XXIII. ADMINISTRATION OF RuTnERFonn B. HAYES (1877-1881). Cabinet.—Seerefary of State, William N. Evarts, New York, March 12, 1877. Secretary of the Treasury. John Sherman, Ohio, March 8. 1877. Secretary of War, George W. McCrary, Iowa, March 12, 1877: Alexander Ramsey, Minnesota, December 12. 1879. Secre tary of the:Vary. Richard W. Thompson. Indiana, March 12. 1877: Nathan Goff, Jr., West Vir ginia, January 6, 1881. Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz, Missouri, March 12, 1877. Attar ncy-Gcncral, Charles Devens, .11a,sachusett,i, March 12, 1877. Postmaster-General, David M. Key, Tennessee, March 12, 1877; Horace May hard, Tennessee, August 25, 1880.
The early portion of this administration was made memorable by the troubles in South Caro lina and Louisiana, where rival State govern ments, each claiming to be legally elected, con tended for supremacy. In the former State the difficulty was settled by President Hayes, who ordered the withdrawal of the United States troops which had been stationed at Columbia, and had been an objectionable feature of the contest; whereupon the Republican Gov ernor, Chamberlain, retired, and General Wade 'Hampton took peaceful possession of the office. A settlement was also effected in Louisiana, a commission being sent thither by the President, when the Democratic Governor, Nichols, was enabled to gain possession of his seat, the Fed eral troops being in this instance also withdrawn from New Orleans. This marked the end of Federal interference in the local concerns of the Southern States, an interference that had become yearly more objectionable to moderate men at the North, who no longer cherished the animosities resulting from the Civil War. See RECONSTRUC TION.
This year was further noteworthy by the oc currence, in July, of railroad strikes and riots throughout the country, to the injury of business and with serious loss of property. (See STRIKES
AND LOCKOUTS.) The excitement occasioned by the near approach of the period fixed by Congress for the resumption of specie payments led to the formation of a party opposed to the prevailing sentiment with regard to financial questions. Such a party was or ganized in Toledo, Ohio. February 22, 1873, under the name of the National Party, dele gates being present from 28 States; its prin ciples included bimetallism, the suppression of national bank issues, a graduated income tax, and opposition to Chinese labor. In the State elections of the same year this party, which became popularly known as the Greenback Party (q.v.), polled upward of a million votes.
In February, 1878, the dissatisfaction which had been felt by the advocates of silver coinage with the act of 1873 suspending the coinage of silver, except for subsidiary coins, found expression in the passage by Con gress., over the President's veto, of the so-called Bland-Allison Bill, which provided for the an nual purchase by the Secretary of the Treasury of at least two million dollars' worth" of silver bul lion to be coined into legal-tender dollars, each containing grains of standard silver. On January 1, 1879, specie payments were resumed throughout the United States, after a suspension of seventeen years, and in accordance with the net of Congress approved January 14, 1875, the process of resumption being effected without excitement.
An extraordinary movement northward of the colored population from certain of the South ern States took place in 1S79 and was the source of much uneasiness among the planters. (See