🎩Rutherford B. Hayes

19th President · 1877–1881 · Republican

Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency in the most disputed election in American history. The 1876 contest between Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden produced conflicting returns from three Southern states, and Congress created a special commission to resolve the dispute. Hayes was declared the winner by one electoral vote — 185 to 184 — under the terms of the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reconstruction in the South.

Ohio Governor

Hayes was a Harvard Law graduate, a Union general wounded multiple times in the Civil War, a three-term congressman, and a three-term governor of Ohio when Republicans nominated him as a compromise candidate in 1876. He had a reputation for honesty that offered a welcome contrast to the scandal-ridden Grant administration.

The Disputed Election

On election night 1876, Democrat Samuel Tilden appeared to have won. He led in the popular vote and needed only one more electoral vote to win the presidency. But Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina — all still under Reconstruction governments — sent conflicting electoral returns. Congress created a 15-member Electoral Commission to resolve the dispute; it voted 8–7 along party lines to award all disputed electors to Hayes.

Compromise of 1877

Southern Democrats accepted the outcome in return for informal promises: federal troops would be withdrawn from Southern statehouses, effectively ending Reconstruction; federal patronage would include Southerners; and federal subsidies would fund Southern railroad construction. Hayes pulled the troops within weeks of taking office. Within a few years, white-supremacist "Redeemer" governments had reversed most Reconstruction gains for Black Southerners.

Civil Service Reform

Hayes pushed civil service reform — hiring government workers on merit rather than political patronage — over the fierce objection of his own party. He fired political hack Chester A. Arthur (the future 21st president) from a lucrative post at the New York Custom House. Hayes had pledged to serve one term and stuck to it.

Hayes Trivia

• Hayes lost the popular vote to Tilden by more than 250,000 but won the presidency anyway.
• His wife Lucy was nicknamed "Lemonade Lucy" for banning alcohol from White House events.
• The Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn began during Hayes's administration in 1878.
• Hayes was the first president to have a telephone installed in the White House.

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