Rutherford Hayes – Union Army General, Republican Congressman and Governor and President
Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I salute Rutherford Hayes, born near Columbus, October 4th 1822. The scholarly youth excelled at Harvard Law School. His legal practice in Cincinnati defended many slaves fleeing from Kentucky. He entered politics as city councilman.
Outbreak of civil war, the Republican governor commissioned him major with the 23rd Ohio Infantry. Also in the regiment were future president William McKinley and future supreme court justice Stanley Matthews. Hayes survived a gunshot wound and rose to brigadier general.
In 1864, the state GOP nominated him for Congress. Refusing to leave the battlefield for campaigning, he defeated a pro-Confederate Democrat. During his second term, Hayes was elected governor. Four years out of office, he again won the governorship.
For the 1876 presidential election, Republicans found in Rutherford Hayes an ideal candidate – a political moderate, with an accomplished tenure and sterling military record.
Democrat historians accuse Hayes of fraudulently winning the election, but it was the Democrats who cheated, by preventing Blacks — nearly all of whom were Republicans — from voting. This is explained on pages 119–121 of Back to Basics for the Republican Party.
Hayes proved to be an excellent President, and would have been re-elected had he chosen to run for another term. Instead, he was succeeded by another Ohio Republican, James Garfield.
Back to Basics for the Republican Party is my civil rights history of the GOP. To quote the book: "The more we Republicans know about the history of our party, the more Democrats will worry about the future of theirs. For more information, see www.grandoldpartisan.com.
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Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement.
Each day, his YouTube videos and TikTok videos and Rumble videos and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states.
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