Which of the following was true about Rutherford B Hayes

Today marks the birthday of one of the most controversial Presidents, Rutherford B. Hayes, who took office amid a constitutional crisis and left office defending his reputation.

Historians rank Hayes in the middle of the pack when it comes to overall performance in office, but Hayes’ legacy will be forever linked to how he was elected.

In 1876, Hayes was a Civil War hero and Ohio governor who was selected as a dark horse candidate by the Republicans, instead of another controversial figure, James Blaine.

The Democratic contender, Samuel Tilden of New York, was widely expected to win the general election against Hayes, because the nation had been in crisis under the outgoing Republican president, Ulysses S. Grant.

However, when Election Day came, neither candidate had a majority of the electoral votes. Tilden had easily won the popular vote, but he needed one more electoral vote.

However, in four states, each party claimed that their candidate had won the state, which obviously could not be true. If the Democratic reports of the election were accepted, Tilden would be the President. If the Republican reports were accepted, Hayes would be the President.

The Constitution didn’t account for this scenario: There was no provision for settling a dispute involving rival electors. An additional problem was that the Vice President needed to certify the election. But Henry Wilson had died a year earlier, and there was no sitting Vice President.

A special Electoral Commission of Senators, House members, and Supreme Court justices was appointed by Congress to settle the dispute and avert a constitutional crisis before March, when a new president was supposed to take office.

The commission awarded all of the electoral votes of the four disputed states to Hayes in an 8-7 vote. The Democrats allegedly agreed to the decision in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from South Carolina and Louisiana, marking the end of Reconstruction in the South, in what is called the Compromise of 1877.

The second part of Hayes’ legacy was the fallout from Reconstruction’s end and the subsequent enactment of Jim Crow laws mandating racial segregation in the South. Hayes did remove the last federal troops from the South, which has hurt his reputation with some historians. But others said Hayes had no choice, and most federal troops had already left the South during the Grant administration.

After his controversial election, Hayes promised not to run for re-election, and he kept that promise, helping to restore the nation’s faith in the office of the presidency. He went on to attack patronage in the nation’s civil service system. Hayes succeeded in firing the powerful Collector of the Port of New York, Chester Arthur, in 1878, in an epic battle with New York power broker Roscoe Conkling. (Arthur would become President in 1881.) Under Hayes, the American economy also recovered from the disastrous Panic of 1873.

Today, Hayes is little remembered in the United States, but he is treated as a national hero in one nation: Paraguay. Hayes agreed to negotiate a long-held border dispute between Argentina and Paraguay, and the decision gave Paraguay 60 percent of its land.

So if you go to Paraguay, there is a state named after the 19th President called Presidente Hayes. The region celebrates Presidente Hayes day on November 12 annually and even has a soccer team named for Hayes as well as a Hayes museum for visitors.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

Rutherford B. Hayes, America's 19th President, served as chief executive at the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the modern industrial age. He was well suited to the task, having earned a steadfast reputation for integrity throughout his career as a soldier and a statesman. Upstanding, moral, and honest, Hayes was ironically elected after one of the most lengthy, bitterly disputed, and corrupt presidential elections in American history.

Hayes's father ran a successful farm and whiskey distillery in Ohio but died ten weeks before Rutherford was born. Raised by his single mother Sophia, Rud developed a very close relationship with his brilliant sister, Fanny, who encouraged him to achieve the prominent career denied to her because she was a woman. With the help of his wealthy uncle, Sardis Birchard, Hayes attended Kenyon College and Harvard Law School. He then made a name for himself as a successful criminal defense lawyer in Cincinnati. There he married Lucy Ware Webb. Lucy advocated temperance and abolition and was a strong Methodist who placed more emphasis on good works than on being "born again." She deeply influenced her husband in what became a close marital bond. After marriage, Hayes became a stronger antislavery advocate and a teetotaler following his move to the White House, and he regularly attended religious services with Lucy, though he never joined a church.

Patriot of the Union

When the Civil War broke out, Hayes was already nearly 40 years old and the father of three children, with a fourth on the way. Nevertheless, he was one of the first three-year volunteers, stating that he would rather die in the conflict than live having done nothing for the Union. Using his political connections, Hayes was appointed a major in the 23rd Ohio Volunteers. An officer with no military experience, he learned quickly, worked hard, and with his "intense and ferocious" demeanor on the battlefield gained the respect of the enlisted men and his superiors. At the Battle of Opequon Creek, for example, Hayes led the charge through a morass, turning the tide of battle. 

Wounded five times in the war, Hayes kept leading his men into battle. By the end of the conflict, he was a brigadier general—later breveted major general for "gallant and distinguished services." While part of a military campaign in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864, he was nominated for the U.S. House of Representatives. Hayes refused to return to take to the stump, stating that "an officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress ought to be scalped." That statement was worth all the speeches he could have made. Hayes won the election, and the war was over before the first session of Congress met on in December 1865.

Road to the White House

After the Civil War, Hayes served as member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1865-1867) and then as governor of Ohio (1868-1872, 1876-1877). By 1876, Republicans recognized that the scrupulous Hayes—a war hero from a populous swing state and a candidate acceptable to the major factions in the Republican Party--was presidential material. His simple "availability" played a major role in ultimately securing Hayes the nomination, but he nevertheless faced a difficult campaign. The nation was in the midst of an economic depression, the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant was tarnished by scandals, and Democratic opponent Samuel J. Tilden of New York was a superb political organizer with a reputation for reform. 

On Election Day, Tilden garnered more than 250,000 popular votes, but the vote in three southern states was close enough for both Republicans and Democrats to claim them—and with those states, the presidency. To decide who carried those states, Congress set up a special commission that awarded the disputed electoral college votes to Hayes, making him the winner. Outraged and frustrated, his opponents dubbed Hayes "Rutherfraud" and "His Fraudulency." Indeed, historians and political pundits (especially after the extremely fraught and surprisingly similar presidential election of 2000) have long argued over the extent to which Hayes became President as the result of a supposed “fraud of the century”—or, at the least, a “corrupt bargain” to end Reconstruction. Despite these debates, it is doubtful that Hayes struck any type of explicit bargain or deal—even if the result of his becoming President did result in the final effective abandonment of federal Reconstruction. 

The Hayes Presidency

Hayes's inaugural address was conciliatory in tone and addressed specific problems. To alleviate hard times, he backed existing legislation that called for the nation's return to the gold standard by 1879. To eliminate political corruption, he advocated a nonpartisan reformed civil service, observing that "he serves his party best who serves his country best." To conciliate white southerners, Hayes said southern states should have local self-government, but that those governments must obey the entire Constitution, including the Reconstruction amendments. Perhaps because Hayes had combat experience, he wished to arbitrate disputes with other nations rather than going to war.

As President, Hayes sought to implement the ideas and policies of his inaugural address. He had previously supported radical Reconstruction legislation that aimed to secure the rights of black citizens. By 1877, however, Hayes believed that military occupation had bred hatred among white southerners and had prevented the nation from reuniting. Actually, Reconstruction was virtually over when Hayes took office in March 1877, with federal troops protecting Republican governments only in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Columbia, South Carolina. Reconstruction ended completely when, within two months of his inauguration, Hayes ordered those federal troops to their barracks--but only after Louisiana and South Carolina authorities pledged to respect the civil and voting rights of African Americans. These promises were, unsurprisingly, soon broken, and white supremacists and the Democratic Party asserted total dominance over the South. By the 1890s, the Democratic hold on the South resulted in a nearly complete denial of voting rights for blacks and a segregated society until the 1960s.

Hayes was a patient and a gradual reformer. He feared that sweeping changes were often not lasting and was satisfied with smaller incremental gains. He had great faith in education as the key to prosperity and harmonious relations among diverse racial and ethnic groups. He did not attempt to reform the entire civil service but concentrated on one major office, demonstrating that open competitive examinations did, in fact, reap better workers. Likewise, he did not attack all senators who used elections to reward their supporters, but only New York’s Roscoe Conkling, whom he considered imperious and obnoxious.

The death of Abraham Lincoln, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and the failures of Ulysses S. Grant had left the presidency in a weakened state. Hayes helped to restore the power of the executive branch by defeating Conkling and the idea of "senatorial courtesy," which claimed for senators the right to appoint civil servants in their states. He also defeated an attempt by the Democratic-controlled Congress to force him to accept unwanted legislation by attaching amendments—riders—to necessary appropriations bills. By the time Hayes left office, senators could suggest, but not dictate, the appointment of officers; at the same time, the veto power of the President remained intact. Hayes therefore helped restore prestige to the presidency, heal some of the wounds left by the Civil War, and strengthen the Republican Party sufficiently to win the election of 1880.

In his very active retirement Hayes continued to struggle for equal educational opportunities for all children. He also was active in the prison reform movement.