Description

Nineteenth president, 1877–1881Republican Rutherford B. Hayes lost the 1876 general election by approximately 250,000 votes, yet he was awarded the necessary electoral college votes after the two major parties struck a bargain. As a concession, Hayes withdrew federal troops from Democratic strongholds in the South, thus ending Reconstruction and the federal commitment to African American civil rights. This inauspicious beginning to his term in office earned Hayes the nickname “His Fraudulency.”A Civil War veteran, Hayes called in federal troops to put down the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 but privately expressed reservations about his decision. After the failed Indian Wars of the 1870s, Hayes began to view the use of force as futile and tragically destructive for all concerned. However, rather than granting Native Americans true sovereignty, he tried to promote their submission to white authority through the cultural assimilation of their youth, forcibly sending boys and girls from Western tribes to boarding schools in the East.19no presidente, 1877–1881El republicano Rutherford B. Hayes perdió la elección general de 1876 por unos 250,000 votos, pero obtuvo los votos necesarios del colegio electoral a raíz de un acuerdo entre los dos partidos principales. A cambio, Hayes retiró las tropas federales de los baluartes demócratas en el sur, dando fin a la Reconstrucción y al compromiso federal de defender los derechos civiles de los afroamericanos. Este agrio comienzo de su presidencia le ganó el apodo de “Su Fraudulencia”.Hayes, quien era veterano de la Guerra Civil, empleó tropas federales para sofocar la gran huelga...

Record Contributed By

National Portrait Gallery

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution