
at the basis of all prosperity, for that as
well as for every other part of the country,
lies the improvement of the
intellectual and moral condition of the
people. Universal suffrage should rest upon
universal education. To this end, liberal
and
permanent provision should be made for the
support of free schools by the State
governments, and, if need be,
supplemented by legitimate aid from national
authority.
9
Let
me assure my countrymen of the Southern States
that it is my earnest desire to regard and
promote their truest
interest—the interests of the white and of
the colored people both and equally—and to put
forth my best efforts in behalf
of a
civil policy which will forever wipe out in
our political affairs the color line and the
distinction between North and
South,
to the end that we may have not merely a
united North or a united South, but a united
country.
10
I
ask the attention of the public to the
paramount necessity of reform in our civil
service—a reform not merely as to
certain abuses and practices of so-called
official patronage which have come to have the
sanction of usage in the several
Departments of our Government, but a change
in the system of appointment itself; a reform
that shall be thorough, radical,
and
complete; a return to the principles and
practices of the founders of the Government.
They neither expected nor
desired from public officers any partisan
service. They meant that public officers
should owe their whole service to the
Government and to the people. They meant that
the officer should be secure in his tenure as
long as his personal character
remained untarnished and the performance of
his duties satisfactory. They held that
appointments to office were not to be
made
nor expected merely as rewards for partisan
services, nor merely on the nomination of
members of Congress, as
being
entitled in any respect to the control of such
appointments.
11
The
fact that both the great political parties of
the country, in declaring their principles
prior to the election, gave a
prominent place to the subject of reform of
our civil service, recognizing and strongly
urging its necessity, in terms almost
identical in their specific import with those
I have here employed, must be accepted as a
conclusive argument in behalf of
these
measures. It must be regarded as the
expression of the united voice and will of the
whole country upon this subject,
and
both political parties are virtually pledged
to give it their unreserved support.
12
The
President of the United States of necessity
owes his election to office to the suffrage
and zealous labors of a political
party,
the members of which cherish with ardor and
regard as of essential importance the
principles of their party
organization; but he should strive to be
always mindful of the fact that he serves his
party best who serves the country
best.
13
In
furtherance of the reform we seek, and in
other important respects a change of great
importance, I recommend an
amendment to the Constitution prescribing a
term of six years for the Presidential office
and forbidding a reelection.
14
With
respect to the financial condition of the
country, I shall not attempt an extended
history of the embarrassment and
prostration which we have suffered during the
past three years. The depression in all our
varied commercial and
manufacturing interests throughout the
country, which began in September, 1873, still
continues. It is very gratifying,
however, to be able to say that there are
indications all around us of a coming change
to prosperous times.
15
Upon
the currency question, intimately connected,
as it is, with this topic, I may be permitted
to repeat here the
statement made in my letter of acceptance,
that in my judgment the feeling of uncertainty
inseparable from an irredeemable
paper
currency, with its fluctuation of values, is
one of the greatest obstacles to a return to
prosperous times. The only
safe
paper currency is one which rests upon a coin
basis and is at all times and promptly
convertible into coin.
16
I
adhere to the views heretofore expressed by me
in favor of Congressional legislation in
behalf of an early resumption of
specie
payments, and I am satisfied not only that
this is wise, but that the interests, as well
as the public sentiment, of the
country imperatively demand it.
17
Passing from these remarks upon the condition
of our own country to consider our relations
with other lands, we are
reminded by the international complications
abroad, threatening the peace of Europe, that
our traditional rule of
noninterference in the affairs of foreign
nations has proved of great value in past
times and ought to be strictly observed.
18
The
policy inaugurated by my honored predecessor,
President Grant, of submitting to arbitration
grave questions in
dispute between ourselves and foreign powers
points to a new, and incomparably the best,
instrumentality for the
preservation of peace, and will, as I
believe, become a beneficent example of the
course to be pursued in similar
emergencies by other nations.
19
If,
unhappily, questions of difference should at
any time during the period of my
Administration arise between the United
States
and any foreign government, it will certainly
be my disposition and my hope to aid in their
settlement in the same
peaceful and honorable way, thus securing to
our country the great blessings of peace and
mutual good offices with all the
nations of the world.
20
Fellow-citizens, we have reached the close of
a political contest marked by the excitement
which usually attends the
contests between great political parties
whose members espouse and advocate with
earnest faith their respective creeds.
The
circumstances were, perhaps, in no respect
extraordinary save in the closeness and the
consequent uncertainty of the
result.
21
For
the first time in the history of the country
it has been deemed best, in view of the
peculiar circumstances of the case,
that
the objections and questions in dispute with
reference to the counting of the electoral
votes should be referred to the
decision of a tribunal appointed for this
purpose.
22
That
tribunal—established by law for this sole
purpose; its members, all of them, men of
long-established reputation for
integrity and intelligence, and, with the
exception of those who are also members of the
supreme judiciary, chosen equally
from
both political parties; its deliberations
enlightened by the research and the arguments
of able counsel—was entitled
to the
fullest confidence of the American people. Its
decisions have been patiently waited for, and
accepted as legally
conclusive by the general judgment of the
public. For the present, opinion will widely
vary as to the wisdom of the several
conclusions announced by that tribunal. This
is to be anticipated in every instance where
matters of dispute are made the
subject of arbitration under the forms of
law. Human judgment is never unerring, and is
rarely regarded as otherwise than
wrong
by the unsuccessful party in the contest.
23
The
fact that two great political parties have in
this way settled a dispute in regard to which
good men differ as to the
facts
and the law no less than as to the proper
course to be pursued in solving the question
in controversy is an occasion
for
general rejoicing.
24
Upon
one point there is entire unanimity in public
sentiment—that conflicting claims to the
Presidency must be amicably
and
peaceably adjusted, and that when so adjusted
the general acquiescence of the nation ought
surely to follow.
25
It
has been reserved for a government of the
people, where the right of suffrage is
universal, to give to the world the first
example in history of a great nation, in the
midst of the struggle of opposing parties for
power, hushing its party tumults to
yield
the issue of the contest to adjustment
according to the forms of law.
26
Looking for the guidance of that Divine Hand
by which the destinies of nations and
individuals are shaped, I call upon
you,
Senators, Representatives, judges,
fellow-citizens, here and everywhere, to unite
with me in an earnest effort to
secure
to our country the blessings, not only of
material prosperity, but of justice, peace,
and union—a union depending
not
upon the constraint of force, but upon the
loving devotion of a free people; "and that
all things may be so ordered and
settled upon the best and surest foundations
that peace and happiness, truth and justice,
religion and piety, may be
established among us for all generations."
27
