Eric Foner in his book, Reconstruction, summarizes the elevation of Hayes to the Presidency after a protracted political and legal battle. To summarize Foner in turn, the gifted author places the installation of Hayes as more the end of a process starving the Reconstruction effort, rather than the beginning of it. Then there was the fairly rapid turn away from the needs of Freedmen (former slaves) to other efforts, such as the extirpation of the Nez Perce in the West. And in this effort, Hayes was more than complicit in that he was the Guiding Chief of the Army which pursued them.
Thus, after the election of Hayes, the blacks became for all intents and purposes a forgotten race for one hundred years.
to be continued
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