geekyThe outcome of the election of 1876 was not known until the week before the inauguration itself. Democrat Samuel Tilden had won the greater number of popular votes, but the electoral votes of three states were in dispute. Tilden just needed one more electoral vote to claim a majority in the electoral college. But a fifteen-member Electoral Commission was appointed by the Congress to deliberate the outcome of the election and by a majority vote of 8 to 7 the Commission gave all of the disputed votes to Republican candidate Rutherford Hayes, who was officially declared the winner of the disputed election on March 2nd, just days before Inauguration Day. Since March 4 was a Sunday, Hayes took the oath of office in the Red Room at the White House on March 3, and again on Monday, March 5th on the East Portico of the Capitol. Chief Justice Morrison Waite administered both oaths. The first ceremony was held in secret, because the previous year's election battle was so bitterly contested that outgoing President Ulysses Grant was concerned about the possibility of some kind of violent insurrection by disgruntled Tilden supporters.
Hayes took the oath publicly on March 5, 1877 on the East Portico of the United States Capitol. His inaugural address was 2,481 words long. Hayes opened his remarks by telling his audience that "it seemed to me fitting that I should fully make known my sentiments in regard to several of the important questions which then appeared to demand the consideration of the country." He acknowledged that the residual bad feeling between the north and south that followed the civil war still existed and that "Difficult and embarrassing questions meet us at the threshold of this subject." He acknowledged that poverty remained in the southern states. He paid lip service to the need to protect "the interests of both races carefully and equally." He said:
"The question we have to consider for the immediate welfare of those States of the Union is the question of government or no government; of social order and all the peaceful industries and the happiness that belongs to it, or a return to barbarism. It is a question in which every citizen of the nation is deeply interested, and with respect to which we ought not to be, in a partisan sense, either Republicans or Democrats, but fellow-citizens and fellowmen, to whom the interests of a common country and a common humanity are dear."
Hayes acknowledged that the war had transitioned "4,000,000 people from a condition of servitude to that of citizenship, upon an equal footing with their former masters," and that this resulted in a number of problems. He said that "a moral obligation rests upon the National Government to employ its constitutional power and influence to establish the rights of the people it has emancipated, and to protect them in the enjoyment of those rights when they are infringed or assailed, is also generally admitted". Hayes said that he hoped to "use every legitimate influence in favor of honest and efficient local self-government" to address these problems and called for "the cordial cooperation of all who cherish an interest in the welfare of the country, trusting that party ties and the prejudice of race will be freely surrendered in behalf of the great purpose to be accomplished."
Hayes said that he saw education as an important part of curing the nation's ills. He said that "the basis of all prosperity, for that as well as for every other part of the country, lies the improvement of the intellectual and moral condition of the people. Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education. To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority."
Hayes also called for civil service reform , and wanted such reform to be "thorough, radical, and complete" and free of partisan influence, based on merit. He said that the fact that both parties had campaigned in support of the issue "must be regarded as the expression of the united voice and will of the whole country upon this subject, and both political parties are virtually pledged to give it their unreserved support." He famously said, "he serves his party best who serves the country best." Hayes called for a constitutional amendment "prescribing a term of six years for the Presidential office and forbidding a reelection."
Hayes next went on to comment on fiscal matters, beginning with the Panic of 1873 that had devastated the nation. He said "in my judgment the feeling of uncertainty inseparable from an irredeemable paper currency, with its fluctuation of values, is one of the greatest obstacles to a return to prosperous times. The only safe paper currency is one which rests upon a coin basis and is at all times and promptly convertible into coin."
Hayes then addressed international affairs and called for adherence to "our traditional rule of noninterference in the affairs of foreign nations" as well as President Grant's policy "of submitting to arbitration grave questions in dispute between ourselves and foreign powers". He went on to state:
"If, unhappily, questions of difference should at any time during the period of my Administration arise between the United States and any foreign government, it will certainly be my disposition and my hope to aid in their settlement in the same peaceful and honorable way, thus securing to our country the great blessings of peace and mutual good offices with all the nations of the world."
Hayes addressed the burning issue of the day, the controversy which had surrounded his election to the presidency. He told his audience:
"Fellow-citizens, we have reached the close of a political contest marked by the excitement which usually attends the contests between great political parties whose members espouse and advocate with earnest faith their respective creeds. The circumstances were, perhaps, in no respect extraordinary save in the closeness and the consequent uncertainty of the result. For the first time in the history of the country it has been deemed best, in view of the peculiar circumstances of the case, that the objections and questions in dispute with reference to the counting of the electoral votes should be referred to the decision of a tribunal appointed for this purpose. That tribunal—established by law for this sole purpose; its members, all of them, men of long-established reputation for integrity and intelligence, and, with the exception of those who are also members of the supreme judiciary, chosen equally from both political parties; its deliberations enlightened by the research and the arguments of able counsel—was entitled to the fullest confidence of the American people. Its decisions have been patiently waited for, and accepted as legally conclusive by the general judgment of the public. For the present, opinion will widely vary as to the wisdom of the several conclusions announced by that tribunal. This is to be anticipated in every instance where matters of dispute are made the subject of arbitration under the forms of law. Human judgment is never unerring, and is rarely regarded as otherwise than wrong by the unsuccessful party in the contest. The fact that two great political parties have in this way settled a dispute in regard to which good men differ as to the facts and the law no less than as to the proper course to be pursued in solving the question in controversy is an occasion for general rejoicing. Upon one point there is entire unanimity in public sentiment—that conflicting claims to the Presidency must be amicably and peaceably adjusted, and that when so adjusted the general acquiescence of the nation ought surely to follow."
Hayes concluded his remarks by requesting Divine guidance and calling for all unity, asking all "to unite with me in an earnest effort to secure to our country the blessings, not only of material prosperity, but of justice, peace, and union—a union depending not upon the constraint of force, but upon the loving devotion of a free people; "and that all things may be so ordered and settled upon the best and surest foundations that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us for all generations."