Hayes' Evolving Views on Anti-Slavery, Reconstruction

Through funding by the Network to Freedom, the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums is excited to launch a new series of short essays that detail the life and times of Rutherford B. Hayes with specific attention to his connection to the enduring American question over slavery and civil rights.

For many, it might not be readily apparent why a discussion on this otherwise “forgotten” president’s connection to this topic is needed. Hayes didn’t end slavery like Lincoln, nor did he sign extensive civil rights legislation like Lyndon Johnson. Yet, Hayes is still remembered in African American history for doing something much more ominous, ending Reconstruction.

Reconstruction spanned the years 1863 to 1877. During this era, the federal government developed policies to return southern states to the union while attempting to create and enforce policies to protect and promote the civil rights of newly freed black men, women, and children. Hayes has the dubious record of ending the last vestiges of this federal initiative.

To accentuate the drama of Hayes’s Reconstruction actions, the nature upon which Hayes ascended to the White House made the matter worse. He only became president after a partisan electoral commission ruled in his favor despite looking as if he lost at least two key southern states. Historians have since debated if Hayes and key Republicans actually traded away defending African Americans for the presidential seat.

The majority of recent historians who study this election and Hayes’s subsequent Reconstruction decisions, however, have determined that while both events were controversial they were not necessarily connected. Very little could be gained from a bargain between Democrats and Republicans at this point in history since the wheels had been set in motion to end Reconstruction throughout the 1870s, well before this 1877 moment. Nonetheless, the complexities of this decision are often missed by the general public and historians whose focus is not the election, so the “bargain” narrative persists.

While Hayes is not remembered in the same positive light or with same level of familiarity as Abraham Lincoln or Lyndon Johnson, his relation to the question of civil rights and African Americans looms just as large (for better or worse). We hope this project will bring understanding to this man, his connection to the institution of slavery, and his civil rights policies.

Hayes Presidential historian Dustin McLochlin, Ph.D., has done extensive research into Hayes’ evolution in his views toward anti-slavery, Reconstruction and more. His articles regarding this are below.

Series 1: The Birchard Brothers' influence on Young Rud

Abolition and the Birchard Brothers

Violence in Abolitionist America: and the "Compliment Sandwich"

William Slade: Austin's Abolitionism

From Vermont to Ohio

Series 2: Rutherford at Kenyon College

Levi Coffin: the “President of the Underground Railroad”

Rutherford B. Hayes: The Young Whig

Rutherford B. Hayes, The Whigs, and Cracks in Anti-Abolitionism

Free African Americans in Ohio

The Supposed Southern Faculty of Kenyon College

Foreshadowing Hayes's Role as a Reconciler