Presidents in Retirement: Rutherford Hayes
Rutherford Hayes became President after what was perhaps the most controversial Presidential elections in history. A number of electoral votes were in dispute in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Republicans and Democrats each claimed victory in these states, but the results in those states were rendered uncertain because of allegations of fraud by both parties. To further complicate matters, one of the three electors from Oregon (a state Hayes had won) was disqualified, reducing Hayes's total to 165, and raising the disputed votes to 20. Hayes needed all 20 disputed votes to win the Presidency. When a Congressional Committee of five representatives, five senators and five Supreme Court Justices split along party lines and awarded all 20 of these to Hayes, it looked as if there would be mayhem. No matter the outcome however, it was clear that African-Americans in southern states would be the losers. After Hayes won the election, a deal was made to withdraw the protections provided to these people by Ulysses Grant, and the era of Jim Crow was in full swing.
Hayes declined to seek reelection in 1880. He kept his promise not to run for a second term. At the 1880 Republican Convention he opposed the nomination of the candidates supported by the Stalwart wing of the party (led by New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. This group had proposed running Ulysses Grant for a third term. . Hayes was satisfied with the selection of fellow Ohio Republican James Garfield to succeed him, and he consulted with Garfield on appointments for the next administration.
After Garfield's inauguration, Hayes and his family returned to his home in Fremont, Ohio called Spiegel Grove. Hayes had fought valiantly in the Civil War and in 1881, he was elected a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States He served as commander-in-chief (equivalent to the national president) of the Loyal Legion from 1888 until his death in 1893.
Hayes remained a loyal Republican, but he acknowledged his respect for Democratic President Grover Cleveland. He liked Cleveland's views on civil service reform. But he was even more satisfied when a protege of his, and a soldier who had served with him in the war, William McKinley, was enjoying a promising political career.
Hayes became an supporter of educational charities and federal education subsidies for all children. He believed education was the answer when it came to to healing the divisions in American society and to allow people to improve themselves. In 1887 Hayes was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Ohio State University, a college which he helped found when he was governor of Ohio. He strongly believed in the need for vocational training, as well as academic, education. Hayes wrote, "I preach the gospel of work. I believe in skilled labor as a part of education." He lobbied Congress to pass a bill sponsored by Senator Henry Blair of New Hampshire that would have allowed federal aid for education for the first time, but the bill failed to pass.
In 1889 Hayes, perhaps feeling guilty for his acceding to the withdrawal of protection for African-Americans in the south, Hayes gave a speech encouraging black students to apply for scholarships from the Slater Fund, a charity with which he was affiliated. The famed African-American civil rights leader W. E. B. DuBois received a scholarship from this fund in 1892. Another cause Hayes advocated for was that of better prison conditions.
Hayes was also concerned over the disparity between the rich and the poor. He gave a speech in 1886 in which he said, "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." He also recorded his private thoughts on this issue in his diary, writing in 1887: "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."
Hayes had been a devoted husband to his wife Lucy, and he was greatly saddened when she died in 1889. He wrote in his diary, "the soul had left [Spiegel Grove]". After Lucy's death, Hayes's daughter Fanny became his traveling companion, and he enjoyed visits from his grandchildren.
In 1890, Hayes chaired the Lake Mohonk Conference on the Negro Question, a gathering of reformers that met in upstate New York to discuss racial issues.
Hayes died of complications of a heart attack at his home on January 17, 1893, He was 70 years old. His last words were said to be, "I know that I'm going where Lucy is." President-elect Grover Cleveland and Ohio Governor William McKinley, (who would be Cleveland's successor in 1897), led the funeral procession that followed his body to Oakwood Cemetery in Fremont for its interment. In 1915, his remains were moved to his former home of Spiegel Grove for burial with his wife Lucy.