Rutherford B. Hayes Quotes & Sayings

Shall the railroads govern the country, or shall the people govern the railroads? Shall the interest of railroad kings be chieflyregarded, or shall the interest of the people be paramount? — Rutherford B. Hayes

Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free States alone, if we must go on alone, will make a glorious nation. Twenty millions in the temperate zone, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, full of vigor, industry, inventive genius, educated, and moral; increasing by immigration rapidly, and, above all, free
all free
will form a confederacy of twenty States scarcely inferior in real power to the unfortunate Union of thirty-three States which we had on the first of November. — Rutherford B. Hayes

There can be no complete and permanent reform of the civil service until public opinion emancipates congressmen from all control and influence over government patronage. Legislation is required to establish the reform. No proper legislation is to be expected as long as members of Congress are engaged in procuring offices for their constituents. — Rutherford B. Hayes

One point in my public life: I did all I could for the reform of the civil service, for the building up of the South, for a soundcurrency, etc., etc., but I never forgot my party ... I knew that all good measures would suffer if my Administration was followed by the defeat of my party. Result, a great victory in 1880. Executive and legislature both completely Republican. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration; but the soldier's occupation we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The gloomy theology of the orthodox
the Calvinists
I do not, I cannot believe. Many of the notions
nay, most of the notions
which orthodox people have of the divinity of the Bible, I disbelieve. I am so nearly infidel in all my views, that too, in spite of my wishes, that none but the most liberal doctrines can command my assent. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I am less disposed to think of a West Point education as requisite for this business than I was at first. Good sense and energy are the qualities required. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education. To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Honesty, good intentions and industry, you will have of course. Without these your career would soon end with the loss of your good name. But you must be ambitious to be a good deal more. Webb Hayes, his son, went on to found what had become the Union Carbide Corporation. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment the sober second thought of the people. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Universal suffrage is sound in principle. The radical element is right. — Rutherford B. Hayes

How strange a scene is this in which we are such shifting figures, pictures, shadows. The mystery of our existence
I have no faith in any attempted explanation of it. It is all a dark, unfathomed profound. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The California fever is not likely to take us off ... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The filth and noise of the crowded streets soon destroy the elasticity of health which belongs to the country boy. — Rutherford B. Hayes

It is now true that this is God's Country, if equal rights-a fair start and an equal chance in the race of life are everywhere secured to all. — Rutherford B. Hayes

My father and mother in 1817 were forty-nine days on the road with their emigrant wagons [from Vermont] to Ohio. More than two days for each hour that I spent in the same journey. — Rutherford B. Hayes

My ambition for station was always easily controlled. If the place came to me it was welcome. But it never seemed to me worth seeking at the cost of self-respect, or independence. My family were not historic; they were well-to-do, did not hold or seek office. It was easy for me to be contented in private life. An honor was no honor to me, if obtained by my own seeking. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Nobody ever left the presidency with less regret, less disappointment, fewer heart burnings, or any general content with the result of his term (in his own heart, I mean) than I do. Full of difficulty and trouble at first, I now find myself on smooth waters and under bright skies. — Rutherford B. Hayes

A few ideas seem to be agreed upon. Help none but those who help themselves. Educate only at schools which provide in some form for industrial education. These two points should be insisted upon. Let the normal instruction be that men must earn their own living, and that by the labor of their hands as far as may be. This is the gospel of salvation for the colored man. Let the labor not be servile, but in manly occupations like that of the carpenter, the farmer, and the blacksmith. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done. This talent, or these two talents, I have cultivated. Silence and concise, brief speaking have got me some laurels, and, I suspect, lost me some. No odds. Do what is natural to you, and you are sure to get all the recognition you are entitled to. — Rutherford B. Hayes

My judgment is that neither House of Congress, nor both combined, have any right to interfere in the count. It is for the Vice-President to do it all ... There should be no compromise of our Constitutional rights. — Rutherford B. Hayes

If any of my men kill prisoners, I'll kill them. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Must swear off from swearing. Bad habit. — Rutherford B. Hayes

So far as laws and institutions avail, men should have equality of opportunity for happiness; that is, of education, wealth, power. These make happiness secure. An equal diffusion of happiness so far as laws and institutions avail. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The progress of society is mainly the improvement in the condition of the workingmen of the world. — Rutherford B. Hayes

My wish for the American woman is that she may always be an elevating influence-man's inspiration. Let him go forth to duty while she weaves the spell which makes home a paradise to which he may return, ever welcome, whether he is victor or vanquished. — Rutherford B. Hayes

For character, to prepare for the inevitable I recommend selections from [Ralph Waldo] Emerson. His writings have done for me far more than all other reading. — Rutherford B. Hayes

There are two tendencies in all our war talk ... The first is to boast, if not of ourselves and our deeds, at least of our army, our corps, our regiments. The other is to find fault with, to criticize, to censure, to condemn others. If there is a victory, we gained it and must have the credit of it. If there is a failure, it was the fault of the other fellow,
he must be blamed for it. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The truth is, this being errand boy to one hundred and fifty thousand people tires me so by night I am ready for bed instead of soirees. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I prefer to make no new declarations [on southern policy beyond what was in the Letter of Acceptance]. But you may say, if you deem it advisable, that you know that I will stand by the friendly and encouraging words of that Letter, and by all that they imply. You cannot express that too strongly. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The reform [of the civil service] should be thorough, radical, and complete. — Rutherford B. Hayes

No officer should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns. Their right to vote and to express their views on public questions, either orally or through the press, is not denied, provided it does not interfere with the discharge of their official duties. No assessment for political purposes on officers or subordinates should be allowed. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Unjust attacks on public men do them more good than unmerited praise. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern States that it is my earnest desire to regard and promote their truest interest the interests of the white and of the colored people both and equally and to put forth my best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which will forever wipe out in our political affairs the color line and the distinction between North and South, to the end that we may have not merely a united North or a united South, but a united country. — Rutherford B. Hayes

An amazing invention - but who would ever want to use one? — Rutherford B. Hayes

The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I am a freeman and jolly as a beggar. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Youth, however, is a defect that she is fast getting away from and may perhaps be entirely rid of before I shall want her. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Busy replying to letters from divers office-seekers. They come by the dozens. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The best religion the world has ever known is the religion of the Bible. It builds up all that is good. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The most noticeable weakness of Congressmen is their timidity. They fear the use to be made of their "record." They are afraid ofmaking enemies. They do not vote according to their convictions from fear of consequences. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Let every man, every corporation, and especially let every village, town, and city, every county and State, get out of debt and keep out of debt. It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times. — Rutherford B. Hayes

It is a government of the people by the people for the people no longer it is a government of corporations by corporations for corporations — Rutherford B. Hayes

No man, however benevolent, liberal, and wise, can use a large fortune so that it will do half as much good in the world as it would if it were divided into moderate sums and in the hands of workmen who had earned it by industry and frugality. The piling up of estates often does great and conspicuous good ... But no man does with accumulated wealth so much good as the same amount would do in many hands. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Perhaps the happiest moment of my life was then, when I saw that our line didn't break and that the enemy's did. — Rutherford B. Hayes

It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear. — Rutherford B. Hayes

It is a government by the corporations, for the corporations. — Rutherford B. Hayes

In Sumter and other counties [in South Carolina] the whites are resorting to intimidation and violence to prevent the colored people from organizing for the elections. The division there is still on the color line. Substantially all the whites are Democrats and all the colored people are Republicans. There is no political principle in dispute between them. The whites have the intelligence, the property, and the courage which make power. The negroes are for the most part ignorant, poor, and timid. My view is that the whites must be divided there before a better state of things will prevail. — Rutherford B. Hayes

One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Law without education is a dead letter. With education the needed law follows without effort and, of course, with power to execute itself; indeed, it seems to execute itself. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The ex-Presidential situation has its advantages, but with them are certain drawbacks. The correspondence is large. The meritorious demands on one are large. More independent out than in place, but still something of the bondage of the place that was willingly left. On the whole, however, I find many reasons to be content. — Rutherford B. Hayes

As friends go it is less important to live. — Rutherford B. Hayes

We people in camp are merely big children, wayward and changeable. — Rutherford B. Hayes

All appointments hurt. Five friends are made cold or hostile for every appointment; no new friends are made. All patronage is perilous to men of real ability or merit. It aids only those who lack other claims to public support. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That is reason enough for supporting churches, if there were no higher. — Rutherford B. Hayes

While I am in favor of the Government promptly enforcing the laws for the present, defending the forts and collecting the revenue,I am not in favor of a war policy with a view to the conquest of any of the slave States; except such as are needed to give us a good boundary. If Maryland attempts to go off, suppress her in order to save the Potomac and the District of Columbia. Cut a piece off of western Virginia and keep Missouri and all the Territories. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I am asked if I would not be gratified if my friends would procure me promotion to a brigadier-generalship. My feeling is that I would rather be one of the good colonels than one of the poor generals. The colonel of a regiment has one of the most agreeable positions in the service, and one of the most useful. "A good colonel makes a good regiment," is an axiom. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Fighting battles is like courting girls: those who make the most pretensions and are boldest usually win. — Rutherford B. Hayes

If a liberal policy towards the late Rebels is adopted, the ultra Republicans are opposed to it; if the colored people are honored, the extremists of the other wing cry out against it. I suspect I am right in both cases. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The religion of the Bible is the best in the world. I see the infinite value of religion. Let it be always encouraged. A world ofsuperstition and folly have grown up around its forms and ceremonies. But the truth in it is one of the deep sentiments in human nature. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The sacred obligation to the Union soldiers must not
will not be forgotten nor neglected ... But those who fought against the Nation cannot and do not look to it for relief ... Confederate soldiers and their descendants are to share with us and our descendants the destiny of America. Whatever, therefore, we their fellow citizens can do to remove burdens from their shoulders and to brighten their lives is surely in the pathway of humanity and patriotism. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I regard the inflation acts as wrong in all ways. Personally I am one of the noble army of debtors, and can stand it if others can. But it is a wretched business. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I have the greatest aversion to being a candidate on a ticket with a man whose record as an upright public man is to be in question
to be defended from the beginning to the end. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I see no reason why Indians who can give satisfactory proof of having by their own labor supported their families for a number of years, and who are willing to detach themselves from their tribal relations, should not be admitted to the benefit of the homestead act and the privileges of citizenship, and I recommend the passage of a law to that effect. It will be an act of justice as well as a measure of encouragement. — Rutherford B. Hayes

General education is the best preventive of the evils now most dreaded. In the civilized countries of the world, the question is how to distribute most generally and equally the property of the world. As a rule, where education is most general the distribution of property is most general ... As knowledge spreads, wealth spreads. To diffuse knowledge is to diffuse wealth. To give all an equal chance to acquire knowledge is the best and surest way to give all an equal chance to acquire property. — Rutherford B. Hayes

In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Strikes and boycotting are akin to war, and can be justified only on grounds analogous to those which justify war, viz., intolerable injustice and oppression. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The President of the United States should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves his country best. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Both parties are injured by what is going on at Washington. Both are, therefore, more and more disposed to look for candidates outside of that atmosphere. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I am a radical in thought (and principle) and a conservative in method (and conduct). — Rutherford B. Hayes

[T]his free and easy old-bachelor sort of life is quite full of fun and jollity. Pease and myself room together; and everything like order and neatness is banished from our presence as a nuisance
old letters and old boots and shoes, duds clean and duds dirty, books and newspapers, tooth-brushes, shoe-brushes, and clothes-brushes, all heaped together on chairs, settees, etc., in dusty and "most admired confusion." Now, what is there imaginable in clean, tidy private life equal to this? — Rutherford B. Hayes

He [William Merritt Chase] is, I suspect, getting a very truthful likeness. I would like it better if [it] was not so gray, so cramped about the eyes, and not quite so corpulent. But is this not quarreling with nature? — Rutherford B. Hayes

What Congress and the popular sentiment approve is rarely defeated by reason of constitutional objections. I trust the measure will turn out well. It is a great relief to me. Defeat in this way, after a full and public hearing before this [Electoral] Commission, is not mortifying in any degree, and success will be in all respects more satisfactory. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I leave the governor's office next week, and with it public life[which] has been on the whole a pleasant one. But for ten years and over my salaries have not equalled my expenses, and there has been a feeling of responsibility, a lack of independence, and a necessary neglect of my family and personal interests and comfort, which make the prospect of a change comfortable to think of. — Rutherford B. Hayes

It could be clearly proved that by a practical nullification [by the South] of the Fifteenth Amendment the Republicans have for several years been deprived of a majority in both the House and Senate. The failure of the South to faithfully observe the Fifteenth Amendment is the cause of the failure of all efforts towards complete pacification. It is on this hook that the bloody shirt now hangs. — Rutherford B. Hayes

My hobby more and more is likely to be common school education, or universal education. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Every expert was once a beginner. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I do not think a revival of business will be greatly postponed by [Samuel J.] Tilden's election. Business prosperity does not, inmy judgment, depend on government so much as men commonly think. — Rutherford B. Hayes

No person connected with me by blood or marriage will be appointed to office. — Rutherford B. Hayes

We can travel longer, night and day, without losing our spirits than almost any persons we ever met. — Rutherford B. Hayes

General [John] Pope is impulsive and hasty, but energetic, and, what is of most importance, patriotic and sound
perfectly sound.I look for good results. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The man who does that which avails in reforms or other good works always has clubs thrown at him. The nobodies are passed over in Silence, or with good natured unmeaning compliments after they leave high places. — Rutherford B. Hayes

There are good points about all ... wars. People forget self. The virtues of magnanimity, courage, patriotism, etc., are called into life. People are more generous, more sympathetic, better, than when engaged in the more selfish pursuits of peace. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit ... The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to
no chance to reply to them ... The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Personally I do not resort to force- not even the force of law- to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example- of fashion. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I am succeeding very well so far with my legging, but it is a very mean business for a man that has been well brought up to engage in. It is the only way to get a bill from Cincinnati through, so it must be done. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice. — Rutherford B. Hayes

These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched.
Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery
in fact, its only enemy. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Nothing brings out the lower traits of human nature like office-seeking. Men of good character and impulses are betrayed by it into all sorts of meanness. — Rutherford B. Hayes

The climate of Ohio is perfect, considered as the home of an ideal republican people. Climate has much to do with national character ... A climate which permits labor out-of-doors every month in the year and which requires industry to secure comfort
to provide food, shelter, clothing, fuel, etc.
is the very climate which secures the highest civilization. — Rutherford B. Hayes

In the great and deep qualities of mind, heart, and soul, there is no change. Homer and Solomon speak to the same nature in man that is reached by Shakespeare and Lincoln. but in the accidents, the surroundings, the change is vast. All things now are mobile
movable. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I too mean to be out of politics. The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment gives me the boon of equality before the law, terminates my enlistment, and discharges me cured. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I would strenuously urge a single term of six years. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I would honor the man who give to his country a good newspaper. — Rutherford B. Hayes

You know I am given to antiquarian and genealogical pursuits. An old family letter is a delight to my eyes. I can prowl in old trunks of letters by the day with undiminished zest. — Rutherford B. Hayes