Rutherford
Birchard Hayes,19th President of the United StatesRutherford B. Hayes was elected President by a margin of only one electoral vote. His victory over Samuel J. Tilden in 1876 climaxed the most disputed presidential election in U.S. history. Congress had to create a special Electoral Commission to decide the winner, and the final decision wasn't made until the day before the President was scheduled to take the oath of office.
During Hayes' administration, the United States continued its remarkable growth. America became more industrialized than ever before, and labor unions gained thousands of new members. The population of New York City soared above a million. General Lew Wallace won nationwide fame for his novel Ben-Hur, and Thomas A. Edison visted the White House to demonstrate the phonograph.
| The Election of 1876 | |
| Place of Nominating Convention | Cincinnati |
| Ballot on Which Nominated | 7th |
| Democratic Opponent | Samuel J. Tilden |
| Greenback Opponent | Peter Cooper |
| Electoral Vote | 185 (Hayes ) to 184 (Tilden) to 0 (Cooper) |
| Popular Vote | 4,288,311 (Tilden) to 4,034,311 (Hayes) to 75,973 (Cooper) |
| His Vice-President and Cabinet | |
| Vice-President | William A. Wheeler |
| Secretary of State | William M. Evarts |
| Secretary of the Treasury | John Sherman |
| Secretary of War | George W. McCrary Alexander Ramsey (1879) |
| Attorney General | Charles Devens |
| Postmaster General | David M. Key Horace Maynard (1880) |
| Secretary of the Navy | Richard W. Thompson Alexander Ramsey (1880) Nathan Goff, Jr. (1881) |
| Secretary of the Interior | Carl Schurz |
| Domestic Events During His Administration | |
| U.S. population was 51,500,000 in 1881. | |
| June 1877 | Hayes issued an executive order depoliticizing the civil service system. |
| 1877 | Reconstruction ended when the last federal occupation troops left the South. |
| 1877 | A railroad strike caused so much violence that Hayes called out federal troops. |
| 1878 | Hayes vetoed a bill that would have restricted incoming vessels to no more than fifteen Chinese passengers. |
| 1878 | Congress passed the Bland-Allison Silver Purchase Act over Hayes' veto. |
| 1878 | The Hayes' began the custom of Easter egg rolling by children on the White House lawn. |
| World Events During His Administration | |
| 1877-1878 | The Russo-Turkish War gave Russia control over important areas in the Balkans and near the Black Sea. |
| 1877 | The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison. |
| 1879-1883 | Chile won mineral-rich land from Bolivia and Peru in the War of the Pacific. |
| 1879 | Electric street lights were first used. |
| 1880 | The island of Tahiti became a French colony. |
Presidents of the United States. www.ipl.org/div/potus/rbhayes.html
The White House. www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rh19.html
New York City
The Election of 1876
Secretary of State
Carl Schurz
Phonograph
Bolivia
Rutherford B. Hayes: A Chronology of His Life and Career