Primary Source 1: An editorial published in The Democratic Advocate, published in Westminster, Maryland, on March 10, 1877.
Mr. Hayes sneaked into the Presidency at 7 o’clock, P. M. on Saturday evening, seventeen hours before the expiration of Grant’s term. Chief Justice Waite, of the Supreme Court, administered the oath in the red parlor of the White House, with no spectators present but President Grant and Secretary Fish. For seventeen hours, then, there were two Chief Magistrates instead of one. Hayes and his advisors seem to have been afraid that some trick would be practiced upon him by Mr. Tilden or his friends. This premature action betrayed a consciousness of a false title to the office he seemed so much to covet, and in such indecent haste to grasp. He knows that he holds the office by a spurious title, and that another was called to it by the suffrage of the people, whose place he has usurped by means of fraud. This consciousness will haunt him, day and night, to the latest day of his term.
Primary Source 2: Excerpt from a resolution passed by the Chamber of Commerce of New Orleans, published in the New Orleans Republican, in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 20, 1877.
Whereas, The Chamber of Commerce of New Orleans, though a non-political body, was organized for the promotion of the commercial interests of this city, and is in duty bound to approve or disapprove measures of government beneficial or injurious to the city’s interests; therefore be it
Resolved, 1. That the inaugural address of President Hayes gives earnest of a policy of pacification of the whole country, vital to commercial prospects, in the execution of which we pledge our cordial support.
2. That the recognition of the principles of local self-government contained in the inaugural address, is alike the basis of American liberties and commercial prospects.
3. That the rehabilitation of the material interests of the South, through judicious national aid, is a matter in our present impoverished condition of prime importance, and the liberal views on this question of the President elect inspire our people with new hope for the future of our State and country.