Excerpt from his Inaugural Address

Given on March 5, 1877; reprinted on Bartleby.com (Web site)

The winner of a controversial election officially greets the nation as president

"Only a local government which recognizes and maintains inviolate the rights of all is a true self-government.…"

Ohio governor Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) went to bed election night believing he had lost the 1876 race for the presidency. Hayes, a Republican, seemed to hopelessly trail Democratic New York governor Samuel J. Tilden (1814–1886) in the electoral college, the group of state-selected delegates who actually pick the president. But Hayes's strongest supporters were not ready to give up. One of them, former U.S. congressman Daniel E. Sickles (1819–1914) of New York, sent urgent telegrams that night to Republican leaders in South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, and Oregon, historian Ari Hoogenboom wrote...