Politics

Lessons From Rutherford

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 8, 2000 / 6:07 PM EST / CBS

George W. Bush and Al Gore are both preparing to be the 43rd president, but after the bitter fight over Florida, how will the winner govern a divided nation?

If the next president needs some advice on how to cope with a situation like this, he could come to the northwest tip of Ohio and the home of the 19th president, Rutherford B. Hayes.

"We have this strange sense at the Hayes Presidential Center that we have seen it before," says director Roger Bridges.

Bridges brought out the 124-year-old presidential diaries and scrapbooks that remind us of the similarities between today's contest and the disputed election of 1876 between Republican Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden.

Florida was a factor then too.

"This scrap book is one of 150 that Hayes kept documenting his administration," Bridges explains. There were also "a lot of the same questions about the kinds of ballots that were used, how they were counted, whether they should be counted."

While Bush and Gore are only thinking of winning, Hayes wrote about losing, reports CBS News Correspondent Phil Jones.

"I shall find many things to console me," he wrote. "There will be no soreness in case of defeat."

Hayes kept his own electoral count. He was eventually awarded Florida's votes by a congressionally created commission of five Democrats, five Republicans and five Supreme Court justices. Hayes won by one vote, but he was tainted by all the wheeling and dealing.

"He was often referred to as 'Ruther-fraud' or 'his fraudulency' or 'his accidency,' " says Bridges.

If the next president's legitimacy is questioned, he need only to go to these writings.

"He believed he was legitimate and he let it go at that," Bridges explains. "He said I am not going to worry about it."

There is a lesson for today, says Bridges.

"There's no question whoever the new president is, based on Hayes' experience, he will have difficulties. They will not get everything they want," he says.

In 1876, Hayes promised — even before the election — not to run for re-election. On that, times have certainly changed.