Rutherford B. Hayes

     Born October 4, 1822, in Delaware, Ohio, Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States dealt with a period during which people had not yet decided the answers to old questions of social, racial, and economic justice, yet they were looking ahead for new directions on where to proceed to next. Though Hayes entered the White House with his name clouded over by the controversial election of 1876, he was soon able to reassertion his authority as he worked to reform the civil service, appointed well-known reformers in high offices, and ended military Reconstruction by ordering the remaining troops out of South Carolina and Louisiana. Hayes then failed in his attempt to revive the Republican Party in the South by convincing business-oriented ex-Whigs to join a national party what would support their economic interests more effectively than the Democrats.