Rutherford B. Hayes – Fremont, Ohio
May 2, 2015
Hope
mixed with apprehension.
That
was the general feeling of the enslaved as the Civil War ended. As remembered
by former enslaved, Booker T. Washington in 1901, “For some minutes there was
great rejoicing, and thanksgiving, and wild scenes of ecstasy. … I noticed that by the time they returned to
their cabins there was a change of feeling. … It was very much like suddenly
turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself…
Some of the slaves were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were gone. They had not
strength with which to earn a living.”
The
post-Civil War Reconstruction period gave the formerly enslaved their
long-sought freedom but few means to make a living. The Radical Republicans did
the best they could to empower the freedmen and provide them the tools to
succeed. The results were mixed, and federal troops were constantly dispatched
to quell Southern attempts to intimidate and kill the freedmen.
Fast
forward to 1876 — the year when hope for the freedmen died until the middle of
the next century.
Here
is how it happened.
1876
was a watershed year. One hundred years had passed since the founding of the nation.
The Centennial was being celebrated at the first World’s Fair in Philadelphia,
and 10 million visitors showed up — 20 percent of the U.S. population. (It was
at this fair that a new fruit was introduced to the United States: the banana.)
The West was still wild — in June, George Armstrong Custer and his men were
massacred at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Alexander Graham Bell patented his new invention, the telephone; and the
Philadelphia A's and the Boston Red Caps played the first National League baseball
game.
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| 1776 Election Banner |
The
candidate for the resurgent Democrats was former New York Gov. Samuel Tilden. The
Republicans put forward Rutherford B. Hayes, a former Civil War general and
three-time governor of Ohio. However, the Republicans didn’t have much
enthusiasm for their candidate – initially he had few votes but ended up being
the consensus choice.
The
election on Nov. 7, 1876, was a cliffhanger. Although Tilden had won the
popular vote (4.3 million vs. 4.0 million), neither Tilden nor Rutherford had
reached the magic number of 185 electoral votes. Tilden stood one vote shy at
184 electoral votes, and Hayes was well behind at 165 votes.
But
the election results in Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina — the
only Southern states still in Republican control — and Oregon were still up for
grabs. Both sides claimed the 20 unaccounted-for electoral votes.
Many
issues clouded the votes. One was the controversy regarding who could or
couldn’t be an elector. If someone held any kind of a position with the federal
government, he couldn’t be an elector. For example, in Florida, one of the
Hayes’ electors, F.C. Humphreys, held an appointment as a U.S. shipping
commissioner. The controversy over his vote was whether he had resigned in time
to become a legitimate elector (Rehnquist, 2004).
In
some states, fraud was alleged on both sides. On the day prior to the election,
U.S. Marshal J.H. Pierce in Mississippi wrote that “the election in the northern
half of this State will be a farce.
Colored and white Republicans will not be allowed to vote in many
counties … clubs are armed with Winchester rifles and shotguns, and declare
that they will carry the election at all hazards. In several counties … leading white and
colored Republicans are now refugees asking for protection … A reign of terror
such as I have never before witnessed exists. If it were not for rifles and
shotguns this State would give Hayes and Wheeler (the vice presidential
candidate) from 20,000 to 30,000 majority.” (Rehnquist, 2004) Mississippi voted solidly Democratic.
To solve the impasse, Congress
created the framework for an Electoral Commission consisting of five members of
Congress, five members of the Senate and five Supreme Court justices. (Extrajudicial roles for Supreme Court
justices were rare. Notable exceptions were Chief Justice John Jay negotiating
the Treaty of London with Great Britain in 1794 and Chief Justice Earl Warren
leading the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy in
1963-1964.)
The
makeup of the Electoral Commission was controversial and took a long time to
establish. The final seated commission was skewed by exactly one Supreme Court
justice on the Republican side. And ultimately each of the 20 votes reviewed by
the commission was awarded to Hayes on a party line vote of 8-7 (Current, et
al., 1975).
Congress
still had to approve the commission’s findings. There was much in the way of backroom
dealings, and a compromise between the Republicans and Democrats was forged. The so-called “Compromise of 1877” called for
the withdrawal of all federal troops from the South, federal funding for
internal improvements, the appointment of at least one Southerner to the Cabinet,
and aid for the Texas and Pacific Railroad.
Finally,
on March 2, just two days before inauguration, the commission’s findings were
accepted. This would be the closest and
most controversial election until George W. Bush vs. Al Gore in 2000.
Following the election, Rutherford
Hayes was called “Rutherfraud” by some but he never apologized for his
election. He maintained that “there were
crimes against the ballot box.” His
opponent, Tilden, was magnanimous in defeat and said: “If my voice could reach through our country
and be heard in its remotest hamlet, I would say: Be of good cheer. The Republic will live…” (Rehnquist, 2004).
The
Republic lived, but Reconstruction was over. The “Redeemers” came to power and
the Southern Republican state governments had seen their last days of the
century. Money for schools dried up, especially for black schools. The
notorious black codes returned. Blacks were jailed for minor crimes and were then
used as laborers — often for years. They were given to businesses to use — a de
facto return to slavery. Other blacks were relegated to menial jobs at farms, factories
and within homes.
***
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| The Hayes House |
Spiegel Grove Estate is now
home to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, which includes the house,
which has grown to 21,000 square feet, a museum, a library and the graves of
Hayes and his wife, Lucy.
***
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| Down Tyme Café |
The downtown was relatively
empty, but we found the cute Down Tyme Café on Front Street, and scarfed down
some sandwiches and quiche and a very tasty thyme-infused lemonade (and a
couple just-baked cookies) before moving on to Spiegel Grove.
***
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| Young Rutherford & Lucy |
Lucy and Rutherford had a
“strong, loving marriage,” according to our tour guide, Jean. They even renewed
their vows at 25 years while in the White House. That bond was important since
they had to deal with so much tragedy — they had seven boys and one girl, but
three sons died very young.
Once in the White House, Lucy
was the most esteemed first lady since Dolly Madison. She was the first presidential spouse to be
called “first lady” and it finally stuck.
She was also the first to have a college degree.
Much of the color of the
house and furnishings (rugs, fireplaces, chandelier, stained glass, etc.) is in
Lucy’s favorite color, teal blue. Jean
called it “Lucy blue.”
However, her popularity did
not extend to the china she had designed for the White House. A local artist
designed the china, which depicts flora and fauna native to the United States.
Far from being subtle, the large designs cover the entire plate or bowl. And
she was widely criticized because the art was too realistic. Guests didn’t like
eating with a coyote staring at them or a frog peering up from a soup bowl.
Typically not fans of tours
of the “stuff” in presidential houses, we enjoyed the dishes, although Cathy
immediately saw the problem with the china pattern not being subtle enough.
Another favorite part of the
tour was what Jean called Hayes’ “inner sanctum.” This room doubled as Hayes’
bathroom … and office. It contains a desk,
a tub and a toilet. Hayes liked to
retreat to the room to escape the frequent guests. Jean showed us an old photo of the bathroom with
Hayes’ maps hanging on the walls.
The mansion was modified over
time and grew from 4,000 square feet to its present massive size of 21,000 square
feet. The top of the four-story house
features a “lantern,” which is so-called because it’s boxy and has windows on
three sides to bring in light and air. The
open windows created an updraft that blew out the hot air and brought in the
cool air downstairs.
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| Inside the House |
The Rutherford B. Hayes Foundation,
which was established by Hayes’ second son,
Colonel Webb Cook Hayes, is currently restoring seven rooms to appear
exactly the way it did when Hayes lived there.
How would they know exactly what it looked like? They found some old photos from his cousin.
The library once displayed
more than 11,000 books and was the family’s favorite room, maybe because it had
skylights. The room also had a standing desk as well as a small trap door to
hide important items.
Next to the library, in the
library parlor, hangs a larger-than-life portrait of the 5-foot-8 Hayes. He
would complain that the frame cost more than the house’s butternut staircase.
Fun fact: In 1881, the Hayes
installed a telephone. Phones were expensive — costing $4 a week — so the 1884
phone directory lists only 15 houses that had them in Fremont.
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| The Stuffed Owl |
No visit to a museum would be
complete without a short movie in a dark room — Cathy’s favorite place to catch
some zzz’s. What Cathy missed, since she didn’t have time to sit through two
screenings (one to learn, one to nap): The movie describes Hayes as an “impeccably
honest” man who took as his role model John Adams. He participated in the Civil
War, which he found to be a “just & necessary war” and said he wouldn’t
miss it. He rose to brigadier general and enjoyed the battle campaigns — even
though he was wounded four times.
***
Once he took office, Hayes
said he would honor his commitment to remove federal troops but beseeched the
impending Democratic state governments to respect black rights. They agreed to do so but did not. It was really a moot point — the
Democratically controlled House wouldn’t allow the passage of any bills to
provide funds for the troops anyway. Also, as promised, Hayes did include a
Southerner in his Cabinet. He appointed David
M. Key, a former Confederate officer, as postmaster general.
During his presidency, Hayes
attacked political patronage and started civil service reform. He forbid
employees from federal politicking and fundraising. One of the most corrupt
institutions was the New York Custom House, and Hayes fired many of the
employees there, including future President Chester A. Arthur.
Also, in 1879, Hayes vetoed a
bill that exclude most Chinese immigration and send a team to China to
negotiate the Treaty of 1880.
Epilogue
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| The Hayes in Later Years |
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| Final Resting Place |
***
In 1883, the Supreme Court ruled
that states couldn’t discriminate based on race…but private parties could. Thus railroads, hotels, theaters, could
actively discriminate against blacks. That led to the 1896 Plessey v.
Ferguson decision that states could
now have separate facilities for races but that they must be “separate but
equal.” This led to mass segregation. (When Tom lived in Vicksburg, Miss., in
the 1980s, he could still see the outline of “White” on a bathroom door in a
public building — possibly city hall. The actual letters had been removed but
the outline still remained. Nobody bothered to repaint the door and the point
was made.)
By
end of the 1800s, blacks held less land than at the end of Reconstruction and all
Southern states restricted voting in a manner that still complied with the 15th
Amendment: poll taxes, literacy tests demonstrating understanding of state
constitutions and residency requirements. In Louisiana, black voter
registration fell from 130,000 to 1,000. Since whites also lost the vote but to
a much smaller degree, the Supreme Court in1898 agreed that the requirements
were non-discriminatory.
Between
1880 and 1968, 3,500 blacks were lynched.
Many of these lynchings were as brutal as any horror currently perpetrated
by the Islamic State, including mutilations of living victims and burning of
victims to death. These events attracted thousands of onlookers and were widely
photographed and documented in postcards that one could collect. (Foner &
Brown, 2005; Current, et al., 1975)
In 1954, the Supreme Court,
in Brown v. Board of Education,
unanimously declared that "separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal" and overturned Plessey v.
Ferguson. In 1964, the Democratically-controlled
executive and legislative branches passed the Civil Rights Act to prevent discrimination
and guarantee the right to vote for all Americans. And in 2015, the last Confederate flag to fly
from the grounds of a state capitol was lowered in Columbia, South Carolina.
But these are stories for
another day.
Directions
Spiegel Grove is in Fremont,
Ohio, 85 miles west of Cleveland, just off Highway 90. The entrance fee is $13
to see both the home and the museum.
References
Current, N., Williams, T.H.,
Freidel, F. 1975. American
History: A Survey. Fourth Edition. Alfred A. Knopf. New York, New York.
Foner,
E. and Brown, J. 2005. Forever
Free: The Story of Emancipation and
Reconstruction. Alfred A.
Knopf. New York, NY.
Moore,
K. 2007.
The American President. Fall River Press. New York, NY.
Rehnquist,
W.H. 2004. Centennial
Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876. Alfred A. Knopff. New York, New York.
Washington,
Booker T. 1901. Up from
Slavery. Doubleday, Page &
Company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Exposition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education
http://www.rbhayes.org/hayes/aboutcenter/
