On 7 December 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes wrote in his diary,
I am determined that no selfish ambition or interest
shall influence my conduct
in the face of these tremendous events.
Whatever, on the whole, is best for the country,
that I will do if I can know it,
regardless of consequences to myself.1
On 10 January 1877 the United States Congress proposed an electoral commission
with 15 members to resolve the contested electoral votes in the November election.
The next day President Grant and his cabinet debated the presidential electoral crisis,
and on the 29th he signed the bill creating the Electoral Commission.
Democrats in the Congress voted for this bill 186-69
while Republicans voted against it 52-85.
The Commission would have five members from the U. S. Senate,
five from the U. S. House of Representatives, and five from the U. S. Supreme Court.
Justice David Davis was expected to be chosen as the deciding vote,
but he accepted a U. S. Senate seat from Illinois.
Then the two Republican and two Democrat justices chose the
Republican Justice Joseph Bradley who was considered the most independent justice.
He said he followed the decision of the State Board of Canvassers.
On February 9 the Commission declared that Hayes had won the Florida vote,
and one week later they recognized his victory in Louisiana.
The Commission also gave Hayes one more electoral vote from Oregon.
Tilden had won nationally by over 250,000 votes.
The voter intimidation in Louisiana and South Carolina made changes
recognized by the Commission reasonable,
but in Florida the reversal of Tilden’s lead by 94 votes was more questionable.
They ruled that Hayes won Florida by 922 votes.
The Commission also reversed the win by the
Democrat Wade Hampton for South Carolina Governor
because the South Carolina General Assembly had re-elected
the Republican Gov. Daniel Henry Chamberlain;
yet the South Carolina Supreme Court declared the Democrat Hampton the winner,
and he said Tilden had won in South Carolina.
Vote totals were suspiciously large,
and the Commission ruled Hayes the winner in South Carolina by 889 votes.
During the campaign the former Confederate General Hampton had tried
to win Negro votes by publishing Free Men! Free Ballots!! Free Schools!!!
The Pledges of Gen. Wade Hampton … to the Colored People of South Carolina.
As Governor he appointed 86 Negroes to lower state offices.
On February 26 at the Wormley Hotel in Washington the moderate southerners
led by Senator John Gordon of Georgia and Rep. Lucius Lamar of Mississippi
met with Senator John Sherman, Rep. James Garfield, and other Hayes supporters.
They confirmed that Federal troops would be removed from the South,
and their “home rule” by “redeemer” governments would be recognized.
Two days later the Commission recognized Hayes as the winner in South Carolina,
giving him a 185-184 advantage in the Electoral College and the presidency.
Democrats had won the popular vote and felt cheated.
Senator Conkling of New York called Hayes
“His Fraudulency” and “Rutherfraud B. Hayes.”
The Hayes administration would end the period of Reconstruction.
The Democrats had control of the U. S. House of Representatives
and won back southern governments but not the presidency.
On February 26 President Grant met with delegates from the Choctaw, Chickasaw,
Cherokee, and Creek nations who thanked him for his just and humane policies
that helped them advance in the arts of civilized living.
On March 2 the Commission declared Hayes the elected President,
and Grant invited him to the White House.
That day Hayes and his advisor William Henry Smith arrived on Tom Scott’s
Pennsylvania railroad in Washington as death threats did not materialize.
Because March 4 in 1877 was a Sunday, the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes
took the constitutional oath before Chief Justice Waite at the White House
on the evening of March 3 and then again on March 5 at noon
before 30,000 citizens at the capitol building.
Grant and Hayes rode together to the capitol.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born on 4 October 1822 in Delaware, Ohio.
His father died of fever before Rutherford was born,
and his mother survived an illness.
He was well educated at public and private schools.
After graduating at the top of a class of 9 at Kenyon College in 1842,
he began studying law and attended Harvard’s law school for a year and a half
studying under jurist Simon Greenleaf and longtime Justice Joseph Story.
Hayes was admitted to the bar in Ohio in March 1845 and practiced law in Cincinnati.
He joined the Whig Party and campaigned for Zachary Taylor in 1848.
That year Hayes read W. H. Channing’s 3-volume Life of William Ellery Channing
and felt its influence as well as that of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Hayes defended three people who were convicted of murder.
He appealed the case of Nancy Farrer and successfully
proved her not guilty because of mental illness.
In 1852 he married Lucy Webb, and they would have eight children.
She strongly opposed slavery and drinking alcohol, and she persuaded
her husband to defend slaves who were escaping by the underground railroad.
He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854,
and the next year he helped organize the Republican Party in Ohio.
Hayes briefed Abraham Lincoln when he came to Ohio to campaign
for William Dennison for governor in 1859.
The Cincinnati City Council had chosen Hayes to be
the City Solicitor in December 1858,
and he was re-elected in April 1859 but not in 1861.
On 20 April 1861 Hayes volunteered for
the Burnet Rifles and was elected captain.
On June 10 Gov. Dennison made Hayes a major in Ohio’s 23rd Regiment,
and he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on November 2.
On 6 August 1862 Hayes encouraged his soldiers shouting,
“Fighting battles is like courting girls: those who make
most pretension and are boldest usually win.”2
In October 1862 he was promoted to colonel.
Col. Hayes led his soldiers in battle and was wounded five times.
The only serious one splintered his upper arm
on September 14 at South Mountain in Maryland.
He stayed in the army during a campaign for Congress in 1864,
wrote letters explaining his policies, and was elected.
General Crook told Hayes that he was a brigadier general on December 9.
On 8 June 1865 Hayes was mustered out of the army as a major general.
Hayes was re-elected to Congress in 1866.
He did not speak much but listened, and as chairman of the Joint Committee
on the Library he and the Librarian of Congress Spofford greatly expanded
the space and books and papers in the Library of Congress.
After a Republican convention nominated him for Governor in June 1867,
Hayes resigned his House seat in July.
He began campaigning on August 5 and made speeches daily for two months.
In the election on October 8 Ohio voters rejected an amendment
for Negro suffrage, which Hayes favored, and Democrats gained a majority.
Yet they elected Hayes the governor.
He could do little to stop the Democrats from disenfranchising blacks
because the Ohio Governor had no veto power.
In 1868 he campaigned for Ulysses Grant.
In 1869 the state of Ohio sponsored a geological survey and
founded an Agricultural College that later became Ohio State University.
Hayes was re-elected governor in 1869
as Republicans regained control of the legislature.
In January 1870 Ohio ratified the 15th Amendment,
and Hayes also worked to reform the civil service.
After the end of that term in January 1872 he declined to run again for governor,
and then he was defeated in a campaign for the U. S. House of Representatives.
He retired from politics for three years, though he supported Grant’s re-election.
Republicans nominated Hayes for governor again in June 1875,
and he defeated the incumbent Democrat William Allen by only 5,544 votes.
In 1876 he sent the Ohio militia during a strike to protect the property
of a coal mine and the right of strikebreakers to work.
As Governor and then as President he was careful
how he used his pardoning power.
On April 11 Hayes outlined his principles for pardoning in his diary:
1. Grant no pardon and make no promises
on the first presentation of a case.
Take time before deciding, or even encouraging the party.
2. If two or more are concerned in the crime,
consider the cases of all together.
One is often called the dupe until he is pardoned;
then the other becomes the dupe,
and the pardoned man the leader.
3. Pardon no man who is not provided with employment
or means of subsistence.
4. Pardon no man unless some friend
is ready to receive him as he comes from the prison.
5. Of course, the judge, the prosecuting attorney,
and some intelligent citizen of sound sense
should be heard from in all cases.
These rules may be departed from in cases requiring it,
but let them always be considered
before the pardon is granted or any committal had.3
On January 1 William Dean Howells published his
Sketch of the Life and Character of Rutherford B. Hayes,
Also a Biographical Sketch of William Wheeler.
On 28 February 1877 Hayes resigned as Governor of Ohio.
On March 1 the U. S. Supreme Court confirmed the decision of the
Illinois Supreme Court in Munn v. Illinois allowing the government
to regulate private business to protect the common interests of the public,
thus upholding the Granger legislation regulating the maximum price for grain storage.
Chief Justice Waite reasoned that when private property affects the public interest,
it ceases to be exclusively private, and he wrote,
“For protection against abuses by legislatures the
people must resort to the polls, not to the courts.”4
Justice Stephen J. Field wrote the dissenting opinion and complained that the decision
was “subversive of the rights of private property,” which he argued
should have the same protection as rights to life and liberty.
In his inaugural address on March 5 Hayes hoped that the South would have
“wise, honest, and peaceful local self-government,” and he advised them
to protect “the interests of both races carefully and equally.”
Here is the complete speech:
Fellow-Citizens: We have assembled to repeat the
public ceremonial, begun by Washington, observed
by all my predecessors, and now a time—
honored custom, which marks the commencement
of a new term of the Presidential office.
Called to the duties of this great trust, I proceed,
in compliance with usage, to announce some of the
leading principles, on the subjects that now chiefly
engage the public attention, by which it is my desire
to be guided in the discharge of those duties.
I shall not undertake to lay down irrevocably principles
or measures of administration, but rather to speak of the
motives which should animate us, and to suggest certain
important ends to be attained in accordance with our
institutions and essential to the welfare of our country.
At the outset of the discussions which preceded the
recent Presidential election it seemed to me fitting
that I should fully make known my sentiments in regard
to several of the important questions which then
appeared to demand the consideration of the country.
Following the example, and in part adopting the language,
of one of my predecessors, I wish now, when every motive
for misrepresentation has passed away, to repeat what
was said before the election, trusting that my countrymen
will candidly weigh and understand it, and that they will
feel assured that the sentiments declared in accepting
the nomination for the Presidency will be the standard
of my conduct in the path before me, charged, as I now am,
with the grave and difficult task of carrying them out in
the practical administration of the Government so far as
depends, under the Constitution and laws on the
Chief Executive of the nation.
The permanent pacification of the country upon such
principles and by such measures as will secure the
complete protection of all its citizens in the free
enjoyment of all their constitutional rights is now the
one subject in our public affairs which all thoughtful
and patriotic citizens regard as of supreme importance.
Many of the calamitous efforts of the tremendous revolution
which has passed over the Southern States still remain.
The immeasurable benefits which will surely follow,
sooner or later, the hearty and generous acceptance
of the legitimate results of that revolution have not
yet been realized.
Difficult and embarrassing questions meet us
at the threshold of this subject.
The people of those States are still impoverished,
and the inestimable blessing of wise, honest, and
peaceful local self-government is not fully enjoyed.
Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the
cause of this condition of things, the fact is clear that in
the progress of events the time has come when such
government is the imperative necessity required by all
the varied interests, public and private, of those States.
But it must not be forgotten that only a local government
which recognizes and maintains inviolate the rights
of all is a true self-government.
With respect to the two distinct races whose peculiar
relations to each other have brought upon us the
deplorable complications and perplexities which exist
in those States, it must be a government which guards
the interests of both races carefully and equally.
It must be a government which submits loyally and
heartily to the Constitution and the laws—the laws of the
nation and the laws of the States themselves—accepting
and obeying faithfully the whole Constitution as it is.
Resting upon this sure and substantial foundation,
the superstructure of beneficent local governments
can be built up, and not otherwise.
In furtherance of such obedience to the letter and the
spirit of the Constitution, and in behalf of all that its
attainment implies, all so-called party interests lose
their apparent importance, and party lines may well
be permitted to fade into insignificance.
The question we have to consider for the immediate
welfare of those States of the Union is the question
of government or no government; of social order
and all the peaceful industries and the happiness
that belongs to it, or a return to barbarism.
It is a question in which every citizen of the nation is deeply
interested, and with respect to which we ought not to be,
in a partisan sense, either Republicans or Democrats,
but fellow-citizens and fellowmen, to whom the interests
of a common country and a common humanity are dear.
The sweeping revolution of the entire labor system of a
large portion of our country and the advance of 4,000,000
people from a condition of servitude to that of citizenship,
upon an equal footing with their former masters, could not
occur without presenting problems of the gravest moment,
to be dealt with by the emancipated race, by their former
masters, and by the General Government,
the author of the act of emancipation.
That it was a wise, just, and providential act, fraught
with good for all concerned, is not generally conceded
throughout the country.
That a moral obligation rests upon the National Government
to employ its constitutional power and influence to establish
the rights of the people it has emancipated, and to protect
them in the enjoyment of those rights when they are
infringed or assailed, is also generally admitted.
The evils which afflict the Southern States can only be
removed or remedied by the united and harmonious
efforts of both races, actuated by motives of mutual
sympathy and regard; and while in duty bound and
fully determined to protect the rights of all by every
constitutional means at the disposal of my Administration,
I am sincerely anxious to use every legitimate influence
in favor of honest and efficient local self-government as
the true resource of those States for the promotion of
the contentment and prosperity of their citizens.
In the effort I shall make to accomplish this purpose
I ask the cordial cooperation of all who cherish an interest
in the welfare of the country, trusting that party ties and
the prejudice of race will be freely surrendered in behalf
of the great purpose to be accomplished.
In the important work of restoring the South it is
not the political situation alone that merits attention.
The material development of that section of the
country has been arrested by the social and political
revolution through which it has passed, and now needs
and deserves the considerate care of the National
Government within the just limits prescribed by the
Constitution and wise public economy.
But at the basis of all prosperity, for that as well
as for every other part of the country, lies the improvement
of the intellectual and moral condition of the people.
Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education.
To this end, liberal and permanent provision should
be made for the support of free schools by the State
governments, and, if need be, supplemented by
legitimate aid from national authority.
Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern States that
it is my earnest desire to regard and promote their truest
interest--the interests of the white and of the colored
people both and equally--and to put forth my best efforts
in behalf of a civil policy which will forever wipe out in our
political affairs the color line and the distinction between
North and South, to the end that we may have not merely
a united North or a united South, but a united country.
I ask the attention of the public to the paramount
necessity of reform in our civil service--a reform not
merely as to certain abuses and practices of so-called
official patronage which have come to have the sanction
of usage in the several Departments of our Government,
but a change in the system of appointment itself; a reform
that shall be thorough, radical, and complete; a return tothe
principles and practices of the founders of the Government.
They neither expected nor desired from public
officers any partisan service.
They meant that public officers should owe their
whole service to the Government and to the people.
They meant that the officer should be secure in his tenure
as long as his personal character remained untarnished
and the performance of his duties satisfactory.
They held that appointments to office were not to be made
nor expected merely as rewards for partisan services, nor
merely on the nomination of members of Congress, as being
entitled in any respect to the control of such appointments.
The fact that both the great political parties of the country,
in declaring their principles prior to the election, gave a
prominent place to the subject of reform of our civil service,
recognizing and strongly urging its necessity, in terms
almost identical in their specific import with those I have
here employed, must be accepted as a conclusive
argument in behalf of these measures.
It must be regarded as the expression of the united
voice and will of the whole country upon this subject,
and both political parties are virtually pledged
to give it their unreserved support.
The President of the United States of necessity owes his
election to office to the suffrage and zealous labors of a
political party, the members of which cherish with ardor
and regard as of essential importance the principles of
their party organization; but he should strive to be
always mindful of the fact that he serves his party
best who serves the country best.
In furtherance of the reform we seek, and in other
important respects a change of great importance,
I recommend an amendment to the Constitution
prescribing a term of six years for the Presidential
office and forbidding a reelection.
With respect to the financial condition of the country,
I shall not attempt an extended history of the
embarrassment and prostration which we
have suffered during the past three years.
The depression in all our varied commercial and
manufacturing interests throughout the country,
which began in September, 1873, still continues.
It is very gratifying, however, to be able to say
that there are indications all around us of a
coming change to prosperous times.
Upon the currency question, intimately connected,
as it is, with this topic, I may be permitted to repeat
here the statement made in my letter of acceptance,
that in my judgment the feeling of uncertainty
inseparable from an irredeemable paper currency,
with its fluctuation of values, is one of the greatest
obstacles to a return to prosperous times.
The only safe paper currency is one which rests upon a coin
basis and is at all times and promptly convertible into coin.
I adhere to the views heretofore expressed by me in favor
of Congressional legislation in behalf of an early resumption
of specie payments, and I am satisfied not only that this is
wise, but that the interests, as well as the public sentiment,
of the country imperatively demand it.
Passing from these remarks upon the condition of our
own country to consider our relations with other lands,
we are reminded by the international complications abroad,
threatening the peace of Europe, that our traditional
rule of noninterference in the affairs of foreign nations
has proved of great value in past times and ought
to be strictly observed.
The policy inaugurated by my honored predecessor,
President Grant, of submitting to arbitration grave
questions in dispute between ourselves and foreign
powers points to a new, and incomparably the best,
instrumentality for the preservation of peace, and will,
as I believe, become a beneficent example of the course
to be pursued in similar emergencies by other nations.
If, unhappily, questions of difference should at any time
during the period of my Administration arise between the
United States and any foreign government, it will certainly
be my disposition and my hope to aid in their settlement in
the same peaceful and honorable way, thus securing to our
country the great blessings of peace and mutual good
offices with all the nations of the world.
Fellow-citizens, we have reached the close of a
political contest marked by the excitement which
usually attends the contests between great political
parties whose members espouse and advocate with
earnest faith their respective creeds.
The circumstances were, perhaps, in no respect
extraordinary save in the closeness and the
consequent uncertainty of the result.
For the first time in the history of the country it has
been deemed best, in view of the peculiar circumstances
of the case, that the objections and questions in dispute
with reference to the counting of the electoral votes
should be referred to the decision of a tribunal
appointed for this purpose.
That tribunal--established by law for this sole purpose;
its members, all of them, men of long-established
reputation for integrity and intelligence, and, with the
exception of those who are also members of the
supreme judiciary, chosen equally from both political
parties; its deliberations enlightened by the research
and the arguments of able counsel—was entitled to
the fullest confidence of the American people.
Its decisions have been patiently waited for, and accepted
as legally conclusive by the general judgment of the public.
For the present, opinion will widely vary as to the wisdom
of the several conclusions announced by that tribunal.
This is to be anticipated in every instance where matters
of dispute are made the subject of arbitration
under the forms of law.
Human judgment is never unerring, and is rarely
regarded as otherwise than wrong by the unsuccessful
party in the contest.
The fact that two great political parties have in this
way settled a dispute in regard to which good men
differ as to the facts and the law no less than as to
the proper course to be pursued in solving the question
in controversy is an occasion for general rejoicing.
Upon one point there is entire unanimity in public sentiment—
that conflicting claims to the Presidency
must be amicably and peaceably adjusted, and that
when so adjusted the general acquiescence of the
nation ought surely to follow.
It has been reserved for a government of the people,
where the right of suffrage is universal, to give to the
world the first example in history of a great nation,
in the midst of the struggle of opposing parties for power,
hushing its party tumults to yield the issue of the contest
to adjustment according to the forms of law.
Looking for the guidance of that Divine Hand by which the
destinies of nations and individuals are shaped, I call upon
you, Senators, Representatives, judges, fellow-citizens, here
and everywhere, to unite w ith me in an earnest effort to
secure to our country the blessings, not only of material
prosperity, but of justice, peace, and union—a union
depending not upon the constraint of force, but upon the
loving devotion of a free people; “and that all things may be
so ordered and settled upon the best and surest foundations
that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and
piety, may be established among us for all generations.”5
Such promises are easier said than done.
Because of the disputed election there was no inaugural parade or ball.
The next day the United States Senate referred all of the
cabinet members Hayes nominated to the committees.
Public opinion favoring Hayes persuaded the Republican Senate to confirm
all the members of the Hayes cabinet by March 10.
President Hayes kept on none of Grant’s cabinet,
and he chose no presidential candidates.
He nominated New York’s Senator William M. Evarts as Secretary of State.
The Senate Foreign Relations chairman Simon Cameron
was so opposed to Evarts that he resigned on March 12,
but he got the Pennsylvania legislature to elect his son Donald Cameron.
Hayes had become friends with John Sherman
when he chose not to run against the incumbent Senator in 1872.
He appointed his trusted ally Sherman as Secretary of the Treasury.
Sherman was well qualified having been chairman of the
House Ways and Means Committee for six years,
and he was a Senate leader on finance for 16 years.
Hayes at first named George W. McCrary of Iowa as Attorney General
and Charles Devens of Massachusetts as Secretary of War;
but Hayes and McCrary disagreed on the McGarrahan land claim,
and Devens did not want to be the War Secretary.
Hayes then switched those nominations, making Devens Attorney General
and McCrary Secretary of War.
McCrary had published A Treatise on the American Law of Elections in 1875,
and he had helped plan the Electoral Commission
and served as the Republican counsel.
Andrew Kellar, who had helped get David M. Key of Tennessee appointed
to replace the late ex-President Johnson in the U. S. Senate,
mediated between Key and Hayes to get Key a cabinet position,
and Kellar promised Hayes that he would
“help to lead the conservative national citizens of Tennessee,
Arkansas & Texas to a higher platform & to a better era of politics.”6
Key promised Hayes he would support his liberal policy toward the South,
and Hayes then appointed him as Postmaster General.
This would allow patronage to southern Democrats in a Republican administration.
The other cabinet officers were Interior Secretary Carl Schurz of Missouri
and Navy Secretary William W. Thompson of Indiana.
Only Thompson was chosen for a partisan purpose
to gain support from Indiana’s Senator Oliver Morton.
In the 1876 election the Republicans lost six seats in the U. S. Senate
which divided it equally 37-37, though the Vice President could break a tie vote.
In the U. S. House of Representatives the Democrats had lost 25 seats,
but they still had a 155-136 advantage over Republicans.
Hayes refused to let Congressmen make appointments.
This turned the Senators James Blaine of Maine and Roscoe Conkling of New York
against him because he rejected their choices.
Conkling claimed he was too ill to campaign for Hayes in 1876, and after the
controversial and narrow electoral college victory Conkling called him
“Ruther-fraud Hayes” and “His Fraudulency the President.”
Conkling did not like the reformers that Hayes appointed to his cabinet,
and he spoke contemptuously of “snivel service reform.”
Hayes listened to the cabinet at regular meetings
but did not always follow their views.
He usually traveled in the summer and fall during the political campaigns
often accompanied by Attorney General Devens,
who like Hayes had attended Harvard law school
and became a lawyer and a Civil War officer.
President Hayes at first faced the major problem
of two pairs of opposing governors in southern states.
The Republican Gov. Stephen Packard of Louisiana was being challenged
by the Democrat Francis T. Nicholls, and the Republican Gov. Daniel Chamberlain
of South Carolina was being defied by Democrat Wade Hampton III.
General of the Army William Tecumseh Sherman had countermanded
Grant’s order to withdraw Federal troops from those states,
but they were only guarding a small area around the Republican governors.
After Nicholls had some blacks in Packard’s militia arrested,
Hayes conferred with his cabinet on March 20.
All but Devens agreed they should not use military force
to prop up Packard’s government.
Hayes realized the time had come to end the military occupation of the South,
and he decided to send a commission to Louisiana.
He believed that everyone should be given public education
so that they can have the opportunity of demonstrating their merit.
After a violent campaign the election result
for governor of South Carolina was being disputed.
On March 22 Hayes decided to end the military support
for the incumbent Republican Gov. Chamberlain.
He asked for a commission, and not getting it he refused to resign.
On April 3 Hayes ordered the troops to leave South Carolina,
and they did so one week later.
Chamberlain left on April 11, and on that day
the Democrat Wade Hampton III became the governor.
Hayes himself financed the Louisiana commission.
He and Evarts advised the commissioners to recognize
one legislature with undisputed members.
Hundreds of professionals and businessmen submitted a petition
urging that Federal troops return to their barracks.
They concluded with a pledge to protect the civil rights
of all citizens equally with no racial distinctions.
Gov. Packard refused to leave, but most district judges recognized
the Democrat Nicholls whose government recognized 240 elected blacks.
At a gathering thousands of supporters promised
they would never accept Packard’s government or pay taxes.
Commissioner Andrew Kellar used money to win over some Republican lawmakers,
and by April 19 they had enough Republicans for a quorum.
The next day Hayes ordered the troops protecting Packard to withdraw
to their barracks which they did on the 24th.
Hayes made Packard the consul at Liverpool where he could gain lucrative fees.
On April 25 Nicholls became the governor of Louisiana.
Grant’s former Attorney General Amos Akerman complained that Hayes wa
“letting the lawless have their way.”
The black Henry Adams led a committee in Shreveport that petitioned Hayes
on behalf of the colored people in the South who had lost their rights
and were being “oppressed, murdered,
and disenfranchised on account of our race and color.”7
Democrats in the U. S. House of Representatives refused to appropriate
more funds for the military in the fiscal year beginning on July 1.
On that day Army and Navy enlisted men stopped getting their pay while bankers
led by Drexel, Morgan & Co. advanced the officers 95% of their salaries.
At this time the U. S. Army had been reduced to about 25,000 men
with most of them deployed to fight Indians
or protect the Texas frontier on the Mexican border.
By June outside of Texas there were only 3,280 soldiers in the South.
Hayes hoped to win over Whigs and Douglas-Democrats by appointing them
in the South, and he traveled there twice.
He appointed to Federal jobs 48 blacks who had been in the Louisiana legislature.
Abolitionists Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison criticized these compromises
that Hayes made; but most northern Republicans were satisfied.
On March 3 James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis had persuaded the previous
Congress to pass the Desert Land Act to sell land for 25 cents an acre to settlers
who promised to irrigate and cultivate the land for three years.
Haggin and Tevis acquired 96,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley of California
from Spanish land grants and settlers to develop the Kern County Land Co.
William M. Evarts on March 12 replaced Secretary of State of Hamilton Fish
who had served well under Grant for eight years.
As his top assistant secretary Evarts relied on Frederick W. Seward
who had done that for his father and President Lincoln.
Evarts had 7,000 applications for consulships which he kept on file.
He chose them by merit and made 54 promotions within a year.
He instructed all the American consuls in Europe to report on wages,
cost of living, trade, and other business.
Commercial statistics helped American exports rise sharply in the four years.
They established new ministries in Colombia and Bolivia in 1878
and in Romania in 1880.
The Hayes administration avoided war, did not annex territory,
maintained a small army, and did not ask for an increase in the Navy until 1880.
Porfirio Díaz had taken over in Mexico in November 1876,
and Indian raiders crossing the border became a problem.
Hayes declined to recognize President Díaz until that was solved.
On June 1 U. S. War Secretary McCrary authorized General Edward Ord
to pursue bandits across the border.
Senator James Blaine in a speech on July 4 accused Hayes of wanting to annex
Mexico’s northern states, and two days later Hayes replied that the U. S.
had no intention of increasing its territory.
Eventually in April 1878 the American minister to Mexico, John W. Foster
persuaded Evarts to recognize the Díaz government.
Mexico improved its border conditions in the winter of 1878-79.
On 15 March 1877 Interior Secretary Schurz and the U. S. General Land
Commissioner J. A. Williamson sent special agent Murray Carter to Louisiana
to investigate the extensive despoiling of timber.
Schurz was a dedicated reformer, and by working from 9 to 6 he improved on the
previous work of Secretary Chandler whose regular schedule was from 10 to 4.
Schurz in June appointed a 3-man commission
to investigate the Indian Bureau and its agencies.
On April 23 Hayes and Treasury Secretary Sherman appointed John Jay
to lead a commission to investigate the New York customhouse
and those in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and San Francisco.
Their report on May 24 recommended removing 1,262 customshouse
employees in New York because they were not needed.
Without reform Federal politicians made civil servants
contribute 2 to 7% of their salaries, which added up to $2 million,
to campaigns and much more for lucrative positions.
Schurz wanted a nonpartisan government service
so that they did not change with each new administration.
Hayes appointed a Democratic woman who was a lawyer as postmistress in Louisville.
He wrote,
Party leaders should have no more influence
in appointments than other equally respectable citizens.
No assessments for political purposes,
on officers or subordinates, should be allowed.
No useless officer or employee should be retained.
No officer should be required or permitted to take part
in the management of political organizations, caucuses,
conventions, or election campaigns.8
In April 1877 President Hayes asked Treasury Secretary John Sherman
to investigate the political corruption in the custom houses.
Arthur and surveyor Sharpe attended a Chamber of Commerce dinner at Delmonico’s
on May 14 when Interior Secretary Schurz criticized Conkling and other corrupt
government officials whose offices should be
“places of duty, trust, and responsibility, and nothing else.”
On April 26 Arthur was the Jay Commission’s first witness,
and he testified for six hours and was called back three times.
He resisted personnel cuts.
Others testified about bribes and goods that came in duty free.
Sharpe and others said that contributions were voluntary.
On May 24 the Commission issued its first scathing report
on the New York Custom House that perverted government
for personal and party purposes while the country suffered from debt and taxes.
They recommended reducing the Custom House workforce of 1,038 men by 20%.
According to Jay’s article in the North American Review September-October 1878
Hayes told Sherman, “No assessments for political purposes
on officers should be allowed.”9
While Conkling took a ship to Europe in June 1877 and met Kate in Paris,
on the 22nd Hayes issued an executive order stating that no federal employee
“should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political
organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns.”10
The Jay Commission put out reports on July 4 and on the 21st
with eleven recommendations and more changes on August 31.
On June 22 Hayes prohibited political assessments by Federal civil servants
and managing political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns.
He vetoed six appropriation bills that had coercive riders in them.
William Henry Smith was head of the Western Associated Press in Chicago,
and he persuaded Hayes to let Key choose postmasters in order to organize the South.
Hayes appointed Smith the Collector of the Port of Chicago.
During his four years Hayes would remove only 67 postmasters
which was fewer than any administration since John Quincy Adams.
Hayes made the poet James Russell Lowell the minister to Spain in 1877
and then the minister to Britain in 1879.
Republican Rep. James Garfield of Ohio criticized congressional patronage
in “A Century of Progress” published in the Atlantic Monthly, writing,
During the last twenty-five years, it has been understood,
by the Congress and the people, that offices are to be
obtained by the aid of senators and representatives,
who thus become the dispensers,
sometimes the brokers of patronage….
The usurpation, by the senate,
of a large share of the appointing power …
has resulted in seriously crippling
the just powers of the executive, and has placed
in the hands of senators and representatives
a power most corrupting and dangerous.11
President Hayes on June 1 had ordered General Edward Ord to stop
lawless bands from Mexico invading the United States to steal cattle
and gave him permission to pursue the bandidos into Mexico.
Ord got some cooperation from Mexico’s President Porfirio Díaz,
but Hayes would not recognize Díaz until March 1878.
By February 1880 the border was under control,
and Hayes revoked the June 1777 order.
Allan Pinkerton and his detective agency had infiltrated
the secret Molly Maguires starting in October 1873.
He sent James McParlan to spy on the miners.
McParlan became a secretary of one of the local unions.
Coal companies hired private police and lawyers to prosecute the cases.
The evidence found led to the trial and hanging for murder of six of the miners
on 21 June 1877 at Pottsville, Pennsylvania and four others at Mauch Chunk.
They were mostly Irish Catholics, and no Catholics were allowed on the juries.
That month Pinkerton completed his detailed account in
The Mollie Maguires & the Detectives.
On June 22 Hayes quoted a letter from the Treasury Secretary as follows:
No officer should be required or permitted to take part
in the management of political organizations,
caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns.
Their right to vote and to express their views
on public questions, either orally or through the press,
is not denied, provided it does not interfere
with the discharge of their official duties.
No assessment for political purposes
on officers or subordinates should be allowed.
This rule is applicable to every department
of the civil service.12
In the fiscal year beginning in July 1877 the U. S. Congress had provided more
public works funding to Louisiana than to any other state
but no money for the U. S. military.
In July 1877 West Virginia’s Gov. Henry Mathews asked President Haye
for 200 or 300 federal troops to disperse them on the 18th,
and he sent 312 troops from Washington and Baltimore to keep the peace.
He was concerned about workers and did not want to support railroad plutocrats.
Hayes had more men sent from Fort McHenry to Maryland’s Gov. John Lee Carroll
who was in the depot.
The situation calmed down, and by Sunday the 22nd the soldiers were not needed.
Hayes would not send troops without a request from Gov. John Hartranft
who was away on a junket with Pennsylvania Railway mogul Thomas Scott
whose income that year was $22 million provided by
a $312 million U. S Government subsidy for the Texas & Pacific Railroad.
In Chicago about 6,000 people demanded they nationalize the railroads
and heard the socialist Albert Parsons give a rousing speech.
That day the Chicago Times fired Parsons and blacklisted him.
The crowd included many Germans who were demanding an 8-hour day.
President Hayes had General Sheridan send to Chicago 12 companies
of Federal troops led by Lt. Col. Frederick Dent Grant, the former President’s son.
They attacked a crowd of 10,000, and 30 people were killed;
18 police were wounded, but none died.
On July 31 the Hayes cabinet discussed railroad regulation.
Hayes wrote in his diary on August 6,
The strikes have been put down by force;
but now for the real remedy….
Can’t something be done by education of the strikers,
by judicious control of the capitalists,
by wise general policy to end or diminish the evil?
The railroad strikers, as a rule, are good men,
sober, intelligent and industrious.13
He toured New England in August, and in September he went to Ohio,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia on a good-will tour.
He urged southerners to follow all of the U. S. Constitution
and to improve Negro schools.
Hayes was elected to the board of the Peabody Education Fund to improve literacy
of southern blacks and whites, and he remained on it for the rest of his life.
The U. S. Congress had adjourned in March
without appropriating any funds for the army.
Hayes summoned them to meet on October 15.
He had fulfilled the Republican promises made in the Compromise of 1877
by keeping members of Louisiana’s Returning Board.
Nine southerners on October 17 failed to support the Republican James Garfield of Ohio
for Speaker of the House as they had promised,
but instead they re-elected the Democrat Samuel Randall.
Hayes felt this abrogated the deal, and he opposed the Texas and Pacific Railway project.
On October 17 he signed an executive order permitting Collis Huntington’s
Southern Pacific Railroad to lay track in the New Mexico and Arizona Territories.
New York’s Senator Conkling was not given patronage, and on November 30
he persuaded the Commerce Committee to reject
three of the President’s nominees for the New York customhouse.
Hayes nominated John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky to fill the seat
vacated by Chief Justice David Davis who was elected to the U. S. Senate.
Harlan had helped Hayes get the presidential nomination by persuading
the Kentucky delegation to switch over to him,
and in November he had served on the Louisiana Commission.
The Senate unanimously confirmed him on November 29, and the 44-year-old Harlan
would be an important justice on the U. S. Supreme Court for 34 years
especially in support of civil rights.
He would help judge 14,226 cases and wrote the court’s opinion
on 745 and on 380 dissents.
Hayes appointed black John M. Langston the minister to Haiti
and black John H. Smith to Liberia.
Frederick Douglass was made the U. S. Marshal of the District of Columbia,
its top law-enforcement official under the President.
Ezra Hervey Heywood was an abolitionist, advocate of female suffrage,
and a founder of the Free Love League in 1872.
He was convicted of violating the 1873 Comstock Act for
sending his pamphlet Cupid’s Yokes through the mail.
He was fined $100 and sentenced to two years.
About 5,000 people protested this at Faneuil Hall.
Hayes pardoned him after six months because he did not consider
the pamphlet obscene, and he was protected by the first amendment.
The President was criticized for this, and he declined to pardon D. M. Bennett
who was convicted of mailing Cupid’s Yokes.
By May 1878 Hayes had pardoned 284 people despite the disapproval
because he believed in mercy and correcting miscarriages of justice.
On December 6 Stilson Hutchins began publishing the Washington Post,
and 150 newspapers had reporters in Washington DC in 1877.
The U. S. Congress established the U. S. Entomological Commission
to reduce the devastation caused by grasshoppers on farms and rangeland.
They had done much damage in 1874 and 1875
and were in 1877 and would again in 1878.
By 1877 all the former Confederate states except Virginia
had leased out convicted prisoners to private companies or persons.
Some Nez Perce chiefs in June 1863 had agreed to a treaty
moving their people to the reservation at Lapwai, Idaho, but it was not ratified.
The U. S. Interior Department formed a commission in November 1876 and
appointed General Oliver Otis Howard the commander of the Columbia Department.
President Grant on 6 January 1877 determined that they should move,
but the chiefs Joseph (Heinmot Tooyalakekt), Looking Glass, and White Bird
did not want to go there. The Commission met with them on May 3.
At a U. S. Army Council on May 14 General Howard decided that
the Nez Perces had until June 15 to move, or they would force them.
In their camp three braves in White Bird’s band murdered four whites who were hostile,
and then 17 warriors in that band killed 14 or 15 settlers by the Salmon River.
Joseph and his brother Ollokot tried but failed to persuade others to avoid a war.
They took a defensive position at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
In early June chiefs held a council on the Camas Prairie near Lapwai.
The warrior Whalitis and two others who were drunk murdered four whites
who had abused the Nez Perces.
In the next two days Nez Perce warriors attacked Camas Prairie settlers,
killing 18 men, destroying ranches, stealing livestock, and raping at least one woman.
Chief Joseph knew this was wrong, but he understood what had provoked the attack.
On June 17 the Nez Perces defeated the U. S. Cavalry led by Captain David Perry,
killing 34 and capturing 63 rifles and many pistols while only 3 warriors were wounded.
On July 2 the Nez Perces crossed the Salmon River, and five days later
they joined Chief Looking Glass bringing their numbers to 750 with 200 warriors.
In a bloody battle by the Clearwater River on July 11 and 12 General Howard’s
400 soldiers and 150 volunteers and scouts suffered 40 casualties.
The Nez Perce warriors withdrew after only 10 casualties.
On July 28 Col. John Gibbon of the Montana District left Fort Shaw with 163 infantry.
At the Big Hole battle in the southwest corner of Montana on August 9 and 10
the chiefs Joseph and Looking Glass led about 200 warriors who fought them to a draw.
Each side had about 30 warriors killed,
but the Nez Perces also had about 50 women and children die.
Chiefs Joseph and Looking Glass had led 750 Nez Perces through Yellowstone Park
in a corner of the Wyoming Territory about 1,200 miles, and they hoped
to make it to Canada where they could join Sitting Bull’s Hunkpapa Lakota.
General Howard sent a message to Col. Nelson Miles at Fort Keogh
ordering him to stop the Nez Perces, and he led a force of 520
in the 7th Cavalry and 5th Infantry companies.
By September 29 the Nez Perces were between the Bear Paw Mountains
and the Little Rockies in the Montana Territory near Canada.
On the 30th the combined U. S. forces led by Howard and Miles
besieged their camp until October 5.
The 800 Nez Perce had less than 200 warriors.
The numbers of killed and wounded were about the same on each side,
but 87 Nez Perce men, 184 women, and 147 children surrendered or were captured.
Looking Glass, who had opposed the war, was killed.
Miles told Chief Joseph that the Nez Perces must
surrender their weapons and be detained overnight.
On October 2 Col. Miles exchanged Joseph for a lieutenant who had been captured.
General Howard arrived with an escort on the 4th,
and he let Miles receive the surrender the next day.
Chief Joseph surrendered 480 Nez Perces including 87 warriors.
During the war they had killed 180 whites and had lost 120 dead.
White Bird escaped to Canada, and about 233
with half of them warriors made it to Sitting Bull’s village.
Col. Miles wanted the Nez Perces treated fairly and returned to the Northwest.
Generals Sheridan and Sherman wanted them punished and persuaded
the Indian Affairs Commissioner Ezra Hayt, War Secretary McCrary,
and Interior Secretary Schurz to take them to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
where many died from diseases.
They were transferred to the Indian Territory where most babies died.
About half of the Nez Perces died in the eight years they were there.
Chief Joseph made this famous speech,
Tell General Howard I know his heart.
What he told me before I have in my heart.
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed.
Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead.
The old men are all dead.
It is the young men who say yes or no.
He who leads the young men is dead.
It is cold, and we have no blankets.
The little children are freezing to death.
My people, some of them, have run away to the hills
and have no blankets, no food.
No one knows where they are—may be freezing to death.
I want time to look for my children
and see how many of them I can find.
Maybe I shall find them among the dead.
Hear me, my chiefs: I am tired.
My heart is sick and sad.
From where the sun now stands
I will fight no more forever.14
Chief Joseph went to Washington DC to plead his case and became a celebrity.
In 1885 the Interior Department allowed the bands that had been led by White Bird
and Looking Glass to return to Lapwai while Joseph and his band were moved
to the Colville Reservation in eastern Washington which became a state in 1889.
After the Great Sioux War of 1876 about a thousand Northern Cheyenne
were moved to a Shoshone reservation in the Indian Territory.
Deputy marshals in Indian Territory kept a share of the fees
they collected from Choctaws and others.
On 8 January 1877 Crazy Horse and Two Moons led about 500 Sioux and Cheyenne
in an attack against nearly as many troops led by Col. Miles during
a severe snowstorm at Wolf Mountain in the Montana Territory.
Only three men were killed on each side, and some Cheyenne were captured.
By the winter of 1876-77 the army was destroying tepees and crops to starve the
Indians who surrendered or fled to Canada with Sitting Bull and his Hunkpapa Sioux.
The Brulé Sioux asked for peace in February 1877,
and in early April many Cheyenne surrendered.
Crazy Horse and other Oglala leaders reported to the
Red Cloud Agency near Fort Robinson, Nebraska on May 5.
Two days later Miles defeated Lame Deer who died with
about 200 Lakota and Cheyenne at Little Muddy Creek in Montana.
The U. S. cavalry captured about 450 horses and killed half of them.
On September 4 Crazy Horse was captured and taken to Fort Robinson
where he was killed in a fight while under arrest the next day.
After a difficult winter many Northern Cheyenne surrendered at Fort Robinson
in April 1877 and were moved south to the reservation
of the Southern Cheyenne and the Arapaho in the Indian Territory.
On October 27 Sioux in the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Agencies
began moving to the upper Missouri River in the Dakota Territory.
The U. S. Congress made 7.7 million acres in the Black Hills
accessible to homesteaders and private interests.
Sheriffs in the North as well as the South received a portion of the fines,
and poor people, black or white, who could not pay them were forced to work
as convicts for less than eight cents a day for
employers who had to provide clothing and food.
In his First Annual Message to Congress on December 3 President Hayes said,
Many, if not most, of our Indian wars have had their origin
in broken promises and acts of injustice upon our part,
and the advance of the Indians in civilization has been slow
because the treatment they received
did not permit it to be faster and more general.
We can not expect them to improve
and to follow our guidance unless we keep faith with them
in respecting the rights they possess,
and unless, instead of depriving them of their opportunities,
we lend them a helping hand….
Especial care is recommended to provide
for Indians settled on their reservations
cattle and agricultural implements, to aid them
in whatever efforts they may make to support themselves,
and by the establishment and maintenance of schools
to bring them under the control of civilized influences.15
Hayes wanted to give all young Indians education and those
who support their families the benefits of the Homestead Act and citizenship.
On 30 May 1878 the Bannock chief Buffalo Horn led about 200 warriors
escaping from the Fort Hall reservation in the Idaho Territory.
They raided settlers and ranches.
On June 5 Chief Egan and medicine man Oytes led Northern Paiutes
off the Malheur Reservation in eastern Oregon.
On the 8th vigilantes killed Buffalo Horn in a fight near Silver City,
and his warriors joined the Paiutes.
They avoided a battle on June 23 and were pursued by General Howard’s forces.
His 900 soldiers defeated about 700 Bannock, Shoshone,
and Paiutes on July 8 at Birch Creek, killing Chief Egan.
The prisoners were taken back to their reservations.
Over 500 Paiutes were taken to the Yakama Indian Reservation in the
Washington Territory until the Duck Valley Reservation was finally
prepared to receive them in 1886 on the Idaho-Nevada border.
In the Indian Territory food was inadequate,
and the Cheyenne suffered from malaria.
In one year fifty children died of diseases.
On 9 September 1878 Little Wolf and Dull Knife led
about 350 Northern Cheyenne from Fort Reno in Oklahoma heading north.
They fought against whites in Kansas and killed 41 settlers and raped women.
In Nebraska on October 23 Little Wolf and Dull Knife quarreled and divided the band.
Warriors led by Little Wolf escaped to Montana,
but mostly women and children led by Dull Knife surrendered at Fort Robinson.
On 2 January 1879 they were locked up without fire for heat or food or water
and were told they must return south to the Indian Territory.
On January 9 they attempted to escape, and the soldiers killed 64.
Dull Knife and six warriors made it to the Pine River Agency in the Montana Territory.
Little Wolf surrendered on March 29.
He became a scout for General Miles, but after killing Starving Elk
while drunk on 12 December 1880 he went into exile and spent
his last years on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.
The U. S. Congress appropriated funds for Native American police in 1878.
In December the U. S. Army stopped volunteers from attacking a band led by
Chief Moses because they would not move to a reservation in the Washington Territory.
Moses then led some of his people to Washington DC, and after negotiating with
Interior Secretary Schurz, on 18 April 1879 President Hayes ordered
a very large reservation for them in the Washington Territory.
That month Hayes proclaimed that any outsider
trying to settle in the Indian Territory was to be removed.
In 1876 the U. S. Congress had decided to move
northern Indian tribes to the Indian Territory.
In February 1877 the Ponca chiefs White Eagle, Standing Bear, and other leaders
went with the Indian Agent A. J. Carrier to the Indian Territory,
and most of the Poncas considered it unsuitable.
On April 17 about 175 Poncas went along to the Quapaw Reservation,
and one month later U. S. cavalry forced the
remaining 550 Poncas to join them in the Indian Territory.
About a third of those who moved to the Indian Territory
died including Standing Bear’s son.
In early 1879 Standing Bear and 34 other Poncas
went north 600 miles to the Omaha Reservation.
An attorney helped Standing Bear file a writ of habeas corpus,
and on May 12 Judge Elmer Dundy held that an Indian is a person and that
his federal arrest and captivity had been imposed without due process of law.
He wrote, “In time of peace, no authority civil or military exists for transporting Indians
from one section of the country to another, without the consent of the Indians.”16
In response to the removal of the Poncas the Boston Indian Citizen Committee
and the Indian Rights Association in Philadelphia
were organized to work for the protection of Indians’ rights.
On 9 January 1880 the author Helen Hunt Jackson wrote to
Interior Secretary Schurz asking him to help the Poncas regain their land.
He advised her to use money she raised to purchase land for the Poncas.
Standing Bear and the Ponca girl Bright Eyes (Susette La Flesche) went with the
missionary Thomas Henry Tibbles on a lecture tour to
Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.
President Hayes in December appointed a special commission
to study the Ponca case and make recommendations.
On 1 February 1881 he informed Congress that 521 Poncas were satisfied
in Indian Territory and that 150 wanted to stay on their old reservation
near Niobrara in Nebraska, and he accepted both.
He urged education of Indians for citizenship and land allotted to individuals.
The Sioux were compensated for the land they gave to the Poncas.
The U. S. Congress then appropriated $165,000 to indemnify the Ponca.
Bright Eyes married Tibbles in July 1881.
In February 1879 Tukudeka Shoshones, who were called “Sheep-eaters,”
were accused of killing five Chinese miners near Loon Creek in the Idaho Territory,
then of killing two ranchers in May even though there was no proof.
Eventually on October 1 and 2 the U. S. Cavalry captured 51 Tukudeka
and took them to the Fort Hall Reservation for Shoshone-Bannock tribes.
Utes rebelled against changes imposed by the agent Nathan Meeker
at the White River Agency in northwest Colorado
and on 29 September 1879 they killed Meeker and ten other men.
Some Utes took women and children as hostages for 23 days
until Chief Ouray and his wife negotiated their release.
Also on the 29th Utes led by Chief Colorow of the Mountain Utes ambushed
at Mill Creek a force of 178 men led by Major Thomas Thornburgh
from Fort Steele, killing the Major and 23 others while wounding 44.
About 30 Utes were killed.
Col. Wesley Merritt led 350 cavalry who took a train
and arrived at Mill Creek on October 5.
By then the Utes had dispersed.
A few Ute leaders were imprisoned, and remnants of the tribe
were moved to a new reservation in the Utah Territory.
Interior Secretary Schurz prevented Gov. Pitkin and citizens of Colorado
from escalating the killing of Indian Agent Meeker
and ten employees on September 29 into a war against the Utes.
Some Uncompahgre and Southern Utes remained
on a small reservation in southwest Colorado.
Schurz in August and September 1879 visited Indian agencies
in the West with the President’s son Webb Hayes.
They realized that Indians could no longer rely on hunting alone
and needed to learn agriculture, livestock management, and freight hauling.
Hayes and Schurz followed the policy of Grant which was to treat
the native Americans as individuals, and they gave annuities and supplies
to the heads of families instead of to tribal chiefs.
In April 1878 the Presbyterian Captain Richard Henry Pratt had begun
working with General Samuel Chapman Armstrong at the
Hampton Institute for blacks in Virginia by bringing in Indian students.
A third boarding school for Indians would be started at Forest Grove, Oregon.
President Hayes spoke at Hampton Institute graduations in 1878 and 1880.
On 2 September 1877 Chief Victorio led about 300 Warm Springs Apaches
and some Chiricahuas leaving the San Carlos Reservation.
Soldiers pursued them and forced them to surrender a month later
at Fort Wingate in the New Mexico Territory.
They were allowed to go home to Ojo Caliente for a year
before they were ordered to return to San Carlos.
Victorio and 80 warriors escaped but could not get back to Ojo Caliente.
Victorio led 60 warriors in a raid on a cavalry camp there on 4 September 1879.
About 90 Mescalero Apaches joined them, and for a year they lived by raiding
in Chihuahua, Mexico, in west Texas, and southern New Mexico and Arizona.
Col. George Buell’s U. .S force cooperated with Mexican irregulars led by
Col. Joaquin Terrazas who made Buell’s army leave Mexico in October 1880
so that he could have the glory of capturing the Apaches.
In a two-day battle at Tres Castillos the Mexican force killed 78
including Victorio and 16 women and children.
Geronimo (Spanish name for Goyahkla) had ridden with the Nednhi Chiricahua
Apaches in Sierra Madre, Mexico, and he organized raids with those from Ojo Caliente.
On 20 April 1877 the Indian agent John P. Clum arrested Geronimo
with 16 other leaders and took them to the San Carlos Reservation.
Geronimo was there for a year and then escaped to Mexico;
but after he was chased by Mexican troops, he returned to San Carlos in 1880.
On 1 November 1879 Captain Richard Henry Pratt founded
the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania with the endorsement of
Interior Secretary Schurz and War Secretary McCrary for 147 students between the
ages of 6 and 25 with 84 Lakota and the rest Cheyenne, Kiowa, Pawnee, and Apache.
Their long hair was cut off, and they were dressed in modern clothes and taught English.
One of the first students was the son of the Lakota chief, Standing Bear,
who wrote in his autobiography that on 24 May 1883 Pratt appointed him
the leader of the Carlisle Indian band playing brass instruments
that was the “first real American band to cross the Brooklyn Bridge.”
On January 14 in Hall v. De Cuir the U. S. Supreme Court voted 9-0
overturning a decision by the Louisiana Supreme Court that had awarded
damages to the black woman, Josephine DeCuir, who was not allowed
to enter a steamship stateroom reserved for whites.
Chief Justice Waite wrote that only the U. S. Congress
had the right to regulate interstate commerce.
Yet this Court was rejecting a state’s right to protect equality in public accommodations.
On January 17 the United States made a treaty with Samoan tribal chiefs
allowing the U. S. Navy to use the port of Pago Pago on the Tutuila island,
and the U. S. Senate ratified it on the 30th.
Interior Secretary Schurz in January received the commission’s report
on the Indian Bureau, and he dismissed the chief clerk S. A. Galpin and the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Q. Smith.
The commission devised a code of regulations for the Bureau
and a better system for keeping accounts.
Agents could be inspected without warning,
and all Indian traders were required to get licenses and be bonded.
On February 28 President Hayes vetoed the Bland-Allison Silver Purchase bill
to authorize coining silver dollars valued at between $2 million and $4 million,
and this was the only time the Congress was able to override his veto.
Treasury Secretary John Sherman worked diligently to prepare for the redemption
of legal tender notes at full value starting on 1 January 1879.
Gold arriving from abroad would help crop prices improve,
and the depression that began in 1873 would end in 1879.
On April 4 the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad cut the engineers’ pay by 10%.
Most of them and the firemen went on strike stopping the trains for five days.
Militia from Emporia, Kansas were called out and killed one bystander,
and they arrested several strike leaders.
On May 31 the U. S. Congress reduced the circulation of the $347 million
in greenbacks, and by December they regained the full value they last had in 1862.
On June 18 President Hayes signed the Posse Comitatus Act passed by
the U. S. Congress that prohibited the use of the federal military in elections.
On July 11 Hayes suspended the collector Chester Arthur and Navy officer
Alonzo Cornell from the New York Customhouse, and he replaced them
with the surveyor Edwin Merritt and Navy officer Silas Burt
who began serving right away because Congress was not in session.
During the summer of 1878 a House committee led by Clarkson Potter
of New York investigated the contested 1876 presidential election.
They discovered that friends of Tilden had used a secret code in
trying to corrupt the returning boards of South Carolina and Florida.
Their failed effort to damage Hayes thus made it difficult for Tilden to run again in 1880.
In the fall elections the Democrats took over the U. S. Senate by gaining 6 seats,
giving them a 42-31 advantage over the Republicans who lost 7 seats.
Democrats held on to control in the U. S. House of Representatives
despite losing 14 seats.
This was facilitated by the Greenback Labor Party
that farmers and their Grange organizations started.
They entered the Congress with 13 new representatives while Republicans lost 4 seats.
Independents also increased in the House from two to seven.
The states that had been in the Confederacy elected only three blacks
out of the 173 in the U. S. House of Representatives.
Many southern states provided little funding for public schools,
and poll taxes were used to discourage poor blacks and whites from voting.
President Hayes arbitrated a border dispute between Paraguay and Argentina
over the Chaco Boreal after the Machain-Irigoyen Treaty
had been signed in February 1876,
and on 12 November 1878 he decided that Paraguay could keep its Chaco territory.
On December 2 a report by Attorney General Devens found that
southern Democrats had cheated in elections and committed
political murders in South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, and Virginia.
In his Second Annual Message to Congress on December 2 President Hayes
celebrated peace with all nations and abundant harvests.
He discussed the recent yellow fever epidemic and urged Congress to take up the issue.
He also pleaded for the right of colored people to vote.
He discussed the diplomatic relations with Britain, Spain, Japan, China, Samoan Islands,
Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, and Bolivia.
The latest fiscal year had a surplus of $20,799,552.
He recommended the June law “forbidding the use of the Army ‘as a posse comitatus.’”
He suggested ways of improving the postal service.
He noted that relations with Indian tribes had become friendly and peaceful
except for incidents with the Bannocks, the Northern Cheyenne, and the military.
He hoped that in the future they would rely more “on humane and civilizing agencies.”
Hayes also commended the experiment with the
“Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute in Virginia.”17
He discussed improvements in agriculture and education
and urged national aid to local schools.
On December 9 U. S. notes issued to finance the Civil War
became redeemable in gold at their full value.
About 10,500 U. S. businesses failed in 1878,
the last full year of the depression that began in 1873.
Sam Bass led a gang that robbed several trains before Texas Rangers
killed him on July 21, his 27th birthday.
In July 15-19 during the Lincoln County War in the New Mexico Territory
the vigilante regulators led by Alexander McSween that included Billy the Kid
fought against a posse at Lincoln; five regulators and two in the posse were killed,
and McSween’s house was burned.
The feud continued until 1881.
On August 21 at Saratoga Springs, New York 75 lawyers from 20 states
and the District of Columbia formed the American Bar Association.
Navy Secretary Thompson installed a telephone to connect
his office to the Navy yard three miles away.
After Anthony Comstock tricked brothel Madame Restell into offering him
drugs for an abortion, he got her indicted and refused to drop the charges for $40,000.
She committed suicide on April 1.
The “great agnostic” Robert G. Ingersoll organized a petition drive for repeal
of the Comstock laws against obscenity and contraception that was
signed by 70,000 people and presented to the U. S. Congress.
John Wesley Powell became famous for exploring the Grand Canyon in 1869,
and in 1878 he published his Report on the Lands
of the Arid Region of the United States
suggesting that water be diverted for irrigating crops and for livestock.
He urged large dams and canals financed by the Federal government,
and he emphasized, “The right to use water should inhere in the land to be irrigated,
and water rights should go with land titles.”18
On 25 January 1879 the Arrears of Pension Act authorized Union veterans
of the Civil War to collect back pay from the date of their discharge.
On February 15 President Hayes approved a law allowing women
to practice law before the U. S. Supreme Court
after they had practiced before a state supreme court for three years.
Belva Lockwood would be the first woman to argue a case
in Kaiser v. Stickney in November 1880.
On March 1 Hayes vetoed the Chinese exclusion bill that would have limited
any incoming ship to no more than 15 Chinese passengers,
and in the far West angry whites burned him in effigy.
Democrats in the U. S. House of Representatives had passed appropriation bills
with provisions called “riders” that would have repealed election laws designed
to protect Republican voters in the South from being
intimidated or forcefully prevented from voting.
The Republican Senate refused to pass the bills.
To prevent the U. S. Government from shutting down on July 1 Hayes summoned
the Congress to meet on March 18, and he intended to veto any legislation
that would remove federal supervision of U. S. elections.
He believed that people would support him against Democrats trying to hold the
U. S. Government financially hostage
if Republicans did not stop protecting voters in the South.
In a message on the 19th Hayes asked the Congress for the funds to keep
the three branches of the U. S. Government and the Army operating.
He observed that experience has shown that leaving Federal elections
to the states would not be safe.
He warned that the House was trying to exert despotic power.
On March 27 the Democrats proposed an Army appropriations bill
with a rider that would block the U. S. Army or civil officers
from preserving peace at polling places.
Hayes believed that soldiers should not be at the polls unless they were needed.
He asked if red shirts (KKK) can be at the polls,
why cannot the blue coats (U. S. Army) be there too?
Hayes saw this as a renewed conflict between Federal and states’ rights
and as an attempt by the Congress to grab more power
over the President and the judiciary.
The Republican minority leader James Garfield of Ohio
made a very effective speech supporting a Hayes veto on this issue.
On April 25 the U. S. Congress passed that army bill, and four days later
Hayes vetoed it for being “radical, dangerous, and unconstitutional,”
and he noted that it was not needed because existing law
already outlawed military interference in elections.
Hayes said he intended to protect the right of every citizen to vote.
He concluded,
I desire earnestly to urge
upon the House of Representatives
a return to the wise and wholesome usage
of the earlier days of the republic,
which excluded from appropriation bills
all irrelevant legislation.19
On May 1 the Democrats failed to override his veto.
Hayes embarrassed many Democrats when he told a reporter from the
Cincinnati Commercial that the Confederate constitution had prohibited
legislative riders by giving the president a line-item veto on appropriation bills.
On April 30 Massachusetts was the first state to authorize the governor
to appoint police to inspect safety violations in public buildings and factories.
The legislature also allowed women to vote in local elections for school committees.
Mississippi’s Congressman and former Confederate General James Chalmers
in May with a gang of white men threatened to sink any boat carrying Negroes,
and for a while 1,500 black people were stranded on the banks of the Mississippi.
General Thomas Conway reported this to President Hayes,
and on June 28 the U. S. Congress authorized $175,000 for a
Mississippi River Commission to subsidize the improvement of levees
which had been damaged in the Civil War.
Federal troops were sent to make the steamboats resume service to all.
Next the Democrats passed a bill to prohibit Federal troops from
peacekeeping at the polls unless they were requested by state authorities.
Hayes vetoed that bill on May 12.
The House could not override it the next day
as Republicans were united behind the President.
After the Congress passed an $18 million appropriation bill with the rider,
Hayes vetoed it on May 29, arguing that free elections do not allow citizens
to violate laws or commit crimes at polling places.
Again the House could not override the veto.
Finally in June the Congress passed bills to fund the Army and the
U. S. Government without restrictive riders, and Hayes signed them.
To save face the Democrats had added a rider to prohibit using the army
as police at the polls; Hayes noted that the Federal marshals and deputies do that,
and that the U. S. Army is used only if military power is needed to enforce laws.
When Congress excluded funds to pay deputy marshals, election supervisors,
and other judicial expenses, Hayes vetoed that supplemental bill on June 23,
and it was sustained.
Another similar bill was adopted on June 28, vetoed on the 30th and
not over-ridden the next day as the fiscal year began.
Hayes had saved the electoral laws that protected voting in the South,
though the Democrats denied the $600,000 needed to pay marshals.
The strong stand by Hayes for voting rights rallied Republicans,
and the Philadelphia Public Ledger asked Hayes to run for a second term;
but he made it clear he would keep his promise not to do that.
In April he ordered that the civil service reforms regulating appointments
and promotions at the New York customhouse and post office be adopted
by other collectors and postmasters with large Federal offices;
but many were not ready to give up the spoils system that benefited them.
In the spring Benjamin “Pap” Singleton and the black Henry Adams
led the Great Exodus which by 1879 included 50,000 freedmen
from the South moving to Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois
to find better land and working conditions with less violence.
That year at least 15,000 colored people migrated to Kansas.
Adams explained why.
It is not that we think the soil climate or temperature
of Kansas is more congenial to us—but it is the idea,
the thought, that pervades our breast
that “at least we will be free,”
free from oppression, free from tyranny,
free from bulldozing, murderous southern whites.20
In the fall Assistant Secretary of State Seward resigned for health reasons,
and he was replaced by John Hay who had been Lincoln’s private secretary.
On December 1 President Hayes gave his Third Annual Message to Congress
and celebrated the success of the Resumption Act as he noted that so far in 1879
the value of precious metals deposited and exchanged
for greenbacks (paper money) was about $40 million.
The incoming gold enabled Treasury Secretary Sherman to refinance
bonds at 4% interest which saved $14,297,177 since March 1877.
Hayes expressed that many citizens in the Utah Territory were violating
the law against polygamy, and he advised more law enforcement.
He discussed the ongoing civil service reforms extensively.
The Civil Service Commission chairman Dorman Eaton studied the British
civil service which used competitive exams that he believed could be instituted.
Because the U. S. Civil Service Commission had no funding since 1875,
Eaton paid for his own report.
Hayes asked for funds so that the reforms used in New York
could be extended to other places.
He discussed foreign relations that were amicable,
and he noted that relations with the native tribes had improved.
The depression had ended, and the U. S. economy was growing again.
The Congress provided $5,000 for the Washington Census Office,
and the Hayes administration consulted with its superintendent
Francis Amasa Walker and supported him.
Leadville, Colorado had over 30 silver mines and began producing
about $15 million worth of ore per year for the next 13 years.
On 9 January 1880 President Hayes sent a U. S. Navy ship to the Pacific coast
of the Central American isthmus and another to the Atlantic shore to find coaling stations.
Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had organized the construction of the Suez Canal,
was raising money for a canal to connect the two largest oceans.
Hayes discussed the canal with his cabinet on February 7 and wanted to make sure
that America would be in control even though Britain and the U. S. had agreed
in the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty that neither nation would have “exclusive control.”
Hayes sent this message to the U. S. Senate on March 8.
The presidency of the de Lesseps Canal Company
was offered to Ulysses Grant, but he declined.
After Navy Secretary William W. Thompson accepted a $25,000 salary
as chairman of the American Committee of that Panama Company,
he was criticized and would be forced to resign on December 20.
In January 1880 Hayes appointed Eli Houston Murray
as the Governor of the Utah Territory, and the U. S. President wanted him
to ban polygamists there from voting, holding office, and being on juries.
On March 1 the U. S. Supreme Court decided 7-2 in Strauder v. West Virginia
that equal protection of the law means that a person could not be excluded
from a jury based on race, color, or previous servitude.
On March 8 their 7-2 decision in the Ex Parte Siebold case that had been
brought in 1879 meant that the Baltimore judge Siebold, who had been convicted
of stuffing ballot boxes in a U. S. Congressional election, was denied
his appeal because the Federal election laws of the Enforcement Acts
applied to his case and are constitutional.
Hayes was in New York to open the Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 30,
and then he and his wife Lucy dined with the wealthy John Jacob Astor.
On April 29 Democrats passed another appropriation bill with a rider
that removed a Federal marshal’s right to appoint special deputies,
and Hayes vetoed it on May 4.
Diplomats representing eleven European nations and the U. S. General
Lucius Fairchild on July 3 agreed to the Treaty of Madrid to support the
independence movement in Morocco and prevent intervention by other nations.
On July 4 California’s new constitution went into effect
with progressive additions limiting the powers of elected officials,
and initiatives passed by the voters would make it even longer.
On August 11 Hayes spoke to 10,000 people at Ohio State Fair Grands
in Columbus, and General Sherman gave his famous speech about how war is hell.
Then and at other times Sherman probably said,
You don’t know the horrible aspects of war.
I’ve been through two wars, and I know.
I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes.
I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground,
their dead faces looking up at the skies.
You all know this is not soldiering here.
There is many a boy here today
who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.
You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come.
I look upon war with horror,
but if it has to come, I am there.21
Concerned about scandals over the hazing of blacks at the West Point Military
Academy, Hayes on August 17 removed General Schofield who was Superintendent,
and in December the President appointed General Oliver Otis Howard
because of his extensive experience helping blacks.
In September Mexico’s President Díaz approved concessions
to two railroad companies financed by Americans.
After attending an army reunion at Canton, Ohio on September 1
President Hayes left on a western trip of 10,000 miles with his family.
The next day they made four stops in Illinois.
He made only short speeches emphasizing civil
and political rights and free public education.
They reached Cheyenne on the 4th and Salt Lake City the next day.
They arrived in San Francisco on September 9,
the 30th anniversary of California’s becoming a state.
Hayes at Sacramento on the 22nd predicted that this region
would grow to support 50 million people.
In Oregon they went to Roseburg and Portland,
and they visited the Indian school at Forest Grove on October 2.
The next day they visited a Paiute camp, and the Paiute chief’s daughter
Winnemuca made another plea to Hayes that they be allowed to move
from the Yakima Reservation in the Washington Territory
to the Malheur Agency in Oregon.
They had met previously at the White House, and Schurz had favored this;
but the Yakima Indian agent had been against it.
Once again Hayes rejected her plea
even though Winnemuca moved his wife Lucy to tears.
They then went to Walla Walla, Tacoma, and Astoria in the Washington Territory.
They went back to San Francisco on a steamer ship, and on the return journey
they visited Yosemite, Los Angeles, and traveled by stagecoach through
Apache territory to Yuma and Tucson on the way to Santa Fe
where they got a train to Kansas City and Toledo, Ohio.
The Hayes family made it home to Fremont, Ohio on November 1.
The next day Hayes was pleased by the Republican victories,
and he got back to the White House on November 7.
Prior to this presidential journey only Grant had gone as far west as Utah.
On November 17 three U. S. commissioners led by James Burrill Angell
signed two treaties in China.
A commercial agreement prohibited Americans from trading in opium in China.
The immigration treaty allowed the United States to “regulate, limit, or suspend”
but not to prohibit Chinese immigration into the U. S.
The Americans signed the agreements in January 1881.
Secretary of State Evarts also recognized Japan’s tariffs,
opened trade with Korea, and made a treaty with Hawaii.
President Hayes sent his Fourth and last Annual Message
to Congress on 6 December 1880.
He asked the Congress to investigate voting rights violations,
and he pleaded for funds for states in need of support for public education.
He noted that 2,000 appointments had been made in New York
based on the merit system, and he urged Congress to appropriate $25,000 annually
for a commission to develop competitive examinations for civil service.
He recommended repeal of the 1867 tenure-of-office act which required
that the U. S. Senate approve the removal of those they had confirmed.
He reviewed relations with various nations.
Hayes included a detailed financial report on the fiscal year ending in June 1880
which showed that the improved economy enabled the administration to achieve
a surplus of $65,883,653 that reduced the national debt to $1,886,019,505.
He estimated that the current fiscal year would lower the debt by $90 million.
Hayes on December 3 had asked Dorman Eaton
to study the merit system
in New York, and in February 1881 he reported that the exams for appointments
and promotions in the New York customhouse and post office were very successful.
Mail in 1880 was a third greater than in 1875
while delivery expenses were $20,000 lower.
After completing his one term Hayes in his last 12 years
before he died in January 1893 made more speeches
for humanitarian causes than any previous president.
According to the 1880 Census the U. S.population was 50,189,209.
The ten largest cities with more than 200,000 people were New York,
Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, Baltimore, Cincinnati,
San Francisco, and New Orleans.
New York and Brooklyn together had 1,772,962.
The states of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana had more blacks than whites.
That year about 424,000 foreigners came to the U. S. including 80,000 from
Germany and Austria and 70,000 from Britain.
The number of millionaires in the U. S. increased
from less than 20 in 1840 to over 100 in 1880.
Jews in the U. S. increased from about 50,000 to 250,000
mostly from Germany in 1880.
Negro literacy was 30% up from 18.6% in 1870, and in 1890 it would be 42.9%.
From 1870 to 1880 the number of clerks and copyists
working in an office multiplied by four.
The United States had about 4 million farms
with about one million worked by tenant farmers.
Chicago editor Milton George founded the Northwest Alliance
for politically active farmers.
U. S. wheat production reached 500 million bushels
in 1880 with prices 27% lower than in 1866.
The U. S. exported 175 million bushels of wheat and flour.
Too much monoculture wheat farming fostered the multiplication
of chinch bugs who got out of control in the fall of 1880.
U. S. corn reached 1,500 million bushels, and 116 million were exported.
The U. S. imported 90% of its sugar,
and sugar from beets was becoming commercial.
The U. S. exported 890,364 tons of ice on 1,735 ships.
On 22 February 1881 President Hayes prohibited
the sale of alcohol at military installations.
On March 3 the U. S. Congress established a Federal agency
to register and protect trademarks for businesses.
The Chicago Tribune, the Boston Advertiser, the New York Times,
and the Providence Journal had endorsed Ulysses Grant for a third term.
Grant and his wife had made a world tour to many nations from Britain to Japan
from May 1877 to September 1879 when they returned by way of San Francisco.
John Russell Young described their journey for the New York Herald,
and he published the two-volume Around the World with General Grant.
The public welcomed him as he traveled to Philadelphia.
After a short rest at Galena he went to Mexico and then toured the South.
Young warned Grant that he would probably lose the election for a third term
and advised him to withdraw.
On May 30 the Chicago Tribune reported James Garfield’s comments
on the controversial unit rule which forced each state to give all their delegates
to one candidate at the Republican convention.
This gave party bosses such as the three U. S. Senators, Roscoe Conklin of New York,
Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania, and John Logan of Illinois,
much power to aid Grant who might accept an unprecedented third term.
Garfield argued,
All delegates … are political units,
each one of which has a right to express
his own political sentiment by his personal vote….
It is wholly un-Republican
for one man to cast another man’s vote.
I regard it is being more important
than even the choice of a candidate.22
Republican delegates were elected by local caucuses and conventions,
and then each state convention chose four at-large delegates.
The New York convention at Utica selected Grant by a 217-180 vote,
and Conklin persuaded the delegates to pass a resolution supporting only Grant.
Logan in Springfield, Illinois locked out Blaine and Washburne delegates
so that Grant would carry the state.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) met in Chicago on May 31.
The 38 states and 8 territories each had one vote.
William Eaton Chandler, who had been had been chairman
of the RNC 1868-76, led the Blaine campaign.
Senator Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania became RNC chairman
in November 1879, and he was for Grant.
The 22 delegates locked out of the Illinois state convention requested credentials.
Cameron blocked efforts to abolish the unit rule by a vote.
Conkling had only 16 allies and asked his protégé Chester Arthur of New York
to work out a compromise which he did with Chandler.
James Garfield, who was backing Senator John Sherman, had hired Chandler
as his lawyer when facing a charge in the Crédit Mobilier scandal in 1874.
The Committee elected Senator George Hoar of Massachusetts
as temporary chairman of the convention and adjourned at midnight.
Before the national Republican convention in Chicago more than 5,000 people
gathered in Dearborn Park to hear speeches by Grant supporters such as
Senator John Logan, George Boutwell of Massachusetts, and Frederick Douglass.
On June 2 Senator Cameron opened the convention which
unanimously accepted Senator Hoar as the temporary chairman.
Little was accomplished on June 3, and the next day Conkling proposed
a resolution binding every delegate to support the party’s nominee.
When three West Virginians voted no while 716 voted yes,
Conkling then asked the convention to not let the three vote or be heard.
The three defended themselves.
James Garfield made a speech saying,
There never was a convention,
there never can be a convention, of which I am a delegate,
equal in rights to every other delegate,
that shall bind my vote against my will
on any question whatever.23
Many hissed Conkling, and he withdrew his resolution.
Conkling made the speech presenting Grant’s name for nomination and said,
Having tried Grant twice and found him faithful,
we are told that we must not even,
after an interval of years, trust him again.
My countrymen!
What stultification does such a policy involve?24
James Garfield made an extemporaneous speech for Senator John Sherman of Ohio
reviewing how they had ended slavery and fought a war and that Sherman
would help build industry, protect the currency, and unite the party.
Telegraph wires sent the words of these speeches to major newspapers
so that Americans could read them the next morning.
On Sunday night Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana asked Garfield
if he would accept the nomination, and he replied that his name must not be used.
On Monday June 7 the Republicans began voting.
Stalwarts supported Grant while moderate Half-Breeds favored the other candidates.
James Garfield was chairman of the Rules Committee
and supervised the drafting of the platform.
The unit rule had been abolished,
and each state in alphabetical order announced their votes.
On the first ballot Grant got 304 votes, James Blaine 284, John Sherman 93,
Senator George Edmunds of Vermont 34, Elihu Washburne of Illinois 30,
and Senator William Windom of Minnesota 10.
Numbers did not change much until on the 29th ballot votes
for Edmunds and Windom shifted to other candidates.
Sherman’s votes went up to 120 on the 30th ballot and Washburn’s to 44 on the 32nd.
Votes on the 34th and 35th ballots shifted from those two to Garfield, giving him 17,
and then with 18 from Blaine he had 50 votes.
On the 36th ballot Garfield got 399 votes and the nomination.
With the entire South going Democratic
the Republicans needed New York to win.
Garfield asked Rep. Levi Morton to be his running mate,
but the New York boss Conkling persuaded him to decline.
Senator Conkling also urged the New York Republican Party chairman
Chester Arthur to decline, and he accepted and was
nominated for Vice President on the first ballot.
Sherman had financial difficulties, and Garfield paid his bills to solidify his support.
Garfield said he was for civil service reform but that
he would also seek the advice of Congress on appointments.
President Hayes was disappointed by that ambivalence, and he invited him
to dine at the White House and supported him enthusiastically.
The Republican platform favored a tariff to help workers,
increased pensions for veterans, and funding harbors and railroads.
They opposed polygamy and unlimited Chinese immigration.
Garfield went to his home in Ohio.
Later he visited New York City, and on August 5 he met with Republican stalwarts.
The banker Levi P. Morton took charge of raising money.
Chester Arthur, who had been Collector of Customs at the Port of New York,
suggested that party members contribute 3% of their salaries.
The Union Greenback Labor Party had been organized in 1879,
and in March 1880 they met at St. Louis and nominated the
lawyer and journalist Stephen Dillaye of New Jersey for President
and Barzillai J. Chambers of Texas for Vice President.
Dillaye favored reunification with the eastern Greenbacks
who held their national convention at Chicago on June 9 to the 11th.
They had 608 delegates from every state except Oregon,
and the next day they voted to reunify the Greenback Party by admitting
185 Union Greenback delegates, 44 Socialist Laborites, and a few others.
Their platform called for unlimited silver coins and
repaying the national debt with bonds instead of gold coins.
They also approved a graduated income tax, work-safety laws for factories,
regulating interstate commerce, and ending convict and child labor.
They continued to meet through the night, and Dillaye was nominated
and withdrew before they started voting at 3:25 a.m. for the former
Republican Rep. James Baird Weaver of Iowa,
Rep. Hendrick B. Wright of Pennsylvania, and Benjamin Butler.
Votes soon shifted to Weaver who was nominated
with Barzillai J. Chambers of Texas as Vice President.
Weaver was also a general in the Civil War, and he had been
in the U. S. House of Representatives only since 1879.
He arrived at 6 a.m. and made his acceptance speech.
On July 3 he formally accepted in a letter in which he wrote,
“Capital should be the servant of labor rather than its master.”25
His letter concluded,
And, now, eschewing all violence and tumults
as unworthy of the cause we represent,
and relying upon Divine Providence
and the justice of our cause,
let us go forth in the great struggle for human rights.26
The Republican National Committee met in New York City
at the Fifth Avenue Hotel on July 2.
Chairman Conkling wanted to maintain control of New York patronage
including jobs at the Custom House that collected more than $110 million a year.
Garfield was suddenly overwhelmed by people
and received at least 5,000 letters and telegrams.
He left Ohio and went to New York in a private railroad car
picking up Chester Arthur in Albany on the way.
Republicans gathered on August 5 for a meeting, and Conkling stayed away.
Garfield persuaded Levi Morton to head a fundraising committee
and offered him Treasury Secretary or minister to England or France.
About 50,000 people paraded to Madison Square Park.
Garfield’s speech asked for the protection of loyal freedmen and blamed white men
for having betrayed the flag, and he said that no black man ever betrayed them.
Garfield in his hotel room met with Morton, Arthur,
and New York Rep. Richard Crowley.
Accounts differ on what was agreed.
The Stalwarts’ desires would be most important on all issues of patronage,
and Garfield wrote in his diary that there had been no trades.
In his acceptance letter Garfield indicated that he opposed “State supremacy”
in the South and “doubtful financial experiments” such as free coinage of silver.
He supported free elections, public education, separation of church and state,
protective tariffs, improving navigation in the Mississippi River,
and limiting Chinese immigration.
He asked Congress to “devise a method” to reform civil service.
At their convention in Cincinnati on June 22-24 the Democrats nominated
General Winfield Scott Hancock on the second ballot and then the
former Congressman and banker William English as his running mate.
Hancock had fought at Gettysburg and against Indians in the West,
and he opposed reforming the civil service.
His view that the tariff was a local matter
may have cost the Democrats Ohio and Indiana.
President Hayes noted that the South’s reluctance to allow
equal voting rights caused many immigrants to avoid that region.
He also observed that the 20 cities with 100,000 or more people
included only New Orleans from the South.
Hayes sent a letter on the need for an educated electorate to the Hawkeye
in Burlington, Iowa, and it was distributed to help the Republican campaign.
The candidate Garfield remained at his farm in Mentor, Ohio
often dictating 50 or more letters in a day.
Newspapermen camped on his front lawn to report on the visitors.
The popular novelist Horatio Alger published
From Canal Boy to President about Garfield.
Democratic newspapers exposed Garfield’s participation in the scandals
Crédit Mobilier, the De Golyer pavement scheme, and the “salary grab”
when Congressmen voted themselves a pay raise with back pay in 1873;
they claimed he served tycoons such as Jay Gould and John D. Rockefeller.
Blaine was expected to bring about a Republican victory
in the local election in Maine on September 13,
but the Democrat Harris Plaistad was elected governor by 2,000 votes.
Blaine telegraphed Garfield that Democrats used up to $100,000
to buy votes in the last four days.
Grant criticized General Hancock as selfish and weak especially Order No. 40
for restoring civil authorities in Louisiana in 1867
with a swindle entangling $7 million in levee bonds.
Grant’s comments to two ministers were reported in the Cincinnati Gazette
and the New York Tribune and were picked up by many newspapers.
On September 28 Grant and Conkling spoke to 40,000 people at Warren, Ohio.
Conkling went west to speak, and Grant led a 6-mile parade of 60,000 veterans
and supporters down Broadway before 300,000 spectators in New York.
Garfield made a speech in German to hundreds of voters in Ohio.
Conkling gave twenty speeches to large audiences in several states.
Grant helped win the votes of Union veterans and the Stalwarts.
Over 9 million people voted on November 2 in the 1880 elections.
The Republican James Garfield defeated the Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock
by only 1,898 of the popular votes in the official count,
but four other estimates ranged from a difference of 7,019 to 9,457.
Garfield and Hancock each won 19 states.
Hancock carried all of the former slave states plus New Jersey, California,
and Nevada, but he got only 155 electoral votes to Garfield’s 214.
The Greenback candidate James B. Weaver got 308,649 votes which was 3.4%.
The Republicans took five seats away from the Democrats
in the U. S. Senate making them even at 37 each.
In 1879 the biracial Readjuster Party had won a majority of the seats
in both houses of the Virginia legislature.
William Mahone of the Virginia Readjusters won a seat in the U. S. Senate
and caucused with the Republicans, and there was one independent.
This enabled Vice President Arthur to break a tie on party-line votes.
In the U. S. House of Representatives the Republicans gained 19 seats
giving them a 151-128 majority over Democrats who lost 13 seats.
The Greenback Party lost 3 seats and retained 10,
and they supported the Republicans.
Independents lost 5 of their seven seats, and the Readjusters won two.
Notes
1. Reunion & Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction
by C. Vann Woodward, p. 109.
2. Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President by Ari Hoogenboom, p. 141.
3. The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes by Kenneth E. Davison, p. 160-161.
4. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States
ed. Kermit L. Hall, p. 567.
5. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 7, p. 442-6.
6. Reunion & Reaction by C. Vann Woodward, p. 183.
7. The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction
and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 by Richard White, p. 335.
8. Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes 3: 435 in
Rutherford B. Hayes by Ari Hoogenboom, p. 323.
9. Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur
by Scott S. Greenberger, p. 101.
10. Ibid. p. 102.
11. The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes by Kenneth E. Davison, p. 156.
12. The Presidents Fact Book by Roger Matuz, p. 316.
13. 1877: Year of Violence by Robert V. Bruce, p. 315.
14. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 7, p. 475.
15. Bismarck Tri-Weekly Tribune, October 26, 1877 in Thunder in the Mountains
by Daniel J. Sharfstein, p. 401-402.
16. The Rise of Industrial America by Page Smith, p. 81.
17. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 7, p. 500-503.
18. Documents of American History ed. Commager, p. 553.
19. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 7, p. 532.
20. The Republic for Which It Stands by Richard White, p. 420.
21. The People’s Chronology by James Trager, p. 554.
22. Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of
President James A. Garfield by Kenneth D. Ackerman, p. 28.
23. Ibid., p. 83.
24. Ibid., p. 87.
25. The Annals of America, Vol. 10, p. 456.
26. Ibid. p. 458.
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