Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President
It is the last Sunday of the month, which means it’s time for the next president, making this week’s book of the week Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President by Ari Hoogenboom.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born on October 4, 1822, to Sophia Birchard Hayes, in Delaware, Ohio. His father, Rutherford Hayes Jr, had died two months before his birth and his mother never remarried, the predominant father figure in his life was his mother’s brother, Sardis Birchard. Hayes was the youngest of five children, the first-born brother died in infancy but his older brother Lorenzo lived until he was like 9, when he died in an ice skating accident by drowning—he fell through the ice. Another older sister, Sarah Sophia, also died in infancy, leaving Sophia Birchard Hayes with two children to raise, Fanny and Rutherford, aka Rud.
Hayes was basically a happy kid, eventually attending Kenyon College and deciding to be a lawyer, and then actually attending Harvard Law School, which had specifically opened in 1817. He then passed the examinations necessary to become a lawyer in Ohio, which is not like a modern bar exam, you were basically questioned by a panel of learned legals, could be lawyers could be judges or a mix of both, and if you answered their questions satisfactorily, you passed.
Now, through all of this, Hayes was not sure he was the marrying type. He liked girls and they liked him well enough, and he flirted pretty heavily with quite a few of them, but one by one they married others, and Hayes was not one to hold a grudge, and since they were generally marrying friend of his, he was happy for all parties.
When he was 25, his mother introduced him to 16-year-old Lucy Webb. And he thought she was charming enough but much too young. So, he continued his other flirtations for a few years before reaching the realization when he was 28 that he had grown to love Lucy, and proposed, which she happily accepted. This is another historical love match, but also a really good marriage, I mean, they were in lock step on their ambitions and dreams, and Hayes was one of those 19th century gentlemen who didn’t want a pretty wife to be silent and home bound, he was pleased that she was well educated and able to engage in intelligent discourse.
So much so that she was able to influence his ideologies, like, for example, on the matter of abolition. Growing up and all through college, Hayes didn’t have strong opinions one way or the other in regard to abolition. He believed slavery was wrong but also felt it was sadly in line with the Constitution, and so what could be done about it? Lucy’s family were staunch abolitionists, so much so that her father, Dr. James Webb, who was from the south, specific area not mentioned, had inherited 20 slaves. He uprooted the whole family and moved them to Kentucky where the emancipation laws were very liberal, intending to free them. Unfortunately, shortly after landing in Kentucky, he died of cholera before he could do so, leaving those 20 slaves to Lucy’s mother, Maria Cook Webb. Now, Maria had three children to raise, Lucy plus her two brothers, and following the move the family was desperately poor. It was advised that she sell the slaves so the family would have money. Dr. Webb had also married well, and Maria’s answer was that she would rather take in washing than earn money through slavery. And she did exactly that, freeing all the slaves as her husband had intended, and managing to rebound from the sorrow of her husband’s death well enough to send all three of her kids to college, with the two boys becoming Doctors. Although…. medical school back then did not cost what it does today.
So, with her mother as an example, Lucy was staunchly abolitionist, and swayed Hayes to that viewpoint, which actually set him on a life long reformers path. After they married, he actually began practicing criminal law, in addition to the more usual deeds and bankruptcies, and managed to defend several high-profile clients, including Rosetta Armstead, who was allegedly a runaway slave. Her owner, Henry Dennison, had placed Rosetta in the care of a man who was traveling to Richmond, Virginia. When the two left the Ohio River for rail transport through Ohio, antislavery activists had them detained. An Ohio court granted a writ of habeus corpus for Rosetta, and due to her being a minor, appointed her a guardian, one Lewis G. Van Slyke, while her owner Henry Dennison was called. Once he reached Columbus, Dennison asked Rosetta, in front of others, if she wanted to return with him or remain free. Proving that black people are not as stupid as southern whites wanted to believe, Rosetta chose freedom.
Dennison later changed his mind and tried to reclaim Rosetta under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act, claiming she was a runaway. Into this situation, Hayes stepped as representative for Rosetta Armstead. In a packed Ohio courtroom, Hayes argued that Rosetta was free because the Fugitive Slave Law did not apply in her case. She did not run away. She had been legally detained in Ohio under a writ of habeus corpus, after which Dennison had verbally freed her before witnesses. The only reason she was in Ohio to begin with was the Dennison’s agent had brought her there. Following this logical breakdown, the court room exploded in applause, and Rosetta was allowed to retain her freedom.
Hayes was not just for equal rights on matters of legality, he also employed…as in paid a wage to…the freedmen who had remained friends with Lucy’s family after their manumission, and Winnie Monroe was with the family I think their whole life, helping to wrangle the eight Hayes children as they were born and raised, although three of those children died before their 2nd birthdays.
When the Civil War came, Hayes immediately volunteered and was made major of the Ohio 23rd, rapidly promoting to Lt Colonel and finally Colonel. Hayes quite enjoyed the war, thought it was the best time of his life. And no, he did not just sit in camp and lead from the rear, he was injured like five times, at least once quite severely when he took a musket ball through the arm, almost losing the arm, and he had four horses shot out from under him while charging in to battle. He lost half his men. So, it’s not like he was sitting in the back letting others take the risk, talking about what jolly good fun war is. He knew how awful it was. But he believed in the causes they were fighting for, those causes being preservation of the union and abolition of slavery, and he was a true leader of men, the friends he made throughout his life were life long friends. There was one friend from college, Bryan Guy, who was from Texas and fought for the south, they remained friends before, during, and after the war. He never let political differences wreck his friendships, which contributed to his overall popularity.
In 1864, as the war was starting to wind down, although this wasn’t known at the time, his friends in Ohio put forth his name for Congressman, and even asked him if he could get a leave of absence to campaign. He responded, “an officer fit for duty who at this crises would abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress ought to be scalped.” His campaign managers in Ohio realized this was even better than if he HAD taken a furlough to stump in Ohio, and used that statement to drive him to victory, and he handily won his congressional seat. While that was going on, Hayes oversaw his one execution for desertion. Hayes disliked the death penalty, and when he had been a criminal defense attorney he had taken on several cases, getting at least one remanded to an insane asylum and another one a new trial due to judicial misconduct, and had even walked a client to the gallows when appeals failed. But in this instance…well the guy was criminally stupid.
A soldier named Whitlow, early in the war, had been a Confederate. He deserted the Confederate army and joined the Ohio 23rd. No worries there, it’s ok to desert the other side and join the right side of history. But he then deserted the 23rd and returned to the Confederacy. He was recaptured by the 23rd in Cloyd’s Mountain but managed to escape. Then the dumbass went back to Ohio and accepted the payment to enlist in someone else’s stead. This was entirely legal, by the way, the wealthy could pay someone to take their place, and the person would collect that sum, as well as the enlistment bonus. But…it was Ohio. If the idiot had gone to any other state, he might not have been sent back to the 23rd, immediately been recognized, and then tried and shot within 24 hours.
Following the war, Hayes jumped into politics, serving 2 terms as congressman before becoming governor of Ohio, where he also served two terms before retiring…like all politicians before him, he of course retired. Then was voted in as governor in 1875, serving from his inauguration in 1876 until he as inaugurated as president on March 4, 1877.
Now, the book goes into greater detail on the scandalous 1876 election, which was discussed last month during the Grant book because it was Grant’s decisions which ultimately put Hayes in the White House over Tilden. This book specifies that both Hayes and Tilden behaved correctly. Neither was engaged in any of the underhanded, nefarious plotting that was part and parcel of the 1876 election. Both were gentlemen about it. And as one non-partisan observer of the time pointed out, both the Republicans and the Democrats behaved appallingly during this election cycle. And as determined with Grants bargain, Hayes was sworn in as the 19th president of the United States.
His intent when in the White House was to stabilize the US Currency by returning it to the gold standard, to effect civil service reform, and to ensure equality under the law for all as established by the reformation amendments.
Post-Civil War, inflation was bad. Probably not as bad as today, but pretty bad. And as someone who was carrying a fair amount of debt himself, Hayes was actually poised to benefit from the inflation, as he could have paid off his debt with the greenbacks, which were legal tender, but not backed by gold. He pushed hard to return to the gold standard and eventually did, which caused the economy to actually, finally, start recovering on his watch.
While he had a bitch of a time enforcing the amendments in the south, he did, eventually, keep to the bargain that had been struck which landed him in the White House, but then the fox was loose in the hen house, and the south continued to bully blacks and keep them as second class citizens.
Probably the biggest challenge of Hayes one term was the 1877 railroad strikes, and history has misremembered him as busting up the strikes. He did not. The rail lines were privately owned. The strikes happened as a result of extremely poor management. The railroads needed to raise more revenue. Rather than raising their prices on shipping and cutting the stock dividend payout to their investors, they cut pay to their workers, and insisted they work more hours for less money. Yes…of course the workers rioted. And Hayes looked at the clusterfuck the railroads had created and basically said fix it yourself. He sent in troops when they had been properly requested by the governors of the individual states, but ordered the troops that their sole job was to protect government property, not to stop the strikes.
On Civil Service reform, he was basically blocked at every angle. Patronage had become such a huge perk of being voted into public office, that both the senate and congress were like…what…? You want to hire people on merit? What about your friends? He so firmly believed in meritocracy, that he declined to give his brother-in-law, Dr. Joseph Webb, a position that Webb was actually well suited for at a government hospital because he didn’t want to be accused of nepotism following his ardent speeches on the civil service reform that was needed. Dr. Joe had been his right-hand man during the Civil War and had even saved his life when that musket ball tore through his arm. Dr. Joe never spoke to Hayes again, and actually died while Hayes was in the White House.
In keeping with his meritocratic ideals, federal positions saw the least amount of turnover during Hayes tenure than any other president except for John Quincy Adams, who also believed in meritocracy over party politics. And because he believed in meritocracy and civil service reform, as well as equal rights for all, Hayes appointed several women as Postmaster in the United States. Unlike John Quincy Adams, though, Hayes went in to the White House with the intention of only serving one term, and he meant it.
He did, however, use his term to travel. Extensively. Always domestically, though, he did not leave the country, but he did become the first president to travel to the west coast, taking Lucy and cabinet members with him, and all his travel earned him the nickname Rutherford the Rover. That, coupled with his auburn hair, gives us this week’s cocktail, Red Rover.
And when his four years were up, he gladly stepped aside for James Garfield, and really did retire from politics. He remained very busy on several boards though, including the Slater board, which was a fund designed to help the poverty stricken, specifically former slaves and the very poor whites, to rise up and do better. One of the funds most well-known recipients is W. E. B. du Bois. Hayes believed in education as a means to better the country, which he’s not wrong in that belief. Although I can’t help but think he might be horrified by what has become of our educational system. I mean, yes, we have free public schooling for all. But we’re graduating kids who cannot even read. He was, post presidency, a social justice reformer, but sending kids into the world wholly ignorant of the world is not justice. It’s setting them up for a grander failure.
Lucy died on June 25, 1889, of a stroke, and Hayes was bereft. They had been married 36 years, and she was, unquestionably, the love of his life and his partner in all things. He kept going for a few years, continuing his roles with the Slater fund and criminal justice reform, until he passed away on January 17, 1893.
I think, overall, he is overlooked frequently by history, as many one term presidents are. But when he left the White House, the economy was finally rebounding, we had a surplus in the treasury, which was being used to pay off the war debt. While he didn’t get the reform in the south he had hoped for, he did manage to veto several Democrat backed bills that would have even further suppressed the voting rights of the black populace in the south. The chapters post presidency, I think, are where the seed kernel for the belief that the parties switched platforms exists. Everything that Hayes stood for post presidency are the planks upon which the modern Democratic party stands. He did not believe that the extremely wealthy should be able to keep their wealth and believed in a confiscatory inheritance tax. Which is ironic, as he inherited a rather large house from his uncle Sardis. He claimed he was not a socialist, but believed the government should have more control over everything. The same government that he knew was corrupt based on his attempts at civil service reform. I have no doubt he was very smart. But clearly, on some issues…. not so much.
I’m trying to figure out where to rank him and I know I need to update this on my website too. I’m leaning towards somewhere in the middle-bottom. He had the very best intentions, and certainly seems likeable. But good intentions don’t get the job done. And he was very short-sighted on the matter of government control. He adopted the motto “he serves his party best who serves the country best.” Rather than the founding fathers ideal of “the government which serves least serves best.”
This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on November 27, 2022, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.
