Rutherford B. Hayes

1822 – 1893

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th president of the United States, serving from 1877 to 1881 after winning the most disputed presidential election in U.S. history. The 1876 election was decided by a special electoral commission that awarded all 20 contested electoral votes to Hayes, in exchange—per the unwritten Compromise of 1877—for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South. The withdrawal effectively ended Reconstruction and consigned newly freed Black Southerners to nearly a century of Jim Crow segregation, lynching, and disenfranchisement.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM