Hayes Administration - The Hayes Administration Legacy
The Hayes Administration Legacy
When James A. Garfield assumed the presidency in March 1881, he found that Hayes had left the country and the economy in good order. While the wounds of the American Civil War (1861–65) could still be felt, Reconstruction and its problems finally lay in the nation's immediate past. Because Hayes continued the hard money policies of the Grant administration, the economy had remained under control and was growing at a prudent pace, even though those policies had begun to be controversial among farmers and industrial workers. And Hayes kept his pledge to serve only one term.
Although popular culture then and since has caricatured Hayes as inept or worse, his record in office suggests differently. Entering the executive mansion under the cloud of the disputed election of 1876–77 and attacked as "Rutherfraud" Hayes, Hayes upheld his public promises to end Reconstruction and return home rule to...
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