19th President • 1877–1881
Rutherford B. Hayes
A Union veteran who entered office after the most disputed presidential election of the nineteenth century, Hayes promised reform and reconciliation—but presided over the withdrawal of the last federal troops protecting Reconstruction governments.
The Road to the Presidency
Lawyer, Soldier, and Governor
Hayes built a reputation for personal honesty, military courage, and cautious reform before national politics placed him at the center of an electoral crisis.
Born in Delaware, Ohio, Hayes graduated from Kenyon College and Harvard Law School. He established a law practice in Cincinnati, where he defended fugitive slaves and became active in the emerging Republican Party.
When the Civil War began, Hayes joined the Union Army. He was wounded several times—including a serious injury at the Battle of South Mountain—and rose to brevet major general. He was elected to Congress while still serving but refused to leave the army to campaign.
After the war, Hayes served in the House of Representatives and three terms as governor of Ohio. He supported the Reconstruction amendments, public education, sound money, and reform of government appointments.
Republicans nominated him for president in 1876 as a candidate who could distance the party from scandals of the Grant era without repudiating the Union cause. The resulting contest with Democrat Samuel J. Tilden became one of the most controversial elections in American history.
The Election of 1876
One Electoral Vote Decided the Presidency
Tilden won the national popular vote, but disputed returns from four states prevented an immediate Electoral College result.
Tilden appeared to have 184 undisputed electoral votes—one short of victory—while Hayes had 165. Twenty electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon were contested.
Congress created a fifteen-member Electoral Commission composed of senators, representatives, and Supreme Court justices to resolve the disputed returns.
By a series of 8–7 decisions, the commission awarded all twenty disputed electoral votes to Hayes. Congress accepted the count, producing a 185–184 Hayes victory.
Hayes took the oath privately on March 3 and publicly on March 5. He had already pledged to serve only one term.
Important qualification: Historians often use “Compromise of 1877” to describe informal understandings that helped Democrats accept the result. Evidence supports negotiations over troops, patronage, internal improvements, and Southern self-government, but there was no single signed bargain establishing every alleged term.
Defining Decision
The End of Federal Reconstruction
Hayes sought sectional reconciliation and “home rule,” believing Southern governments should operate without continued military support. The consequences for Black citizenship were profound.
In April 1877, Hayes ordered federal troops away from the statehouses in South Carolina and Louisiana. This did not remove every federal soldier from the South, but it ended military support for the remaining Republican state governments. Democratic governments—often called Redeemer governments—then consolidated control across the former Confederacy.
Hayes said he remained committed to the constitutional rights and education of Black Americans. He appointed some Black officeholders and opposed overt political violence. Yet reconciliation rested largely on assurances from white Southern leaders that they would respect Black civil and voting rights—assurances the federal government lacked the will and machinery to enforce effectively.
Hayes hoped that conciliation could preserve equal citizenship. In practice, removing federal protection helped expose Black voters to intimidation, violence, and an expanding system of white Democratic control.
Reunion without sustained protection
The withdrawal lowered the immediate risk of renewed sectional conflict, but it marked the political end of Reconstruction. The constitutional promises of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments remained, while federal enforcement declined and Southern states moved toward disfranchisement and segregation.
Reform & Executive Power
Challenging the Patronage System
Hayes confronted the practice of treating federal offices as political rewards controlled by party organizations.
Appointments by merit
Hayes issued an executive order barring federal employees from being required to perform political work or manage party organizations. He supported competitive examinations and appointed reformers to investigate major offices.
The New York Custom House
Hayes removed collector Chester A. Arthur and naval officer Alonzo B. Cornell after a struggle with Senator Roscoe Conkling’s political machine. The confrontation anticipated the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act enacted after Hayes left office.
Election-law riders
A Democratic Congress attempted to attach restrictions on federal election enforcement to essential appropriations bills. Hayes vetoed repeated measures, arguing that Congress should not use funding bills to force unrelated policy changes.
Political independence
Because Hayes had promised not to seek reelection, he could challenge elements of his own party without organizing a second presidential campaign. The pledge also limited his long-term political leverage.
Economy & Labor
Hard Money and the Great Railroad Strike
Resumption takes effect
The Specie Payment Resumption Act, signed under Grant, took effect in 1879. The Treasury began redeeming Civil War greenbacks in gold, and public confidence was strong enough that few people demanded conversion.
The Bland–Allison Act
Hayes vetoed an 1878 bill requiring the Treasury to purchase and coin a substantial amount of silver, warning that it threatened monetary stability. Congress overrode him, and the act became law.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Wage cuts triggered nationwide strikes and, in several cities, deadly clashes and destruction. Hayes deployed federal troops after requests from governors and federal officials. The intervention restored rail traffic but aligned national power with employers rather than resolving workers’ economic grievances.
After the Panic of 1873
Hayes inherited the long depression that followed the Panic of 1873. By 1879, business activity and agricultural exports were improving, although the benefits of recovery were unevenly distributed.
Foreign & Native Policy
Peaceful Arbitration and Coercive Expansion
The Paraguay arbitration
Hayes arbitrated a territorial dispute between Paraguay and Argentina after the War of the Triple Alliance. His 1878 ruling awarded the contested Chaco territory to Paraguay, where he remains unusually honored.
Border enforcement
The administration initially authorized U.S. troops to pursue raiders across the Mexican border, creating diplomatic tension. Improved cooperation later allowed Hayes to recognize the government of Porfirio Díaz and withdraw the cross-border order.
Treaty limits
Hayes vetoed the Fifteen Passenger Bill because it conflicted with the Burlingame Treaty. His administration then negotiated the 1880 Angell Treaty, allowing the United States to limit—but not absolutely prohibit—Chinese immigration.
Removal and assimilation
Hayes’s administration continued reservation confinement and assimilation policies. The forced removal of the Ponca and the aftermath of the Nez Perce War exposed the human cost of federal policy, even as public criticism encouraged limited reconsideration in individual cases.
Faith, Family & Character
An Austere White House
Hayes and First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes were Methodists associated with temperance and social reform. Alcohol was generally not served at White House functions, earning Lucy the later nickname “Lemonade Lucy,” although the policy reflected the president’s decision as well as her convictions.
Lucy Hayes was the first presidential wife to hold a college degree. The couple hosted the first White House Easter Egg Roll in 1878 after Congress restricted children from rolling eggs on the Capitol grounds.
After leaving office, Hayes worked on causes including education, prison reform, veterans’ affairs, and support for Black educational institutions. He died at his home, Spiegel Grove, in Fremont, Ohio, on January 17, 1893.
Lasting Legacy
Reform Shadowed by Reconstruction’s End
Civil-Service Reform
Hayes confronted patronage and demonstrated that the president could challenge powerful members of his own party in the name of administrative integrity.
The 1876 Election
His legitimacy was permanently tied to contested state returns, a partisan Electoral Commission, and disputed negotiations surrounding the transfer of power.
Reconstruction Ends
The withdrawal of troop protection from Republican state governments accelerated the abandonment of federal enforcement for Black political rights.
An honest reformer whose reconciliation carried a grave cost
Hayes improved standards of administration, defended executive independence, upheld the one-term promise, and pursued peaceful diplomacy. Yet his presidency cannot be separated from the end of Reconstruction. His confidence that white Southern leaders would protect Black rights proved misplaced, and the federal retreat helped open the way to decades of disfranchisement and segregation.
Sources & Further Reading
Trace the Evidence
- Rutherford B. Hayes — Library of Congress
- Rutherford B. Hayes Biography — Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums
- The Electoral Vote Count of 1876 — U.S. House History
- Historical Electoral College Results — National Archives
- Rutherford B. Hayes — Miller Center, University of Virginia
- Rutherford B. Hayes: Presidential Documents — American Presidency Project
Editorial note: The page distinguishes Hayes’s genuine reform efforts from the disputed process that brought him to office and the consequences of withdrawing federal support from the last Reconstruction governments.