It is hard to imagine a more disastrous beginning to a presidency than what Rutherford B. Hayes had experienced in 1877, but he was someone who thought that attracting opposition from nearly every direction meant that he was right. The president represented an odd ideological mix. In many respects he was a liberal, but not consistently enough to win the loyalty of Godkin, whose cracked scheme to deny Hayes the presidency during the election crisis cost the Nation half its declining number of subscribers. Hayes had been a free trader in Congress, but as president he accepted the tariff for
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