Rutherford B. Hayes wasn't such a bad guy

By Walter Mears/AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- After more than a century in history's footnotes, Rutherford B. Hayes is back, his presidency cast -- not to say recounted -- as an example of the bad things that can happen in a disputed election.

The nation and the world can't afford his like in the White House now, Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of embattled Florida said of the 19th president, without suggesting which of the two 2000 candidates to become the 43rd that might be.

But a closer look indicates that Hayes -- "His Fraudulency," as Graham put it -- wasn't such a bad guy or ineffective president after all.

He was the winner in the most questionable of presidential elections, in 1876, settled with deals and favors for the Republicans after their man lost the popular vote and probably a fairly counted electoral vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden.

Hayes won with the electoral votes of four disputed states, three in the South, among them Florida, after a contest that wasn't settled until March 2. Inaugurations were then held on March 4 -- a day later in Hayes' case so it wouldn't be on a Sunday.

Tilden was only one vote short of an electoral majority, and victory, after the Nov. 7, 1876 ballots were counted. That was as close as he got.

Republicans, supported by the federal troops of Reconstruction, made sure Hayes got the contested electoral votes in the South. That led to rival slates of electors, and the congressional commission set up to decide between them chose the Hayes side after bargaining that included the withdrawal of post-Civil War forces from the South, to complete a process already underway, the appointment of a southerner to the Cabinet and other terms.

So Hayes won, and within two months, the last federal troops were pulled out of South Carolina and Louisiana, two of the disputed states that were put into his column. The Republican president also appointed a former Confederate colonel to be postmaster general.

Graham, on "Fox News Sunday, said the fundamental issue at stake in the 2000 Florida dispute between George W. Bush, certified the winner by 537 votes, and Al Gore, demanding the selective hand recount of votes blocked at least temporarily by the Supreme Court, is the character of the election.

He said that after Hayes won through the political dealmaking, "he served one of the most ineffective presidencies.

"He was listed as His Fraudulency and was kicked out unceremoniously after one term," Graham said.

Hayes, who had been governor of Ohio, said before his election that he would serve only one term. "Nobody ever left the presidency with less regret," he said when he did, in 1881.

"We maybe could have afforded an American president as inept as Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876," Graham said. "We cannot afford such a president -- the world cannot afford such a president -- at the beginning of the 21st century."

But historians do not judge Hayes so harshly. As governor, Hayes had regarded ratification of the 15th Amendment, guaranteeing blacks the right to vote, as one of his major achievements. As president, he blocked attempts in Congress to prevent him from protecting that right.

He also took the first steps toward civil service reform with an 1877 executive order that forbid federal employees from taking an active role in politics, defying powerful Republicans with that break from the spoils system of filling government jobs.

Hayes also declared a U.S.-controlled canal across Panama to be a goal of his administration. French interests were trying to take control of the canal project in his era. President Theodore Roosevelt got the U.S. canal built, beginning in 1906.

Hayes also delivered a rhetorical line in his inaugural address that lasted.

"He serves his party best who serves his country best."

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