Rutherford B. Hayes

The inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877 marked one of the most tragic turning points in all of American history. Only a few weeks into his presidency, Hayes ended Reconstruction, withdrawing federal troops from the south and placing the enforcement of civil rights laws in the hands of individual southern states. Reconstruction ended and the Jim Crow era began. It wouldn't be until the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson that black Americans would start to enjoy another wave of significant progress and acquisition of rights. Before that point, segregation, violence, and the suppression of voting rights marked the day-to-day life of just about every single black resident of states like Alabama, Missouri, Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas. For this reason, many people give Hayes a low ranking by default. However, this isn't fair, as the conditions in which Hayes terminated Reconstruction are far more complex than often portrayed. To really understand why Hayes ended Reconstruction, we must understand the election in which he won the White House: The 1876 election.

In 1876, Hayes, who was serving as governor of Ohio at the time, was made the Republican nominee in that year's election. Meanwhile, the Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden. The election was extremely close, reflecting the divisions the country was currently suffering through. Because of this, when a mere 4 states - Florida, Oregon, South Carolina, and Louisiana - sent in multiple, conflicting ballots proclaiming different things about who they endorsed in the election, the actual winner of the race became unclear. So, Congress set up a committee to decide who the new president would be. The committee was composed of 15 members. Among them were 5 members of the House of Representatives, 5 Senators, and 5 members of the Supreme Court. 7 were Republicans, 7 were Democrats, and 1 was independent.

For still unclear reasons, the independent member resigned from the committee, being replaced by a Republican. Hence, Hayes won the committee's love, being designated president-elect. With this, people became terrified that the south would secede or rebel in response to Hayes' victory, as they were extremely close to getting the first Democrat since 1856 - James Buchanan from 20 years ago! - into the White House, but had that opportunity taken. To avoid this, delegates from northern and southern states met at the Wormley Hotel in Washington DC and brokered the Compromise of 1877: The south agreed to let Hayes become president. In exchange, Hayes had to appoint at least one southerner to his cabinet, to support the construction of a transcontinental railroad through the southern rather than northern half of the United States, and, most importantly, to end Reconstruction. Hayes agreed to these conditions, being inaugurated on March 4, 1877, and removing federal troops on March 31, 1877.

Had Hayes had a real choice and still decided to end Reconstruction, he would be much, much lower on my list. The end of Reconstruction was one of the most disastrous episodes in US history. 90 years of segregation commenced, forcing black southerners to endure almost a century of seeing their human and Constitutional rights abridged and unenforced. Economic opportunity, optimism, and freedom were replaced by poverty, melancholy, and thousand-pound metal balls bound to invincible chains. However, Hayes did not have a choice. If he didn't agree to the Compromise of 1877, then Tilden would become president and likely end Reconstruction anyway. I think Hayes realized this and decided the country would be doomed regardless, so he might as well reduce the hardship by ensuring it was a Republican, rather than a Democrat, who ended Reconstruction. Also, Ulysses S. Grant endorsed civil rights at the same time that he failed to stem corruption in his cabinet and the Panic of 1873, which had already made Reconstruction unpopular. If it didn't end under Hayes, it likely would end under his successor.

Additionally, Hayes' civil rights record was very good outside of ending Reconstruction, a fact that was by no means Hayes' fault. For instance, Hayes responded to the activism of a female lawyer named Bella Lockwood by signing a law that permitted female lawyers to argue cases before the Supreme Court. Under the Indian Removal Act (an 1830 federal statute allowing the president to broker treaties giving Native American tribes land west of the Mississippi River in exchange for US control of their historic homelands east of the Mississippi River), the federal government forcibly removed an indigenous tribe called the Ponca from their historic homeland. In the winter of 1878, a Ponca chief named Standing Bear found out that his son had died, and walked through a vicious snowstorm to bury his son in the old Ponca homeland. On the way there, he was arrested, sparking public outrage. In response, Hayes allowed the Ponca to return to the lands they had lived on for centuries, correcting an error that had hurt the Ponca for decades. Hayes did restrict immigration from Mexico and China, which I'm critical of.

Hayes' assistance toward women and the Ponca tribe share one factor in common: They were both done in response to public pressure. Had Bella Lockwood never lambasted federal authorities in the way she did, Hayes never would have extended the ability to argue before the Supreme Court to female as well as male lawyers. Had the Standing Bear incident and the resulting popular discontent never taken place, Hayes would have made the same mistake as his predecessors, the mistake of forcing the Ponca to continue their miserable lives away from the land they loved the best. However, I still give Hayes credit for these things. Many presidents do things we give them credit for solely in response to public pressure (such as JFK proposing the law ending segregation or Theodore Roosevelt signing the Pure Food and Drug Act), so why not Hayes? It's also important not to mistake Hayes for a flexible puddle of clay that would mesh with whatever the public demanded. When southern Congressmen began attaching racist and discriminatory clauses to important economic legislation in the War of the Riders, Hayes was steadfast in vetoing these bills even when it hurt his popularity. Hayes knew that black rights meant more than white votes.

Besides ending Reconstruction, another thing Hayes is often criticized for is using federal forces to suppress the Great Strike of 1877. The Panic of 1873 was the main cause of this strike. Following the example of Germany, President Grant had switched out the silver standard for the gold standard, which caused a deflation crisis in the silver market as silver flooded out of bank vaults and into private shops. An inflation crisis also began as the opposite happened in the gold market since gold was being exorcised from the general economy and contained within bank vaults. This, coupled with the fact that gold's rarity caused a decline in the currency supply, caused a long, severe recession known as the Panic of 1873. The Panic of 1873 encouraged the mass adoption of austerity, spurring the Great Strike of 1877.

What's important to understand is that the Great Strike of 1877, unlike the vast majority of labor demonstrations, was violent. I still disagree with the use of federal military force to quell the strike, but Hayes' decision becomes far more understandable when the violent nature of the protests becomes apparent. Additionally, Hayes was a lot more restrained in his response to the Great Strike of 1877 than many claim. For instance, he didn't station troops to suppress the strike across the entire country all at once. Instead, he sent them to the states individually, one at a time. He would only send troops to a state if the state's governor explained that the local militia was unable to cope with the strike. Hayes also resisted public pressure to have these troops function as replacement workers until the strike ended. Since Hayes refused to do this, he preserved the pressure placed by the strike on corporations to treat their workers better.

Hayes vetoed the Bland-Allison Act. This bill required the federal government to buy anywhere from $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 worth of silver each month from southern and western mines. From there, the Bland-Allison proposal forced the mint to use this silver to conjure up new coins. I consider Hayes' decision to veto this bill a positive. By forcing the government to buy all that silver every single month, the Bland-Allison Act would further increase the national debt in times when federal authorities were struggling with income and revenue. Additionally, since the Bland-Allison Act mandated the production of such a specific amount of money each month, it would intensify inflation. Sadly, Hayes' veto was overridden, but he still deserves credit for trying to save America from this wretched bill.

Foreign policy wasn't that big of a priority for Hayes. However, he did have one huge accomplishment in this field: During the War of the Tripple Alliance from 1864 to 1870, Paraguay lost around 3/4 of its land to seizure by Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. Hayes intervened in the resulting diplomatic crisis, convincing Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to restore Paraguay's former territorial integrity. For this reason, Hayes is beloved by Paraguayans, with many statues of our 19th president sprinkled across Paraguay and dozens of roads and buildings named in Hayes' honor. Domestically, Hayes was adamant about fighting corruption. Andrew Jackson had engineered a practice known as the spoils system, where politicians would appoint lower officials based not on real qualifications but on their support for the incumbent. Hayes worked to dismiss many of the people benefitting from this policy, including future President and then-New York customs collector Chester A. Arthur! Theodore Roosevelt's father was even a proposed replacement.

In 1878, Hayes signed the National Quarantine Act. This law improved the sanitation and public health of the United States by requiring a government agency known as the Marine Hospitality Service to inspect ships entering the US for new diseases and illnesses. If anything threatening to disrupt the health of Americans was spotted, the ship would be denied entry. Also in 1878, Hayes signed one of the most important laws in American history regarding the preservation of our civil liberties: The Posse Comitatus Act. This statute, which is still in effect, prohibits soldiers and military units from aiding in law enforcement unless expressly told to do so by the rest of the government. Through the Posse Comitatus Act, Hayes helped protect Americans from militarism and the overabundance of the armed forces in public life, both of which are strong threats to personal liberty.

Overall, I consider Hayes a top 10 president. Ending Reconstruction, while one of the most tragic decisions in American history with some of the most potent consequences, was not his fault. He was forced to do such a horrendous thing by bizarre circumstances that would degrade civil rights no matter what happened. He may have restricted immigration, but he also let the Ponca Native Americans return to their historic homeland, resisted southern arm-twisting, and allowed female lawyers to argue in front of the Supreme Court. He tried to reduce inflation, fought corruption, helped Paraguay, revive its territorial integrity, ensured the military would play no role in law enforcement, and advanced public health. He also implemented a far more reasonable and measured response to the Great Strike of 1877 than some would have you believe. I rank Hayes this high not because he had any amazing accomplishments on the level of Washington, Lincoln, or FDR, but because he was the closest thing we've ever had to a flawless presidency.