INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
Rutherford B. Hayes
INAUGURAL ADDRESS
MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1877
***
The outcome of the election of 1876 was not known until the week
before the inauguration itself. Democrat Samuel Tilden had won the
greater number of popular votes and lacked only one electoral vote
to claim a majority in the electoral college. Twenty disputed
electoral votes, however, kept hopes alive for Republican Governor
Hayes of Ohio. A fifteen-member Electoral Commission was appointed
by the Congress to deliberate the outcome of the election. By a
majority vote of 8 to 7 the Commission gave all of the disputed
votes to the Republican candidate, and Mr. Hayes was elected
President on March 2. Since March 4 was a Sunday, he took the oath
of office in the Red Room at the White House on March 3, and again
on Monday on the East Portico of the Capitol. Chief Justice
Morrison Waite administered both oaths.
***
Fellow-Citizens:
We have assembled to repeat the public ceremonial, begun by
Washington, observed by all my predecessors, and now a time-
honored custom, which marks the commencement of a new term of the
Presidential office. Called to the duties of this great trust, I
proceed, in compliance with usage, to announce some of the leading
principles, on the subjects that now chiefly engage the public
attention, by which it is my desire to be guided in the discharge
of those duties.
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