Rutherford B Hayes Quotes

The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.

Personally I do not resort to force--not even the force of law--to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example.

Free government cannot long endure if property is largely in a few hands, and large masses of people are unable to earn homes, education, and a support in old age.

One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals.

I know I am going where Lucy is.

He serves his party best who serves his country best.

Every expert was once a beginner.

Unjust attacks on public men do them more good than unmerited praise. They are hurt less by undeserved censure than by undeserved commendation. Abuse helps; often praise hurts.

Nothing brings out the lower traits of human nature like office-seeking.

The man who does that which avails in reforms or other good works always has clubs thrown at him. The nobodies are passed over in Silence, or with good natured unmeaning compliments after they leave high places.

One person can make a difference. A huge difference. Consider what a solitary individual may accomplish: In 1645 one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England. In 1649 one vote cost Charles I of England his life, causing him to be executed. In 1776 one vote gave America the English language instead of the German language. In 1839 one vote elected Mark Morgan governor of Massachusetts. In 1845 one vote brought Texas into the Union. In 1868 one vote saved President Johnson from impeachment. In 1875 one vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic. In 1876 one vote gave Rutherford B. Hayes the United States presidency. In 1923 one vote gave Adolf Hitler control of the Nazi party. In 1941 one vote saved the Selective Service Agency just

Sound familiar? Rutherford B. Hayes was someone who thought that attracting opposition from nearly every direction meant that he was right. James A. Garfield, watching the president flounder in big things and small, thought that the “impression is deepening that he is not large enough for the place he holds” and that his election “has been an almost fatal blow to his party.

Reconstruction prompted a vicious white backlash, which gained traction following the disputed election of 1876, when the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes pulled federal troops out of the South in return for the electoral votes of Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Segregationist whites, known as Redeemers, regained power and quickly targeted black voters, first through violence and fraud and then via devices like literacy and good character tests, poll taxes, and stringent residency requirements. Mississippi became the first state to change its constitution to disenfranchise black voters in 1890. Every other southern state quickly followed. Black voters disappeared seemingly overnight.

In church it occurred to me that it is time for the public to hear that the giant evil and danger in this country, the danger which transcends all others, is the vast wealth owned or controlled by a few persons. Money is power. In Congress, in state legislatures, in city councils, in the courts, in the political conventions, in the press, in the pulpit, in the circles of the educated and the talented, its influence is growing greater and greater. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many. It is not yet time to debate about the remedy. The previous question is as to the danger—the evil. Let the people be fully informed and convinced as to the evil. Let them earnestly seek the remedy and it will be found. Fully to know the evil is the first step towards reaching its eradication. Henry George is strong when he portrays the rottenness of the present system. We are, to say the least, not yet ready for his remedy. We may reach and remove the difficulty by changes in the laws regulating corporations, descents of property, wills, trusts, taxation, and a host of other important interests, not omitting lands and other property.

Here we introduce the nation's first great communications monopolist, whose reign provides history's first lesson in the power and peril of concentrated control over the flow of information. Western Union's man was one Rutherford B. Hates, an obscure Ohio politician described by a contemporary journalist as "a third rate nonentity." But the firm and its partner newswire, the Associated Press, wanted Hayes in office, for several reasons. Hayes was a close friend of William Henry Smith, a former politician who was now the key political operator at the Associated Press. More generally, since the Civil War, the Republican Party and the telegraph industry had enjoyed a special relationship, in part because much of what were eventually Western Union's lines were built by the Union Army. So making Hayes president was the goal, but how was the telegram in Reid's hand key to achieving it? The media and communications industries are regularly accused of trying to influence politics, but what went on in the 1870s was of a wholly different order from anything we could imagine today. At the time, Western Union was the exclusive owner of the nationwide telegraph network, and the sizable Associated Press was the unique source for "instant" national or European news. (It's later competitor, the United Press, which would be founded on the U.S. Post Office's new telegraph lines, did not yet exist.) The Associated Press took advantage of its economies of scale to produce millions of lines of copy a year and, apart from local news, its product was the mainstay of many American newspapers. With the common law notion of "common carriage" deemed inapplicable, and the latter day concept of "net neutrality" not yet imagined, Western Union carried Associated Press reports exclusively. Working closely with the Republican Party and avowedly Republican papers like The New York Times (the ideal of an unbiased press would not be established for some time, and the minting of the Time's liberal bona fides would take longer still), they did what they could to throw the election to Hayes. It was easy: the AP ran story after story about what an honest man Hayes was, what a good governor he had been, or just whatever he happened to be doing that day. It omitted any scandals related to Hayes, and it declined to run positive stories about his rivals (James Blaine in the primary, Samuel Tilden in the general). But beyond routine favoritism, late that Election Day Western Union offered the Hayes campaign a secret weapon that would come to light only much later. Hayes, far from being the front-runner, had gained the Republican nomination only on the seventh ballot. But as the polls closed his persistence appeared a waste of time, for Tilden, the Democrat, held a clear advantage in the popular vote (by a margin of over 250,000) and seemed headed for victory according to most early returns; by some accounts Hayes privately conceded defeat. But late that night, Reid, the New York Times editor, alerted the Republican Party that the Democrats, despite extensive intimidation of Republican supporters, remained unsure of their victory in the South. The GOP sent some telegrams of its own to the Republican governors in the South with special instructions for manipulating state electoral commissions. As a result the Hayes campaign abruptly claimed victory, resulting in an electoral dispute that would make Bush v. Gore seem a garden party. After a few brutal months, the Democrats relented, allowing Hayes the presidency — in exchange, most historians believe, for the removal of federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction. The full history of the 1876 election is complex, and the power of th

Political novice Ulysses S. Grant was the first of six Union veterans to become president, five of whom were born in Ohio. The 23rd Ohio Infantry Regiment alone produced Maj. Gen. Rutherford B. Hayes and Maj. William McKinley. Former Brig. Gen. Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland in 1888 partly because

In 1876 Louisiana produced conflicting election returns yet again—this time throwing the outcome of the presidential race into question. Neither the Democratic presidential candidate, Samuel Tilden, nor the Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes, had a majority of electoral votes without the results from Louisiana or the two other contested Southern states, South Carolina and Florida. In Congress, Democrats kept blocking attempts to resolve the dispute, and when President Grant reached his last week in office, still no successor had been named. There was talk of another civil war if Tilden wasn’t declared the victor.

the nation faced a constitutional crisis in which both major presidential candidates—Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden—claimed victory in the 1876 election, raising concerns about who would govern the Republic.

both parties, and both regions, began planning for another Civil War. The parties and regions remained united on one issue. Blacks must quell their “new kindled ambition” and recognize their lack of Whites’ “hereditary faculty of self government,” said former Ohio governor Jacob D. Cox. Outgoing president Grant privately told his cabinet that giving Black men the ballot had been a mistake, and so did Republican presidential hopeful Rutherford B. Hayes. While a consensus formed on who should govern the South, division intensified over who should govern in Washington, DC.

Local farmer John Miller guided Scammon’s march along the loop road, riding forward with his leading regiment, the 23rd Ohio, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes.

Lieutenant Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes of the 23rd Ohio, serving for the first time under McClellan, spoke of this in a September 3 letter to his uncle: “General McClellan is undoubtedly a great favorite with [the] men under him.

in a compromise that gave the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, the White House. In return for southern Democratic support of their presidential candidate, Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops who had been protecting African Americans in the defeated Confederacy.

The Fifteenth was supposed to improve our lot, giving our men the vote. But the man started taking it all away. It's like they put a plate of hot biscuits in front of us, but before we get a chance to eat, they say that'll be five dollars. And if you come up with the five dollars, they say no, no, no. You gotta tell us, if you got sixteen hens and thirty-seven rooster, where is Rutherford B. Hayes buried?... It's a trick question. Hayes is still alive. Point is they make it so hard

Abraham Lincoln had not given a single speech on his own behalf during either of his campaigns, and Rutherford B. Hayes advised Garfield to do the same. “Sit crosslegged,” he said, “and look wise.

The bold enterprises are the successful ones. Take counsel of hopes rather than of fears to win in this business.

This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.

President Rutherford B. Hayes was the first to own a Siamese cat in the U.S.  It was a gift.

The Republicans, however, refused to let power slip from their hands so easily. The carpetbag governments in Louisiana and South Carolina announced that Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–93), the Republican candidate, had carried those states and was therefore elected President by a margin of one electoral vote. It was the most outrageous piece of election-rigging in American history (which is saying something) and for a moment it looked as if it might precipitate a renewal of civil war. The

Two events were critical in this regard. The first was the infamous Compromise of 1877, which ended the 1876 presidential election dispute and elevated Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency in exchange for a promise to remove federal troops from the South. The pact effectively ended Reconstruction, which, by stripping away hard-fought federal protections for African Americans, allowed southern Democrats to undo basic democratic rights and consolidate single-party rule.

Following the Civil War, Douglass received Presidential appointments from Republican Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James A. Garfield.

I long for time," he lamented in his journal, "to study agricultural chemistry and make experiments with soils and forces." Garfield finally got his wish during his presidential campaign. Although he argued that he should "take the stump and bear a fighting share in the campaign," traveling from town to town and asking for votes was considered undignified for a presidential candidate. Abraham Lincoln had not given a single speech on his own behalf during either of his campaigns, and Rutherford B. Hayes advised Garfield to do the same. "Sit crosslegged," he said, "and look wise." Happily left to his own devices, Garfield poured his time and energy into his farm.

In March 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes became the nineteen president of the United States. The hell that followed was the seeds of Jim Crow beginning to sprout with Democrats and Republicans enabling more white terror. As agreed on in the Compromise of 1877, federal troops abandoned the South. Democrats tightened their hold on the former Confederacy. Reconstruction, a time designed to repair the nation after war, was a closed chapter. It wasn’t only slavery that led to Black America starting from behind the rest of the nation; it was the Democratic and Republican failure of Reconstruction.