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The presidency of Rutherford Birchard Hayes began on March 4, 1877, following Hayes's victory in the closely-contested 1876 presidential election. The 19th President of the United States, Hayes declined to seek re-election and left office on March 4, 1881. He was succeeded by James A. Garfield, a fellow Republican and ally.

Taking office after a closely-contested election, Hayes ended the Reconstruction Era. He attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War and Reconstruction while protecting the civil rights of African-Americans, but largely failed in the latter pursuit. A strong proponent of civil service reform, he challenged his own party in making appointments. Though he was largely unsuccessful in enacting long-term reform, he helped provide a significant impetus for the eventual passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883. He helped put down the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, one of the largest labor strikes in U.S. history, by sending in federal soldiers. Insisting that maintenance of the gold standard was essential to economic recovery, he vetoed the Bland–Allison Act, which would have put silver money into circulation and raised prices. Congress overrode his veto, but Hayes successfully passed the Specie Payment Resumption Act, creating a policy compromise between inflationists and advocates of hard money. His policy toward Western Native Americans anticipated the assimilationist program of the Dawes Act of 1887. In foreign policy, Hayes asserted U.S. influence in Latin America and the continuing primacy of the Monroe Doctrine. Polls of historians and political scientists generally rank Hayes as an average president.

Inauguration
Because March 4, 1877 fell on a Sunday, Hayes took the oath of office privately on Saturday, March 3, in the Red Room of the White House, the first president to do so in the Executive Mansion. He took the oath publicly on the following Monday on the East Portico of the United States Capitol. In his inaugural address, Hayes attempted to soothe the passions of the past few months, saying that "he serves his party best who serves his country best". He pledged to support "wise, honest, and peaceful local self-government" in the South, as well as reform of the civil service and a full return to the gold standard. Despite his message of conciliation, many Democrats never considered Hayes's election legitimate and referred to him as "Rutherfraud" or "His Fraudulency" for the next four years.

Administration and Cabinet


Hayes asked all of President Grant's appointees to resign, and was determined to keep potential presidential contenders out of his Cabinet. Determined to show his independence from Republican leaders, Hayes selected several individuals outside of the mainstream of Republican politics, including Secretary of State William M. Evarts, who had defended President Andrew Johnson against impeachment, Secretary of War George W. McCrary, who had helped establish the Electoral Commission of 1877, and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, who had supported the Liberal Republican ticket in 1872. Hayes considered asking former Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston to serve in his Cabinet, but instead selected another Southerner, David M. Key, to serve as Postmaster General. John Sherman, a close ally, became Secretary of the Treasury, while Richard W. Thompson was selected to reward Oliver P. Morton for the latter's support at the 1876 Republican National Convention. The Schurz and Evarts nominations alienated both the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds, the two major factions of the Republican Party. Despite some intra-party opposition, Hayes's initial Cabinet won confirmation in the Senate with the help of some Southern Senators.

Judicial appointments


Hayes appointed two Associate Justices to the Supreme Court. The first vacancy occurred when David Davis resigned to enter the Senate during the election controversy of 1876. On taking office, Hayes appointed John Marshall Harlan to the seat. A former candidate for governor of Kentucky, Harlan had been Benjamin Bristow's campaign manager at the 1876 Republican convention, and Hayes had earlier considered him for Attorney General. Hayes submitted the nomination in October 1877, but it aroused some dissent in the Senate because of Harlan's limited experience in public office. Harlan was nonetheless confirmed and served on the court for thirty-four years, in which he voted (usually in the minority) for an aggressive enforcement of the civil rights laws. In 1880, a second seat became vacant upon the resignation of Justice William Strong. Hayes nominated William Burnham Woods, a carpetbagger Republican circuit court judge from Alabama. Woods served six years on the Court, ultimately proving a disappointment to Hayes as he interpreted the Constitution in a manner more similar to that of Southern Democrats than to Hayes's own preferences.

Hayes attempted, unsuccessfully, to fill a third vacancy in 1881. Justice Noah Haynes Swayne resigned with the expectation that Hayes would fill his seat by appointing Stanley Matthews, who was a friend of both men. Many Senators objected to the appointment, believing that Matthews was too close to corporate and railroad interests, especially those of Jay Gould, and the Senate adjourned without voting on the nomination. The following year, when James A. Garfield entered the White House, he re-submitted Matthews's nomination to the Senate, which this time confirmed Matthews by one vote, 24 to 23. Matthews served for eight years until his death in 1889. His opinion in Yick Wo v. Hopkins in 1886 advanced his and Hayes' views on the protection of ethnic minorities' rights.

In addition to his Supreme Court appointments, Hayes appointed four judges to the United States circuit courts and sixteen judges to the United States district courts.

The South and the end of Reconstruction
Hayes had been a firm supporter of Republican Reconstruction policies throughout his political career, but the first major act of his presidency was an end to Reconstruction and the return of the South to "home rule". When Hayes assumed office, only two Reconstruction governments remained, in South Carolina and Louisiana. After extracting from South Carolina Governor Wade Hampton III a promise to respect the civil rights of African-Americans, Hayes ended Reconstruction in South Carolina on April 10, 1877. In Louisiana, Hayes appointed a commission to mediate between the rival governments of Republican Stephen B. Packard and Democrat Francis T. Nicholls. After the commission chose to support Nichollss's government, Hayes ended Reconstruction in Louisiana, and the country as a whole, on April 20, 1877.

Even without the conditions of the disputed 1876 election, Hayes would have been hard-pressed to continue the policies of his predecessors. The House of Representatives in the 45th Congress was controlled by a majority of Democrats that refused to appropriate enough funds for the army to continue to garrison the South. Some Republicans, such as Blaine, strongly criticized the end of Reconstruction. But even among Republicans, devotion to continued military Reconstruction was fading in the face of persistent Southern insurgency and violence. Hayes hoped that by making Southerners promise to respect the Reconstruction Amendments, he could ensure the protection of African-American Civil rights, but his hopes would not be realized during his presidency and the subsequent decades.

Hayes did, however, defeat Congress's efforts to curtail federal power to monitor federal elections. Democrats in Congress passed an army appropriation bill in 1879 with a rider that repealed the Enforcement Acts, which had been used to suppress the Ku Klux Klan. Those Acts, passed during Reconstruction, made it a crime to prevent someone from voting because of his race. Hayes was determined to preserve the law protecting black voters, and he vetoed the appropriation. The Democrats did not have enough votes to override the veto, but they passed a new bill with the same rider. Hayes vetoed this as well, and the process was repeated three times more. Finally, Hayes signed an appropriation without the offensive rider, but Congress refused to pass another bill to fund federal marshals, who were vital to the enforcement of the Enforcement Acts. The election laws remained in effect, but the funds to enforce them were curtailed for the time being. Hayes's strong stance against the Democratic attempts to repeal the election laws earned him the support of many in the North and boosted his unpopularity among many Republicans who had been alienated by his civil service reform efforts.

Hayes tried to reconcile the social mores of the South with the recently passed civil rights laws by distributing patronage among southern Democrats. "My task was to wipe out the color line, to abolish sectionalism, to end the war and bring peace," he wrote in his diary. "To do this, I was ready to resort to unusual measures and to risk my own standing and reputation within my party and the country." All of his efforts were in vain; Hayes failed to convince the South to accept the idea of racial equality and failed to convince Congress to appropriate funds to enforce the civil rights laws. The Democrats became the dominant party in the South, creating a voting bloc known as the Solid South.

Civil service reform


After ending Reconstruction, Hayes turned to the issue of reforming the system of civil service appointments. Instead of giving federal jobs to political supporters or the favorites of powerful members of Congress, Hayes wished to award positions by merit according to an examination that all applicants would take. Immediately, Hayes's call for reform brought him into conflict with the Stalwart, or pro-spoils, branch of the Republican party. Senators of both parties who were accustomed to being consulted about political appointments turned against Hayes. Foremost among his enemies was New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, who fought Hayes's reform efforts at every turn.

To show his commitment to reform, asked Secretary of the Interior Schurz and Secretary of State Evarts to lead a special cabinet committee charged with drawing up new rules for federal appointments. Treasury Secretary Sherman ordered John Jay to investigate the New York Custom House, which was stacked with Conkling's spoilsmen. Jay's report suggested that the New York Custom House was so overstaffed with political appointees that 20% of the employees were expendable.

Although he could not convince Congress to outlaw the spoils system, Hayes issued an executive order that forbade federal office holders from being required to make campaign contributions or otherwise taking part in party politics. Chester A. Arthur, the Collector of the Port of New York, and his subordinates Alonzo B. Cornell and George H. Sharpe, all Conkling supporters, refused to obey the president's order. In September 1877, Hayes demanded the three men's resignations, which they refused to give. He submitted appointments of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., L. Bradford Prince, and Edwin Merritt—all supporters of Evarts, Conkling's New York rival—to the Senate for confirmation as their replacements. The Senate's Commerce Committee, which Conkling chaired, voted unanimously to reject the nominees, and the full Senate rejected Roosevelt and Prince by a vote of 31–25, confirming Merritt only because Sharpe's term had expired.

Hayes was forced to wait until July 1878 when, during a Congressional recess, he sacked Arthur and Cornell and replaced them by recess appointments of Merritt and Silas W. Burt, respectively. Conkling opposed the appointees' confirmation when the Senate reconvened in February 1879, but Merritt was approved by a vote of 31–25, as was Burt by 31–19, giving Hayes his most significant civil service reform victory. For the remainder of his term, Hayes pressed Congress to enact permanent reform legislation and fund the United States Civil Service Commission, even using his last annual message to Congress in 1880 to appeal for reform. While reform legislation did not pass during Hayes's presidency, his advocacy provided "a significant precedent as well as the political impetus for the Pendleton Act of 1883," which was signed into law by President Chester Arthur. Hayes allowed some exceptions to the ban on assessments, permitting George Congdon Gorham, secretary of the Republican Congressional Committee, to solicit campaign contributions from federal office-holders during the Congressional elections of 1878. In 1880, Hayes quickly forced Secretary of Navy Richard W. Thompson to resign office after Thompson had accepted a $25,000 salary for a nominal job offered by French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps to promote a French canal in Panama.

Hayes also dealt with corruption in the postal service. In 1880, Schurz and Senator John A. Logan asked Hayes to shut down the "star route" rings, a system of corrupt contract profiteering in the Postal Service, and to fire Second Assistant Postmaster-General Thomas J. Brady, the alleged ring leader. Hayes stopped granting new star route contracts, but let existing contracts continue to be enforced. Democrats accused Hayes of delaying proper investigation so as not to injure Republican chances in the 1880 elections but did not press the issue in their campaign literature, as members of both parties were implicated in the corruption. As historian Hans L. Trefousse later wrote, Hayes "hardly knew the chief suspect [Brady] and certainly had no connection with the [star route] corruption." Although Hayes and the Congress both investigated the contracts and found no compelling evidence of wrongdoing, Brady and others were indicted for conspiracy in 1882. After two trials, the defendants were found not guilty in 1883.

Great Railroad Strike


In his first year in office, Hayes was faced with the United States' largest labor disturbance to date, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. In order to make up for financial losses suffered since the Panic of 1873, the major railroads cut their employees' wages several times in 1877. In July of that year, workers from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad walked off the job in Martinsburg, West Virginia, to protest their reduction in pay. The strike quickly spread to workers of the New York Central, Erie, and Pennsylvania railroads, with the strikers soon numbering in the thousands. Fearing a riot, Governor Henry M. Mathews asked Hayes to send federal troops to Martinsburg, and Hayes did so, but when the troops arrived there was no riot, only a peaceful protest. In Baltimore, however, a riot did erupt on July 20 and Hayes ordered the troops at Fort McHenry to assist the governor in its suppression.

Pittsburgh next exploded into riots, but Hayes was reluctant to send in troops without the governor first requesting them. Other discontented citizens joined the railroad workers in rioting. After a few days, Hayes resolved to send in troops to protect federal property wherever it appeared to be threatened and gave Major General Winfield Scott Hancock overall command of the situation, marking the first use of federal troops to break a strike against a private company. The riot spread further, to Chicago and St. Louis, where strikers shut down railroad facilities. By July 29, the riots had ended and federal troops returned to their barracks. Although no federal troops had killed any of the strikers, or been killed themselves, clashes between state militia troops and strikers resulted in deaths on both sides. The railroads were victorious in the short term, as the workers returned to their jobs and some wage cuts remained in effect. But, the public blamed the railroads for the strikes and violence, and they were compelled to improve working conditions and make no further cuts. Business leaders praised Hayes, but his own opinion was more equivocal; as he recorded in his diary: "The strikes have been put down by force; but now for the real remedy. Can't something [be] done by education of strikers, by judicious control of capitalists, by wise general policy to end or diminish the evil? The railroad strikers, as a rule, are good men, sober, intelligent, and industrious."

Currency debate


Hayes confronted two issues regarding the currency, the first of which was the coinage of silver, and its relation to gold. In 1873, the Coinage Act of 1873 stopped the coinage of silver for all coins worth a dollar or more, effectively tying the dollar to the value of gold. As a result, the money supply contracted and the effects of the Panic of 1873 grew worse, making it more expensive for debtors to pay debts they had contracted when currency was less valuable. Farmers and laborers, especially, clamored for the return of coinage in both metals, believing the increased money supply would restore wages and property values. Democratic Representative Richard P. Bland of Missouri proposed a bill that would require the United States to coin as much silver as miners could sell the government, thus increasing the money supply and aiding debtors. William B. Allison, a Republican from Iowa offered an amendment in the Senate limiting the coinage to two to four million dollars per month, and the resulting Bland–Allison Act passed both houses of Congress in 1878. Hayes feared that the Act would cause inflation that would be ruinous to business, effectively impairing contracts that were based on the gold dollar, as the silver dollar proposed in the bill would have an intrinsic value of 90 to 92 percent of the existing gold dollar. Further, Hayes believed that inflating the currency was an act of dishonesty, saying "[e]xpediency and justice both demand an honest currency." He vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode his veto, the only time it did so during his presidency.

The second issue concerned United States Notes (commonly called greenbacks), a form of fiat currency first issued during the Civil War. The government accepted these notes as valid for payment of taxes and tariffs, but unlike ordinary dollars, they were not redeemable in gold. The Specie Payment Resumption Act of 1875 required the treasury to redeem any outstanding greenbacks in gold, thus retiring them from circulation and restoring a single, gold-backed currency. Sherman agreed with Hayes's favorable opinion of the Act, and stockpiled gold in preparation for the exchange of greenbacks for gold. Once the public was confident that they could redeem greenbacks for specie (gold), however, few did so; when the Act took effect in 1879, only $130,000 out of the $346,000,000 outstanding dollars in greenbacks were actually redeemed. Together with the Bland–Allison Act, the successful specie resumption effected a workable compromise between inflationists and hard money men and, as the world economy began to improve, agitation for more greenbacks and silver coinage quieted down for the rest of Hayes's term in office.

Foreign policy


Most of Hayes's foreign policy concerns involved Latin America. In 1878, following the Paraguayan War, he arbitrated a territorial dispute between Argentina and Paraguay. Hayes awarded the disputed land in the Gran Chaco region to Paraguay, and the Paraguayans honored him by renaming a city (Villa Hayes) and a department (Presidente Hayes) in his honor. Hayes was also perturbed over the plans of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal, to construct a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, which was then owned by Colombia. Concerned about a repetition of French adventurism in Mexico, Hayes interpreted the Monroe Doctrine firmly. In a message to Congress, Hayes explained his opinion on the canal: "The policy of this country is a canal under American control ... The United States cannot consent to the surrender of this control to any European power or any combination of European powers."

Hayes sought friendly relations with the major European powers, though not to the detriment of the Monroe Doctrine. He upheld the Treaty of Washington, ending the dispute with the United Kingdom caused by the Alabama Claims. He refused the annexation request of Samoa, instead establishing a de facto tripartite protectorate with the United Kingdom and Germany.

The Mexican border also drew Hayes's attention. Throughout the 1870s, "lawless bands" often crossed the border on raids into Texas. Three months after taking office, Hayes granted the Army the power to pursue bandits, even if it required crossing into Mexican territory. Porfirio Díaz, the Mexican president, protested the order and sent troops to the border. The situation calmed as Díaz and Hayes agreed to jointly pursue bandits and Hayes agreed not to allow Mexican revolutionaries to raise armies in the United States. The violence along the border decreased, and in 1880 Hayes revoked the order allowing pursuit into Mexico.

Another major foreign policy issue concerned China and immigration from China. In 1868, the Senate had ratified the Burlingame Treaty with China, allowing an unrestricted flow of Chinese immigrants into the country. As the economy soured after the Panic of 1873, Chinese immigrants were blamed for depressing workmen's wages. During the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, anti-Chinese riots broke out in San Francisco, and a third party, the Workingman's Party, was formed with an emphasis on stopping Chinese immigration. In response, Congress passed a Chinese Exclusion Act in 1879, abrogating the 1868 treaty. Hayes vetoed the bill, believing that the United States should not abrogate treaties without negotiation. The veto drew praise among eastern liberals, but Hayes was bitterly denounced in the West. In the subsequent furor, Democrats in the House of Representatives attempted to impeach him, but narrowly failed when Republicans prevented a quorum by refusing to vote. After the veto, Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward suggested that both countries work together to reduce immigration, and he and James Burrill Angell negotiated with the Chinese to do so. Congress passed a new law to that effect, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, after Hayes left office.

Indian policy


Interior Secretary Carl Schurz carried out Hayes's American Indian policy, beginning with preventing the War Department from taking over the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Hayes and Schurz carried out a policy that included assimilation into white culture, educational training, and dividing Indian land into individual household allotments. Hayes believed that his policies would lead to self-sufficiency and peace between Indians and whites. The allotment system was favored by liberal reformers at the time, including Schurz, but instead proved detrimental to American Indians. They lost much of their land through later sales to unscrupulous white speculators. Hayes and Schurz reformed the Bureau of Indian Affairs to reduce fraud and gave Indians responsibility for policing their understaffed reservations.

Hayes dealt with several conflicts with Indian tribes. The Nez Perce, led by Chief Joseph, began an uprising in June 1877 when Major General Oliver O. Howard ordered them to move on to a reservation. Howard's men defeated the Nez Perce in battle, and the tribe began a 1700-mile retreat into Canada. In October, after a decisive battle at Bear Paw, Montana, Chief Joseph surrendered and General William T. Sherman ordered the tribe transported to Kansas, where they were forced to remain until 1885. The Nez Perce war was not the last conflict in the West, as the Bannock rose up in Spring 1878 and raided nearby settlements before being defeated by Howard's army in July of that year. War with the Ute tribe broke out in 1879 when the Utes killed Indian agent Nathan Meeker, who had been attempting to convert them to Christianity. The subsequent White River War ended when Schurz negotiated peace with the Ute and prevented the white Coloradans from taking revenge for Meeker's death.

Hayes also became involved in resolving the removal of the Ponca tribe from Nebraska to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) because of a misunderstanding during the Grant Administration. The tribe's problems came to Hayes's attention after their chief, Standing Bear, filed a lawsuit to contest Schurz's demand that they stay in Indian Territory. Overruling Schurz, Hayes set up a commission in 1880 that ruled Ponca were free to return to Nebraska or stay on their reservation in Indian Territory. The Ponca were awarded compensation for their land rights, which had been previously granted to the Sioux. In a message to Congress in February 1881, Hayes insisted he would "give to these injured people that measure of redress which is required alike by justice and by humanity."

Great Western Tour of 1880
In 1880, Hayes embarked on a 71-day tour of the American West, becoming the first sitting President to travel west of the Rocky Mountains. Hayes' traveling party included his wife and General William Tecumseh Sherman, who helped organize the trip. Hayes began his trip in September 1880, departing from Chicago on the transcontinental railroad. He journeyed across the continent, ultimately arriving in California, stopping first in Wyoming and then Utah and Nevada, reaching Sacramento and San Francisco. By railroad and stagecoach, the party traveled north to Oregon, arriving in Portland, and from there to Vancouver, Washington. Going by steamship, they visited Seattle, and then returned to San Francisco. Hayes then toured several southwestern states before returning to Ohio in November, in time to cast a vote in the 1880 Presidential Election.

Hayes's White House
Hayes and his wife Lucy were known for their policy of keeping an alcohol-free White House, giving rise to her nickname "Lemonade Lucy." The first reception at the Hayes White House included wine. However, Hayes was dismayed at drunken behavior at receptions hosted by ambassadors around Washington, leading him to follow his wife's temperance leanings. Alcohol was not served again in the Hayes White House. Critics charged Hayes with parsimony, but Hayes spent more money (which came out of his personal budget) after the ban, ordering that any savings from eliminating alcohol be used on more lavish entertainment. His temperance policy also paid political dividends, strengthening his support among Protestant ministers. Although Secretary Evarts quipped that at the White House dinners, "water flowed like wine," the policy was a success in convincing prohibitionists to vote Republican.

Nomination and general election


With the retirement of President Ulysses S. Grant after two terms, the Republicans had to settle on a new candidate for the 1876 election. Hayes's success in Ohio immediately elevated him to the top ranks of Republican politicians under consideration for the presidency, alongside James G. Blaine of Maine, Senator Oliver P. Morton of Indiana, and Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. Despite the strength of the other candidates, the Ohio delegation to the 1876 Republican National Convention was united behind Hayes, and Senator John Sherman did all in his power the nomination to his fellow Ohioan. In June 1876, the convention assembled in Hayes's hometown of Cincinnati with Blaine as the favorite. Hayes did not expect to win the presidential nomination, but made an effort to position himself as a potential compromise candidate. Hayes placed fifth on the first ballot of the convention, behind Blaine, Morton, Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow, and Conkling. After six ballots, Blaine remained in the lead, but on the seventh ballot, Blaine's adversaries rallied around Hayes, granting the presidential nomination to the latter. The convention then selected Representative William A. Wheeler of New York for Vice President, a man about whom Hayes had recently asked, "I am ashamed to say: who is Wheeler?" Hayes's views were largely in accord with the party platform, which called for equal rights for all (including women), continued Reconstruction, the prohibition of public funding for sectarian schools, and the resumption of specie payments. Hayes's nomination was well-received by the press, with even Democratic papers describing Hayes as honest and likable. In a public letter accepting the nomination, Hayes vowed to support civil service reform and pledged to serve for only one term.

The Democratic nominee was Samuel J. Tilden, the Governor of New York. Tilden was considered a formidable adversary who, like Hayes, had a reputation for honesty. Also like Hayes, Tilden was a hard-money man and supported civil service reform. In accordance with the custom of the time, the campaign was conducted by surrogates, with Hayes and Tilden remaining in their respective home towns. The poor economic conditions, combined with various Republican scandals, made the party in power unpopular and made Hayes suspect that he might lose the election. Both candidates focused their attention on the swing states of New York and Indiana, as well as the three southern states—Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida—where Reconstruction governments still barely ruled, amid recurring political violence. The Republicans emphasized the danger of letting Democrats run the nation so soon after southern Democrats provoked the Civil War and, to a lesser extent, the danger a Democratic administration would pose to the recently won civil rights of southern blacks. Democrats, for their part, trumpeted Tilden's record of reform and contrasted it with the corruption of the incumbent Grant administration.

As the returns were tallied on election day, it was clear that the race was close: Democrats had carried most of the South, as well as New York, Indiana, Connecticut, and New Jersey. In the Northeast, an increasing number of immigrants and their descendants voted Democratic. The official popular vote also favored Tilden (there was some Southern suppression of Republican votes), but Republicans realized that if they held the three unredeemed southern states together with some of the western states, they would emerge with an electoral college majority.

Disputed electoral votes
On November 11, three days after election day, Tilden appeared to have won 184 electoral votes: one short of a majority. Hayes appeared to have 166 votes, with the 19 votes of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina still in doubt. Republicans and Democrats each claimed victory in the three latter states, but the results in those states were rendered uncertain because of fraud by both parties. To further complicate matters, one of the three electors from Oregon (a state Hayes had won) was disqualified, reducing Hayes's total to 165, and raising the disputed votes to 20. If either candidate could be awarded the 20 disputed votes, he would be elected president.



There was considerable debate about which person or house of Congress was authorized to decide between the competing slates of electors, with the Republican Senate and the Democratic House each claiming priority. By January 1877, with the question still unresolved, Congress and President Grant agreed to submit the matter to a bipartisan Electoral Commission, which would be authorized to determine the fate of the disputed electoral votes. The Commission was to be made up of five representatives, five senators, and five Supreme Court justices. To ensure partisan balance, there would be seven Democrats and seven Republicans, with Justice David Davis, an independent respected by both parties, as the fifteenth member. The balance was upset when Democrats in the Illinois legislature elected Davis to the Senate, hoping to sway his vote. Davis disappointed Democrats by refusing to serve on the Commission because of his election to the Senate. As all of the remaining Justices were Republicans, Justice Joseph P. Bradley, believed to be the most independent-minded of them, was selected to take Davis's place on the Commission. The Commission met in February and the eight Republicans voted to award all 20 electoral votes to Hayes. Democrats were outraged by the result and attempted a filibuster to prevent Congress from accepting the Commission's findings.

As the March 4 inauguration day neared, Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders met at Wormley's Hotel in Washington to negotiate a compromise. Republicans promised concessions in exchange for Democratic acquiescence in the Committee's decision. The primary concession Hayes promised would be the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and an acceptance of the election of Democratic governments in the remaining "unredeemed" states of the South. The Democrats agreed, and on March 2, the filibuster was ended. Hayes was elected, but Reconstruction was finished. On April 3, Hayes ordered the Secretary of War George W. McCrary to withdrawal federal troops stationed at the South Carolina State House to their barracks. Finally on April 20, Hayes ordered the Secretary of War to send the federal troops stationed at the St. Louis Hotel in New Orleans to Jackson Barracks.

1878
In the 1878 elections, Democrats consolidated their control in the South, while Republicans made gains in the North. Democrats retained control of the House and won control of the Senate. Hayes was not distressed by the result of the election, though he did express a desire to attract more Southern whites to the Republican Party in hopes of preventing Democratic dominance the region.

1880
During the 1876 election, Hayes had promised to retire after only one term. During his presidency, some Republicans urged him to re-consider, but Hayes looked forward to the freedom of retirement. Former President Grant loomed as the front-runner to succeed Hayes, while Blaine, Elihu B. Washburne, and Senators George F. Edmunds of Vermont, William Windom of Minnesota, and John Sherman of Ohio also emerged as potential Republican nominees. Hayes preferred Sherman, but a dead-locked convention instead nominated another Hayes ally, Congressman James A. Garfield of Ohio. The convention nominated Chester A. Arthur, who had been dismissed from his position by Hayes, as Garfield's running mate. Hayes was pleased with the ticket, recognizing that it provided a balance between Half-Breeds and Stalwarts, and appreciated the convention's endorsement of his presidency. With Hayes's support, Garfield won a narrow popularity vote plurality but a comfortable majority of the popular vote in the 1880 presidential election. In the aftermath of Garfield's election, Hayes and Garfield worked with each other to assure a smooth transition of power.