Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governor of Ohio. In 1876 the Electoral College made Hayes president in one of the most contentious elections in U.S. history. He lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, but won an intensely disputed electoral-college vote after a Congressional commission awarded him 20 contested electoral votes. There resulted the Compromise of 1877, in which the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes's election on the condition that he withdraw remaining U.S. troops protecting Republican officeholders in the South, thus officially ending the Reconstruction era. Only two states were still under Reconstruction's sway when Hayes assumed the presidency and, without troops to enforce the voting rights laws, these soon fell to Democratic control.Hayes's later attempts to protect the rights of southern blacks were ineffective, as were his attempts to rebuild Republican strength in the South.
n/a
n/a