President Rutherford B. Hayes’ legacy will always be tied to his contested election and the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War.
As part of Hayes’ 200th birthday celebration, the Hayes Presidential Library & Museums took a deep look at these issues and gathered experts on Reconstruction to discuss them.
The group talked these issues and Hayes’ legacy during a discussion, “The 1876 Election and American Democracy,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 11.
The panel was:
- Gregory Downs, professor at the University of California-Davis. Among his many works, he has contributed an article to the “American Historical Review”titled “The Mexicanization of American Politics: The United States’ Transnational Path from Civil War to Stabilization.” He wrote “After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War” and co-wrote the National Park Service’s theme study on Reconstruction. He is an editor of “The Journal of the Civil War Era.”
- Erik Alexander, associate professor at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville. He earned his PhD at the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous articles and essays on Civil War Era politics, as well as several op-ed pieces in theWashington Post on the election of 1876. He has a forthcoming essay titled “Dismantling the Party System: Party Fluidity and the Mechanisms of Nineteenth-Century U.S. Politics” in the “Journal of American History,” and is currently finishing a book on Reconstruction politics titled “Revolution Forestalled: Northern Democrats and the Politics of Reconstruction, 1865–1877,” with the University of North Carolina press.”
- Richard Pildes, Sudler Family professor of law at New York University Law School. He is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues concerning democracy. He is a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and was appointed by President Joe Biden to the President’s Commission on the Supreme Court. He has published dozens of articles and an acclaimed casebook, “The Law of Democracy.” His work explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions. He writes frequently for The New York Times and Washington Post.
- Michael F. Holt, Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History, Emeritus. He has written many works on 19th-century politics, including “The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War” and“By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876.”
Dustin McLochlin, Ph.D., Hayes Presidential Library & Museums historian, moderated the discussion.