Happy birthday to Rutherford B. Hayes!

[Terabith]

Happy birthday to Rutherford B. Hayes!

 

President Hayes's election was a complicated, confusing morass that illustrates the electoral college system has had its issues from the beginning. He went to bed on election night when it looked like Samuel L. Tilden had a lock on things. Hayes thought he'd be giving a concession speech. The election boards in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, necessary for Hayes to get to the required 185 electoral votes, cited intimidation of black voters (almost certainly true), voided Democratic votes (maybe more ethically tricky), offered vote counters in South Carolina between $30,000 and $200,000 for a Republican victory (definitely problematic), and declared Hayes the winner. A whole box of votes in Florida that favored Tilden was thrown out. Then Hayes lost Oregon, because it came out that one of the Republican electors held a government job, and the Democratic governor certified a Democratic elector.

 

The states in question cast competing votes, and nobody could figure out what the heck was going on, so in something that would so no longer happen today, the Republicans and the Democrats of Congress worked together to forge a compromise and pass the Electoral Commission Act of 1877. This Act said that a group of five senators, five members of Congress, and five Supreme Court justices would decide what votes counted. (This could never go wrong!) This was supposed to consist of seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and one Independent, Justice David Davis, but before the commission could make their decision, Illinois appointed Justice Davis a Senator. Davis resigned from the Commission because he felt like this was cheating, and a new Republican justice was appointed instead. This gave the election to Hayes, despite Hayes losing the popular vote.

Honestly, it makes perfect sense that fewer people had voted for Hayes. He succeeded Grant, who was an all around decent and good guy (if a little weird) but his administration was devious and corrupt. The Democrats had nominated Samuel Tilden, who was a famous reformer who had fought corruption as the governor of New York. And Republicans picked Hayes, who was also a decent guy, but literally just "some random guy who nobody outside of folks in his chain of command or the state of Ohio had ever heard of." He was, however, good at keeping his opinions to himself. The Republicans chose him because he hadn't really pissed anyone off and was considered "generally inoffensive." The being a strong super soldier was just a bonus, really.

 

Hayes himself fought in over fifty engagements in his day job as a Union officer in the Civil War and was shot repeatedly. One of those bullets caused a serious injury to his left arm, tearing a blood vessel, but instead of just bleeding to death, old Rutherford gave direction to his subordinates and succeeded in scattering the rebels. Apparently he yelled at individual men for cowardly behavior, and this was pretty convincing coming from a man in the process of bleeding to death. In another battle, he had his horse shot out from under him and was thrown several feet while a bullet grazed his skull. His men assumed he was dead, but he was not. When he regained consciousness, he just found a new horse and started fighting again.

 

He was apparently a weak and sickly child, and his mother stayed distant from him because she didn't want to get too attached in case she lost him. In response, Rutherford developed an intense drive for excellence. He started a fitness regime that involved hunting and running that he engaged in up until a week before he died. He developed "unusual strength and coordination" that helped him survive in battle, including being shot five times.

 

As president, Hayes kept up his stance as being "generally inoffensive." He was a decent president who worked for strides for civil rights. But he didn't do anything that either made him friends or made him a villain. He himself was not a teetotaler, but he made his White House free of alcohol in order to please the prohibitionists. His wife was the first First Lady to be a college graduate. He signed legislation that allowed a woman to serve as lawyers and argue in front of the Supreme Court. He was the first president to travel west of the Rocky Mountains, and he was the first president to have both a telephone and a typewriter in the White House.

[Eos]

There is nothing new under the sun, apparently. Thank you for the effort you put into these!

[Beth S]

Happy Birthday RBH!  Thanks, @Terabith

[Faith-manor]

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