Rutherford B. Hayes (Hardcover)

~ Hans Trefousse (Author), Arthur M. Schlesinger (Editor)
Key Phrases: New York, United States, White House (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Like our current chief executive, Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) came to power after a disputed election in 1876, arbitrated by a special congressional electoral commission that handed him the office and left him tarred as "the fraudulent president" for the rest of his term. Trefousse, a history professor emeritus at the City University of New York and biographer of Andrew Johnson, offers a straightforward, by-the-numbers life (part of the Times Books American Presidents series, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.) that hurries through Hayes's days as an eager student at Kenyon College and Harvard Law School to focus on his Ohio governorship and his single term as president. Hayes effectively ended Reconstruction, withdrawing federal troops and Republican regimes from the South to make way for the Democrats-a controversial move that spelled the end of black rights in the South, though Trefousse argues that Hayes had little choice and the best of intentions in terms of protecting blacks. Though it's not much of a character study, this is a concise, informative account for those who want to brush up on their Reconstruction history.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The American Presidents series offers fresh, concise portraits of the U.S. chief executives. One of the most valuable services of the series is paying attention to "overlooked" presidents. This series entry on the nineteenth president rescues from relative obscurity a man who, in the eyes of the author, a specialist in the Civil War and Reconstruction, should be remembered. Hayes served in Congress, as governor of Ohio, and as a general in the Civil War before his election to the presidency in 1876. It is this election for which he is chiefly remembered, for he is one of only four presidents who have won the electoral vote but not the popular vote. It was to Hayes' credit as an honest and conciliatory man, moderate in thought and action, that he was able to overcome the notion that he was a "fraudulent" president. A fluid and valuable overview. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Times Books (November 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805069089
• ISBN-13: 978-0805069082
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #172,989 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More, Please, November 30, 2002

By	David D. Platt (Yarmouth, ME USA) - See all my reviews

A quick read, "Rutherford B. Hayes" touches all the highlights of Hayess interesting and varied career. The book draws from the usual sources: Ari Hoogenbooms and Harry Barnards 20th century biographies, Watt Marchmans work and Hayess own extensive diaries and correspondence. It draws to a lesser extent from newspaper accounts and editorials of Hayess day, particularly those concerning his political campaigns.
What the book doesnt do is provide new insight into Hayes himself: arguably the best-educated man ever elected to the presidency, someone who successfully navigated the treacherous political seas of the four decades that began just before the Civil War and ended with the election of McKinley a few years after Hayess death in 1893. Hayess interests in civil-service reform, literacy, equal rights for blacks, education, technology, penal reform and the establishment of facilities for the insane are all mentioned, but we get little more. His Civil War career (Hayes was in the thick of several battles, was wounded and eventually received a battlefield commission as a major general) merits somewhat more attention, but even that tends to go by in the writers apparent rush to finish his story.
Hayess post-White House service to the Slater Fund, a 19th century foundation that did much to advance the education of freed slaves, merits a only few lines.
At two points in his narrative the author points out the similarities between Hayess situation in the disputed 1877 election and the election of 2000, but he does so in such brief fashion as to suggest he added them at the last minute, perhaps at the urging of an editor. Again, what we dont get at these points is any insight into the significance of these elections and their outcome, either constitutionally or in terms of the workings of the political system.
Repeatedly, I found myself thinking I was reading a term paper, based on secondary sources. Its not in a class with three other biographies Ive read recently: David McCullochs "John Adams," David Michaeliss "N.C. Wyeth," and Edmund Morriss "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt." Interestingly, each of these books chronicles the life of a compulsive diarist and letter-writer who became prominent in his own lifetime. Hayes had a similar compulsion, keeping a diary from his college days at Kenyon in the late 1830s until his death in 1893. Thousands of published and un-published letters he wrote are still in existence as well. They are available to scholars and could provide the basis for a thorough examination of Hayess life.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid if brief biography of a lesser known president, January 16, 2005

By	Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This brief biography of Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States both benefits and suffers from being part of a series. The series is, of course, The American Presidents, under the editorship of Arthur M Schlesinger Jr. The aim of the series is to provide a brief biography of the presidents of the United States. Personally, I am finding this series to be very helpful on the lesser presidents like Hayes, but less helpful for presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, who has been written about quite extensively.
Rutherford B. Hayes is a perfect subject for one of these brief biographies. Unless for some reason one wants to delve especially deep into Hayes's life, he is not one of the foremost presidents, and therefore not someone a great number of people want to spend a great deal of time studying. As Trefousse shows, he had some substantive achievements in his administration, including ending Reconstruction and the beginning of civil service reform. Moreover, he emerges as a likeable and admirable individual, as a person who did the office of president a great service. The book also is somewhat guilty of minimizing Hayes weaknesses as a president. However, Trefousse was not able to convince me that he is one of the pivotal figures in American history, and while I can't rule out going on to read another biography of Hayes at some point, I feel that 150 pages on Hayes was just about right.

One thing that bothered me a bit in the book was Trefousse's attempt to stress parallels between Hayes's election and that of 2000. In both instances, the election was extremely close, with the loser winning more of the popular vote but losing on the electoral votes, with Florida playing a key role each time. The instances, however, are nonparallel in a number of other ways. In 1876 Hayes, the winner, was deprived of a vast number of black votes by Southerners harassing blacks as they attempted to vote, so that he probably would have won the popular vote as well as the electoral. In 2000, tens of thousands of black voters were illegally (in the strict since, for the Ashcroft Justice Department later ruled that the Civil Rights of black voters had been interfered with in the voter purge, not that it will reverse the outcome of the election) from the list of registered voters, depriving Gore of tens of thousands of votes. Also, although both Hayes and Bush became president of a deeply divided nation, Hayes worked very hard to unify the nation, while Bush has increased the division since being named president by the Supreme Court.

Still, I do recommend this biography. It is likely to be all that one would need on Hayes. I do not think it is as strong as some of the other books I have read in the same series, for instance Garry Wills's superb little book on Madison or Remini's surprisingly good biography of John Quincy Adams (surprising because Remini is the foremost biographer of Jackson, and he and Adams were bitter political rivals).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Satisfactory short biography of Rutherford B. Hayes, November 18, 2007

By	G. Zilly - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am currently reading a biography of every President. This is the first time I have selected one of the short biographies from the American President series. These biographies are very short, this particular one being 150 pages of text, made even shorter by the relatively small amount of text on each page - I would estimate roughly 2/3 the length of text compared to an "average" book. It is certainly more than manageable to read this book in one sitting.

I was somewhat disappointed by the brevity of the book, which was even more pronounced than I expected. I will, however, review the book based upon its intention, and it was certainly not intended to be a comprehensive biography. The book does manage to present a full biographical sketch of Hayes with an acceptable overview of the issues in his Presidency. Trefousse's writing is straightforward although quite dry and he is overly concerned with comparing the 1876 and 2000 elections in an unsuccessful attempt to give the book a modern connection. Trefousse seems to approach his subject with about the same enthusiasm as a high school history student writing a term paper. The biggest shortcoming of the book however is not the lack of information but its inability to give the reader a true sense of Rutherford B. Hayes, the man.

Ultimately, this book is barely satisfactory and I believe many readers will desire the more in depth biographies of either Ari Higenboom or Harry Barnard - I know I will probably go back and read one of these at some point. This book does, however, fill a need for a modern short biography of our 19th President and is recommendable in that capacity.