Show n FIVE MINUTE CHATS ABOUT OUR presidents I 1 by JAMES MORGAN ONLY DISPUTED ELECTION 0 0 Q 1822 oct 2 birth of rutherford B hayes at delaware 0 1852 married lucy ware webb 1861 major in ohio volunteers 1864 brigadier general 1865 67 member of congress 1867 71 governor of ohio 1876 june 15 nominated for president by republican national convention at cincinnati 1877 jan 30 electoral commas slon appointed march 2 hayes declared elected march 5 inaugurated I 1 president aged 54 0 HE tidal wave which swept down THE the republicans in n the congles elections 0 of 1874 still was run nine ning so strongly in the campaign of 1870 1876 that rutherford B hayes himself never was confident ot of his nor was the country surprised to read in the headlines the morning after election that tilden the democratic candidate had won non the race the republican nation nil il headquarters in new york city shut up shop early election night and the lican camp campaign aien aign managers went to bed resigned to defeat tilden was nas elected on the face of the returns with electoral votes to for hayes and had also a R 2 U 0 rutherford B hayes plurality of in the popular vote ills election indeed rested on the same basis as cleveland a in 1884 and wll wil sons in 1910 1916 but in 1876 the had not set et acquiesced in tha suppression of the negro vote in the south and it if the negroes had not been persuaded by arlous means from going to the polls tilden could not have been elected both the republicans and the dem claimed to have carried louisiana south carolina and florida and from those states two sets of returns were sent to washington who should decide between them the constitution provide provides merely that the president of the senate shall in the presence of the senate and house open the certificates fi and the me otes shall then be counted but when there are two sets of votes who rho shill say which shall be counted the president of the sen ate 11 answered the republicans be ause pause the president of the senate was a republican the two houses bald paid the democrats because one of the houses waa was democratic compromise was mas necessary to save the government from chaos and th tha country from another civil war the bitter dispute was left to 15 men one third of whom were senators and another third were representative 6 equally divided be between teen the parties to guarantee a calm judicial decision the jerna ining third were justices of the supreme court nevertheless the commission proceeded to decide every essential question in favor of hayes by a strict party vote N ote of 8 to 7 alas the partisan zeal of that feverish hour burned just ai fiercely beneath the gown gowns of the justices as under the frock coats of the legislators the judgment of the commission NA was as without force in law until adopted by the two to opposing houses and some disappointed democrats in the house balked at ratifying the decision against tilden but representatives of hayes whispered to certain southern democrate democrats in a secret conference at worm leys hotel that it if they would let the republicans have the presidency the republican president would let them have their own state governments the bargain having been struck it was ras kept after a turbulent night flight session of the house the result of the election was declared at four in the morning of march 1877 just 60 50 hours before the inauguration for three months hayes himself had been alternating from day to day between expectation of success and defeat even when hen he started for washington on march 1 be he was wag still so uncertain that he frankly told the people of columbus in his parting speech I 1 that he lie bg back with them thein anil la the gover governor pOrs a choir again in lesa less wa n it aa lapir 4 f A NEW EPOCH 1877 april president hayes With withdrew deew federal troops from southern state capitals banished alcoholic liquors from the white house june and july ordered out federal troops in the great railway strike 1878 vetoed silver bill which was passed over his veto 1879 specie payments resumed 1893 jan 17 death 0 of f hayes at fremont 0 0 aged 70 0 C HE s serves erves his party best who serves his country best avith those watchwords hayes had sacrificed himself and his tion to reunite north and south to cleanse the civil service and to regenerate the republican party so qui etly etia so coldly so did he go about all those great objects that he remained to the end of hii hi term one of the most most underestimated pre presidents sI dents the republican leaders hating him as an apostate and the democrats ing him as a fraud he ile selected one of the most dis cabinets in history but he did it without consulting party leaders or considering the claims of factions and the offended senate threatened and muttered tor for nearly a week neek before it confirmed the noal nations to the disgust of practical politicians lie be threw thren away anay a n high class foreign mission on a man like james russell lowell a dashed literary teller feller 11 as senator cameron said and he enraged roscoe conk ling by flinging the political machine of the imperious senator out of the federal offices in new york city he ile would also have bare made a start toward the removal of the civil service from politics and spoils mongering had not both parties combined in congress con ress to thwart his every effort in that durec tion hayes boldest challenge to the republican politicians was as his abari aban dorment of their 12 year struggle to reconstruct the southern states from IN 1 ashington ever since congress had seized from LIn loncoln colds s lifeless hand the control of reconstruction the entire proceeding had been a tragic failure hayes came to the presidency in the depths depth s of an industrial prostration when uan wandering dering bands of tramps thronged thron ged the highways of the land and soon fhe the first great railway strike paralyzed transportation between the atlantic and the mississippi in response to the tr cry for more money both parties in congress were for repealing or modi tying the resumption act r and nd for in flating the currency with greenbacks green backs on silver coinage the president firmly resisted such a surrender had not his veto of the silver bin bill been overridden he would have saved the country from taking the farst step on the road that led it to the brink of free silver in 1891 all this independence cost hayes the support of the political time servers and the applause of the partisan press these united in denouncing and ridiculing him ns as a renegade in politics and as a sniveling hypocrite in private life the alte house went dry for the first time under the hayes 0 and the president was held up to con S V n lucy webb hayes tempt as a man too stingy to stand treat and too weak to resist a daml wife hayes found the north and south divided and he left them more wore nearly reunited than they had been in a generation lie ile found the national currency paper and he lie left it gold and silver he found the prosperity of the country at dead low tide and he left it at high tide it fell to hayes to ring down donn the curtain on the epoch of the civil war nar and to usher in another epoch the voices of the past cried out against him but in his complete retirement ti from politics leb be he lived to hear the voice vote of dihe he new time give a more fave favorable rable and a more just verdict on his administration copyright 1110 2230 by james atna morgan |