Rutherford B. Hayes: Impact and Legacy [cite this] ↑Rutherford B. Hayes Home Page Rutherford B. Hayes Essays Life in Brief Life Before the Presidency Campaigns and Elections Domestic Affairs Foreign Affairs Life After the Presidency Family Life The American Franchise Impact and Legacy [ print all essays ] After finding “the country divided and distracted and every interest depressed,” Hayes was proud that, upon leaving the White House, he “left it united, harmonious, and prosperous.” He had found the Republican party “discordant, disheartened, and weak,” and left it “strong, confident, and victorious.” He believed he had successfully confronted many issues: "The Southern question; the money question; the hard times and riots; the Indian question; the Chinese question; the reform of the civil service; the partisan bitterness growing out of a disputed election; a hostile Congress; and a party long in power on the verge of defeat." Apart from Lincoln's administration, Hayes boasted, "it would be difficult to find one which began with so rough a situation, and few which closed with so smooth a sea." Contemporaries were inclined to agree with Hayes. Henry Adams, a caustic critic of politicians who had dismissed Hayes in 1876 as "a third-rate nonentity" and voted for Tilden, acknowledged by 1880 that Hayes had conducted "a most successful administration." Mark Twain's prediction that the Hayes administration "would steadily rise into higher & higher prominence, as time & distance give it a right perspective," has not come to pass. Historians have blamed Hayes for the end of Reconstruction, for breaking the Great Strike of 1877, for championing the gold standard, for an Indian policy that aimed at acculturation, for negotiating a treaty that led to Chinese exclusion, and for being an inconsistent civil service reformer. It is unfair, however, to dismiss Hayes so summarily. Too often he has been measured against the ideals of a later era; his limited options have not been adequately understood and, at times, his actions have been misrepresented. He did not break the Great Strike, for example, and only sent troops to stop riots as any responsible President must when properly requested by state and local authorities. Additionally, Reconstruction was over, for all practical purposes, when Hayes took office. His only real choice was not whether but when troops had to cease protecting Republican governments in South Carolina and Louisiana. His opposition to inflation and support of the gold standard were accompanied by the return of prosperity. His Indian policy was indeed paternalistic and did aim at acculturation, but he stopped the removal of Native Americans to the Indian Territory and he embraced a policy of peace, which had its beginnings under Ulysses S. Grant, and not one of annihilation. The treaty with China took into account the temper of Californians and of Congress, but its aim was restriction not exclusion. Reformers were not entirely happy and spoilsmen were angered by Hayes's civil service policy, but he left the party machinery sufficiently intact to win in 1880. In addition, the experiment with the New York customhouse proved the feasibility of reform and made possible the passage of the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Hayes is also significant for the strikingly modern actions he took to enhance the power of the presidency. He defeated Republican senators over the so-called "courtesy of the Senate" convention and did not let them dictate appointments in the field service. He also defeated the Democratic congressional majority's stance toward the President's legislative role by not letting it destroy his veto power. In defeating the Democrats in the "Battle of the Riders," he relied on the power of public opinion, which he aroused in his stirring veto messages. Hayes traveled more widely than any previous President and, although he did not electioneer, he used every opportunity to speak on issues close to his heart. In this manner, he bypassed Congress to appeal directly to the people. A Successful Politician Historians have tended to echo the views of Republican party leaders in the House and Senate that Hayes was an ineffective politician. Anything but an inept politician, Hayes shrewdly played presidential politics. He exploited issues and appealed to public opinion (which he viewed as the real government) by traveling widely and speaking often and briefly. Hayes knew that newspapers would pick up these talks and publicize his views. He also wrote his vetoes more for the public than for Congress, and by doing so vanquished the Democrats in the Battle of the Riders. Hayes was far more clever than the Conklings and Blaines, who turned on him when he refused to appoint their lieutenants to his cabinet and would not let them dominate his administration. They, especially Conkling, believed that organization based on patronage was the key to political success, while Hayes relied on what Theodore Roosevelt later called the "bully pulpit." Hayes was reform minded, but was aware of what was possible and avoided the impossible. His middle-of-the-road positions on issues like civil service reform and temperance kept the Republican party together and strong enough to win in 1880, although reformers grumbled that he did not do enough, and spoilsmen howled that he was destroying their organizations. In fact, he introduced about all the reform that could be administered successfully without destroying Republican party organizations. Hayes's attitude toward temperance is a good example of the shrewdness of his middle path. Both Hayes and Lucy believed that, rather than coerce society not to drink, the public should be persuaded that drinking to excess is disreputable, if not dangerous. But he (not Lucy) banned liquor from the White House as much to gain political advantage as to set a good example and curb boorish behavior. He realized that temperance advocates in the Republican party would applaud his move and not flock to the Prohibitionists—a third party he disliked—and he knew that the wets would stay in the party since his symbolic act did little to hamper them. Hayes proved to be most perceptive on this point. His successors, James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur, brought wine back to the White House, the temperance people deserted the Republicans for the Prohibitionists and, because of their defection the Republicans, lost New York and the election to the Democrats in 1884. Hayes did make a serious mistake, however, in refusing to run for reelection. With the economy rebounding and the Republicans united by the Battle of the Riders, he probably would have won. Presidents who serve only one term are usually written off as mediocreties, while those acclaimed as great have been reelected to a second term; a second term enables Presidents to implement more fully their policy initiatives. Four more years would have allowed Hayes to widen the application of civil service reform principles beyond the important New York offices. With a Republican Congress, he might well have enforced the election laws and protected black voters in the South. He was the last President in the nineteenth century who was genuinely interested in preserving voting rights for blacks. Hayes was a respectable, dignified, and decent egalitarian. He had a sensitive nature, a judicious temperament, and a pragmatic attitude. He was a patient reformer who attempted what was possible and was optimistic that education of the public would accomplish in the future the present day impossibility. Shortly before he died Hayes concluded "I am 'a radical in thought (and principle) and a conservative in method' (and conduct)." Rutherford B. Hayes Essays Life in Brief Life Before the Presidency Campaigns and Elections Domestic Affairs Foreign Affairs Life After the Presidency Family Life The American Franchise Impact and Legacy [ print all essays ] Rutherford B. Hayes Home Citation Information Consulting Editor Ari Hoogenboom Professor Hoogenboom is a professor emeritus of history at Brooklyn College, The City University of New York (CUNY). His writings include: Rutherford B. Hayes: "One of the Good Colonels" (McWhiney Foundation Press, 1999) Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President (University Press of Kansas, 1995) The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes (part of the American Presidency Series, University Press of Kansas, 1988) Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement, 1865–1883 (University of Illinois Press, 1961) American President has changed! Click here to take a short survey and tell us what you think!