QUICK FACTS
Nickname: Rud
Years in office: 1877–1881
Political party: Republican
Birthday: October 4, 1822
Official presidential portrait of Rutherford B. Hayes
by Daniel Huntington, 1884
Hayes/Wheeler Campaign Badge, 1876, (Image from the Smithsonian Museum of American History)
Check out this campaign badge from the Centennial Election of 1876. The election, taking place 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was fraught with problems. In the end, a special commission awarded Hayes the necessary votes to win the election.
Between an economic depression and corruption in the Grant administration, the Republican party was struggling. Hayes ran against a popular New York governor, Samuel Tilden. As the election results came in, Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina had no clear winner. Both candidates claimed to have won those states. A special election commission was assembled to determine the results of the election.
The commission awarded all three states to Hayes (possibly because of promises to remove remaining federal troops in the south). Hayes won the election by one electoral vote, even though Tilden had roughly 250,000 more popular votes.
BIRTHPLACE
Delaware, OH
HOME
Spiegel Grove, Fremont, OH
PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
Fremont, OH
GRAVESITE
Fremont, OH
BOOKS
Davis, Kenneth C., and Pedro Martin. Don’t Know Much about the Presidents. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.
DeGregorio, William A., and Aaron Jaffe. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, Inc., 2017.
Kane, Joseph Nathan, and Janet Podell. Facts about the Presidents: A Compilation of Biographical and Historical Information. New York: H.W. Wilson, 2009.
WEBSITES
Encyclopedia Britannica, britannica.com
Library of Congress, loc.gov
Miller Center, University of Virginia, millercenter.org/the-presidency
The White House, whitehouse.gov
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