HAYES, CONGRESS AND THE APPROPRIATIONS RIDERS VETOES

President Rutherford B. Hayes is known as a statesman of reunion for r emoving the last of the federal troops from the south in 1877, thereby ending Reconstruction and opening the door to sectional conciliation. Certainly on his inauguration day, Hayes had high hopes for a sincere reunion of north and south. Yet old passions and hatreds died hard. B y 1879, congressional Democrats, seething over the retention of Recons truction restraints, were itching for a fight with the Republican pres ident. Hayes responded by vetoing several Democratic bills that would have removed some of the last vestiges of Reconstruction. The resultin g bitterness between Democrats and Republicans in Congress showed that neither side was willing to let bygones be bygones. In combating the Democrats, Hayes demonstrated qualities of executive leadership that n ot even Republican kingmakers had detected when they nominated him in 1876.