On this day in 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate for president, was privately sworn into the office of the presidency after a closely contested election. The election of Rutherford B. Hayes and the political deals made as a result would lead to the end of Reconstruction in the South.
The Union victory of the Civil War in 1865, having defeated the pro slavery Confederate States, would bring about one of the most important eras in US history. In order to secure the integration of the newly freed slaves, now recognized as and afforded the liberties of the status of citizens, the Union government instituted Reconstruction within the South. Reconstruction consisted of the implementation of federal troops within the former Confederate States to insure compliance with the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments – these provided the former slave population the standing of citizenship; one of the most important pieces of this standing being the right to vote. As a result of these implementations, large numbers of Black men were elected to state and national legislature, completely transforming the American governance in a way that it had never previously experienced. Despite these original accomplishments, the overall success of the era of Reconstruction has become a controversial topic among historians. Many who acknowledge that Reconstruction had potential to transform the political and social platforms of America, also recognize the era of Reconstruction to have failed. That is in part due to the effects of the election of Rutherford B. Hayes, whose year of election not so coincidentally aligned with the end of Reconstruction.
The presidential election of 1876, a contest between the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and the Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, was an incredibly close race, a stark contrast to the monopoly that the Northern Republicans had held over the nation’s political stage for the past decade. It would be decided in an agreement between the two parties that in order for Hayes to take the seat of the presidency, Hayes would have to order the withdrawal of federal troops – who maintained and protected Reconstruction – from the Southern states. Hayes and the Republicans agreed to the deal. And so, with the election of Hayes, the institution that had given hope for potential equality was struck down. The following years gave way to rampant voter suppression and the rise of white supremacist terrorist groups. Black people of the South were intimidated and murdered, eventually forced to live within the confines of the Jim Crow laws. The American South, within years, had turned away from the hopes of equality, instead transforming into the states of segregation. The institution of white supremacy had been fully maintained, allowing yet again for the atrocious suppression of Black Americans. Begun in 1877, Jim Crow segregation wouldn’t officially be abolished until 1964.
Rutherford B. Hayes swearing into office would signify the beginning of one of the most reviled periods of American history. In place for nearly 90 years, Jim Crow would result in horrors committed against the African American population. But throughout it all, Black leaders rose up, once again in search for the freedom in which they had been denied, but assured by the three amendments written after the Civil War. Black leaders, the likes of Ida B. Wells, W.E.B du Bois, Malcom X and Martin Luther King, gave hope to millions and brought change to America.
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