Grant and Johnson

As commander in chief of the army, Grant had a difficult relationship with President Johnson. He accompanied Johnson on a national stumping tour during the 1866 elections, but did not appear to be a supporter of Johnson's moderate policies toward the South. Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans, by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Stanton, who refused to resign. Grant refused--but kept his military command. That made him a hero to the Radicals, who gave him the Republican nomination for president in 1868. He was chosen as the Republican presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in May 1868, with no real opposition. In his letter of acceptance to the party, Grant concluded with "Let us have peace," which became the Republican campaign slogan. In the general election that year, he won against former New York governor Horatio Seymour with a lead of 300,000 out of a total of 5,716,082 votes cast, but by a commanding 214 Electoral College votes to 80. He ran about 100,000 votes ahead of the GOP ticket, suggesting an unusually powerful appeal to veterans. When he entered the White House he was politically inexperienced and, at age 46, the youngest man yet elected president.

Presidency 1869–1877

Grant was the 18th President of the United States and served two terms from March 4, 1869, to March 3, 1877. He easily won reelection by a wide margin in 1872 against Horace Greeley.

Policies

Despite the scandals that sometimes dominate his presidential legacy, Grant's administration had positive aspects. His Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, was very highly regarded at the time and ever since. Grant presided over the last half of Reconstruction, watching as the Democrats, or Redeemers, took control of every state away from his Republican coalition. When urgent telegrams from state leaders begged for help, Grant and his Attorney General replied that "the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South," saying that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. He supported amnesty for Confederate leaders and protection for the civil rights of African-Americans. He favored a limited number of troops to be stationed in the South—sufficient numbers to protect rights of southern blacks and suppress the violent tactics of the Ku Klux Klan, but not so many as to create resentment in the general population. In 1869 and 1871, Grant signed bills promoting voting rights and prosecuting Klan leaders. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing voting rights, was ratified in 1870. Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park (America's first National Park) on March 1, 1872.^[7]

The Panic of 1873 hit the country hard during his presidency, and he never attempted decisive action, one way or the other, to alleviate distress. The first law that he signed, in March 1869 established the value of the greenback currency issued during the Civil War, pledging to redeem the bills in gold. In 1874 he vetoed a bill to increase the amount of a legal tender currency, which defused the currency crisis on Wall Street, but did little to help the economy as a whole. The depression led to smashing Democratic victories in the 1874 off-year elections, as that party took control of the House for the first time since 1856.

In foreign affairs the greatest achievement of the Grant administration was the Treaty of Washington negotiated by Grant's best appointment, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, in 1871. It settled American claims against England concerning the wartime activities of the British-built Confederate raider Alabama. The worst foreign policy blunder was an attempt to annex the independent nation of Santo Domingo in 1870 to provide for a state for the freedmen. African American leaders did not want to be shipped off, but Grant was misled by Orville Babcock, who negotiated a treaty. The Senate refused to ratify it due to (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) Senator Charles Sumner's strong opposition. Grant helped depose Sumner from the chairmanship, and Sumner supported Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans in 1872.

In 1876, Grant helped to calm the nation over the Hayes-Tilden election controversy by appointing a federal commission that helped to settle the election.

Scandals

The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, a gold-speculation financial crisis in September 1869, set up by Wall Street manipulators Jay Gould and James Fisk. They tried to corner the gold market, and tricked Grant into preventing his Treasury Secretary from stopping the fraud. Several of Grant's aides were suspected of inside dealings, but the president himself had been totally fooled.

The most famous scandal was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow, in which over $3 million in taxes were defrauded from the federal government with the aid of high government officials. Orville E. Babcock, the private secretary to the President, was indicted as a member of the ring and escaped conviction only because of a presidential pardon. When it became clear that Babcock was involved in the scandal, Grant regretted his earlier statement, "Let no guilty man escape." After the Whiskey Ring, Grant's Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, was involved in an investigation that revealed that he had taken bribes in exchange for the sale of Native American trading posts. Grant foolishly accepted the resignation of Belknap; when Belknap was impeached by Congress for his actions, he escaped conviction since he was no longer a government official.

Other scandals included the Sanborn Incident at the Treasury, and problems with U.S. Attorney Cyrus I. Scofield.

Although there is no evidence that Grant himself profited from corruption among his subordinates, he did not take a firm stance against malefactors and failed to react strongly even after their guilt was established. When critics complained he vigorously attacked them. He was weak in his selection of subordinates, favoring colleagues from the war over those with more practical political experience. He alienated party leaders by giving many posts to his friends and political contributors, rather than listening to their recommendations. His failure to establish adequate political allies was a factor in the scandals getting out of control. At the conclusion of his second term, Grant wrote to Congress that "Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."

Later life

After the end of his second term, Grant spent two years traveling around the world. He visited Sunderland, where he opened the first free municipal public library in England. Grant also visited Japan. In the Shibakoen section of Tokyo, a tree still stands that Grant planted during his stay.

Grant is known to be the first US president to visit Finland. During his Russian state visit he notably stared long and hard into the froth of the ford of Imatra, an event later commemorated by a bronze plaque.

In 1879, the Meiji government of Japan announced the annexation of the Ryukyu Islands. China objected, and Grant was asked to arbitrate the matter. He decided that Japan's claim to the islands was stronger and ruled in Japan's favor.

In 1879, the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican Party led by Senator Roscoe Conkling sought to nominate Grant for a third term as president. He counted on strong support from the business men, the old soldiers, and the Methodist church. Publicly Grant said nothing but privately he wanted the job and encouraged his men. His popularity was fading however, and while he received more than 300 votes in each of the 36 ballots of the 1880 convention, the nomination went to James A. Garfield. Grant campaigned for Garfield for a month, but he supported Conkling in the terrific battle over patronage in spring 1881 that culminated in Garfield's assassination.

In 1883, Grant was elected the eighth president of the National Rifle Association.

In 1881, Grant purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward, as suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses, Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Ward was known as the "Young Napoleon of Finance." Perhaps Grant should have taken that name seriously; as with the other Young Napoleon, George B. McClellan, failure was in the wings. In this case, Ward swindled Grant (and other investors who had been encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company, Grant and Ward, and fled. And to make matters worse, Grant learned at the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. Grant and his family were left destitute; at the time retired U.S. Presidents were not given pensions and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he assumed the office of President.

In one of the most ironic twists in all history, Ward's treachery led directly to a great gift to posterity. Grant's Memoirs are considered a masterpiece, both for their writing style and their historical content, and until Grant bankrupted, he steadfastly refused to write them. Only upon his family's future financial independence becoming in doubt, did he agree to write anything at all.

He first wrote a couple of articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century magazine, which were warmly received. Afterwards, the publishers made Grant an offer to write his memoirs. It was a standard contract, one which they issued to most any new writer. Independently of the magazine publishers, the famous author, Mark Twain, approached Grant. Twain, who was suspicious of publishers, was appalled by the magazine's offer. He rightly realized that Grant was, at that time, the most significant American alive, and he offered Grant a generous contract, including 75% of the book's sales as royalties. Grant accepted Twain's offer.

Terminally ill, Grant fought to finish his memoirs. Although wracked with pain and unable to speak at the end, he triumphed, finishing them just a few days before his death. The memoirs succeeded, selling over 300,000 copies and earning the Grant family over $450,000 ($9,500,000 in 2005 dollars). Twain called the memoirs "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and they are widely regarded as among the finest memoirs ever written.

Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at age 63 in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. He and his family had moved to a cottage there in the Adirondacks only a month earlier. His body lies in New York City's Riverside Park, beside that of his wife, in Grant's Tomb, the largest mausoleum in North America.

Timeline

1822 Birth of Ulysses S. Grant as "Hiram Ulysses Grant" on April 27th

1823 Family moves to Georgetown, Ohio

1864 Begins term as General-in-chief

1869 Ends term as General-in-chief

1869 Begins term as 18th President of the United States

1877 Ends term as 18th President of the United States

1880 US Census in Galena, Illinois

1885 Death of Ulysses S. Grant in Wilton, New York on July 23rd

Legacy

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