Ulysses Grant: Our Greatest President?
In 1854, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison led a crowd celebrating Independence Day by burning the Constitution, denouncing it as "A Convenant With Death and an Agreement with Hell." His worthy point was that the founding fathers of the nation had make a mockery of their own words with the stain of slavery and deserved scorn for the constitutional product of their labors.
So as we celebrate the founding of our nation, maybe we should think more about the true founding of a nation with the Civil War where all men were to be "truly created equal" and the President who worked to make it so. No not Lincoln-- who didn't live to finish the job--but the General, Ulysses Grant, who won the Civil War and went on to be the President who would oversee the ratification of the 15th Amendment and enactment of the civil rights enforcement laws that -- after the interregnum of disuse under Jim Crow -- to this day are a backbone of civil rights in this nation.
It is odd that when liberals list the greatest Presidents, Grant rarely makes the list. Roosevelt of course is a worthy option, Kennedy gets the charisma-addict vote and Lincoln deserves respectable mention.
But why isn't Grant more honored?
Forgetting Grant: In his own day, Grant was wildly popular. Grant was the only President to be elected by a majority of the voting population for two terms in the hundred years between Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt. (Other Presidents like Lincoln, Cleveland and Wilson elected for two terms in that period did not get a majority of the vote in one or both of their elections.) Grant's memoirs published just as he died met such critical and popular praise that it left his family a fortune due to its mass sales in the country.
If Grant is not more respected, it is because the fight for racial justice and Reconstruction that he oversaw has been so rawly defamed over our history to the point of almost being forgotten. As W.E.B. DuBois wrote “[n]ot a single great leader of the nation during the Civil War and Reconstruction has escaped attack and libel.”
The Crusade for Racial Justice: But Grant's accomplishments should be remembered. (Some of the following is adapted from a semi-scholarly piece I co-wrote, A New Birth of Freedom: The Forgotten History of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.) Even as Grant was being elected in 1868, he faced Klan-based racial terrorism fighting to manipulate the vote throughout the South. The first result was the 15th Amendment to protect the right to vote but as importantly was the creation under Grant of the Department of Justice in 1871 and a series of "Enforcement Acts" to eliminate Klan violence. The language was sweeping in its defense of black voting rights:
Congress made it a crime for “two or more persons [to] band or conspire together, or go in disguise upon the public highway, or upon the premises of another, with the intent...to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen with intent to prevent his free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege granted or secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
Grant used his new authority to crack down on Klan terrorism in nine South Carolina counties in 1871 and essentially destroyed the Klan there and then throughout the South. Hundreds of Klansmen were convicted between 1870 and 1873 of violating the voting and other civil rights of the new freedmen in the South.
The result was the election of 1872, the only election not undermined by racial terrorism until the late 1960s. In his second inaugural address, President Grant declared that racial segregation was unacceptable and called for federal legislation to assure equal rights in access to transportation and public schools. Following Grant’s lead, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, banning segregation in public accommodations, transportation, and entertainment facilities. Majorities in both houses of Congress even voted to make school segregation illegal throughout the country, but filibusters blocked enactment of those later amendments, but it is a testament to Grant's dogged pursuit of civil rights that so encompassing a legislative and administrative agenda of racial justice was pursued.
And Grant's view of racial justice extended to the native american population. Instead of the mass murder that was typical of his predecessors and many of his successors, Grant sought what was known at the time as "the Quaker policy" in which he denounced past "wars of extermination" as "demoralizing and wicked.. A system which looks to the extinction of a race is too horrible for a nation to adopt without entailing upon itself the wrath of all Christendom." While not perfect in execution, his policies stand out in a century of American genocide against the American Indian population.
As Frederick Douglass would write much later:
To Grant more than any other man the Negro owes his enfranchisement and the Indians a humane policy. In the matter of the protection of the freedman from violence his moral courage surpassed that of his party.
Klan Violence and Court Betrayal of Grant's Crusade: Unfortunately, his successors abandoned those commitments, but it is striking that Grant is so little honored for what can only be considered one of the most courageous policies of racial enlightenment of any President in American history up until Lyndon Johnson (who saved his Presidential mass murder for a different continent.)
So what went wrong and why isn't Grant more honored?
Basically, both his policies and reputation were murdered by Klan violence supported by the United States Supreme Court. For more read, the piece I wrote above, but the short story is that in 1873 there was a new surge of racist violence and this time the courts blocked the Grant administration from enforcing the new civil rights laws.
Racist violence ran wild as the courts blocked prosecution of the ringleaders. The key legal case was based on an incident in Colfax, Louisiana where more than a hundred people defending black voting rights were murdered by a white mob, yet the prosecution against the leaders was thrown out by lower courts, and the Supreme Court in 1875's Cruikshank v. US would affirm that decision, saying that the federal government lacked any power to prosecute private individuals for racial crimes against other individuals. According to that Court, the 14th Amendment “adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as against another.” (BTW that is still, slightly modified good law, as one hundred twenty-five years later, the Rehnquist Court quoted that very sentence in declaring parts of the Violence Against Women Act unconstitution in a case called United States v. Morrison).
With civil rights enforcement shut down, Reconstruction governments were driven from office throughout the South. Violence destroyed the Republican Party in Mississippi. Taking advantage of the void, Democrats recaptured the legislature and impeached the Republican governor and lieutenant governor, driving them from office by force of arms. Similar violence would “redeem” every state in the region, to use the term adopted by white supremacists. In 1876, Confederate General Matthew Butler led a white mob to murder an opposing black militia defending the South Carolina government – and was then elected to the United States Senate by the new, “redeemed” legislature. The effects on the federal government were almost as dramatic, as pro-civil-rights Republican representatives and senators were replaced by anti-civil-rights Democrats-- enough that they could then filibuster any restoration of civil rights legislation for the next hundred years.
The economic depression starting in 1873 no doubt contributed to this resurgence of Democratic power as well, as economic downturns invariably strengthen the opposition, but without the Supreme Court, the Democrats never had the votes to shut down civil rights prosecutions. The sad reality is that if Grant had been able to continue his anti-Klan policies into his second term, there is little question that the elections of 1876 would have been a decisive victory for the Republicans and we would not have seen the end of Reconstruction. And American history would have been completely different.
The Rewriting of History: But with the end of Reconstruction, we have seen history written to bury most memories of the period and assassinate the reputations of those who led it-- including Grant. There were real accusations of corruption among Grant's cabinet, although no one believes Grant himself was corrupt, but those charges of corruption appear relatively minor in light of far worse corruption in many administrations to come. But saying Grant was "corrupt" became an easy offhand way to dismiss his Presidency and Reconstruction at the same time. Even today, there are NO great films honoring reconstruction, just racist anti-Reconstruction films like Gone With the Wind and even modern documentaries like Ken Burns' Civil War only mentions accusations of corruption In Grant's administration -- without a single mention of his vigorous fight against Klan Violence.
Even liberal legal scholars seem to have unconciously buried Reconstruction, since while even many laymen can mention the Plessy v. Ferguson case decided decades laters upholding legal segregation in the South, even most lawyers haven't heard of the Cruikshank decision which licensed the Klan to commit mass murder for the next century. Partly, it's because some modern liberals have an attachment to court power and don't want to remember the shame that those same courts spent the 19th and early 20th century abetting first slavery, then Klan violence, then corporate power.
The other legacy of the collapse of Reconstruction was the Republican Party itself forgetting its own legacy of racial justice in favor of an expanded alliance with the emerging Robber Barons. Since the Radical wing of the Republicans lost their electoral base as black southerners lost their vote, the pro-corporate wing took over. This corporate wing of the party was embodied by Rutherford Hayes, elected in the divided election of 1876, who agreed to pull all federal troops from the South as part of the pact that settled that election.
But within three months of the end of Reconstruction, Hayes deployed federal troops to break the Great Strike of 1877. The federal government, having dismantled military operations in the South, built armories in the North to ensure that troops would be available for future labor conflicts. Former President Grant acidly remarked that this anti-labor wing of the Republicans were the same people who had resisted using federal troops “to protect the lives of negroes. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens.”
So as corporate American sought new alliances with Southern Bourbons, the legacy of Ulysses Grant and Radical Republicans became an inconvenience, so a new consensus emerged that it had all been a mistake overseen by a corrupt and incompetent man best forgotten by history.
Why Remember Grant? But here's why it's important to remember and honor Grant. While Grant didn't succeed in creating the racially just nation that he sought, his legacy was a memory of a short time when blacks did have equal rights and elected their own representatives to state and federal government -- a memory that would fuel a new civil rights movement in coming years.
And it's worth remembering that it was the democratic will of the country to have that equality, that it was only anti-democratic racist violence and a rightwing court system that frustrated that American ideal. Too many liberals buy into a myth that Jim Crow was democratically supported in this nation which just feeds its historic legitimacy.
What we should honor and remember by honoring Ulysses Grant is that his vision of racial justice was the will of the American people-- all its people -- and that the following hundred years of segregation was an illegitimate betrayal of that democratic will. In that, Grant was the true founder and implementor of the modern American nation of equal rights and if the flowering of that nation was delayed for a century with his departure from office, that's all the more reason to remember his original vision and courage-- and defy those who try to bury that memory.
Update: Another broad scholarly assessment of Grant's accomplishments, largely debunking the corruption charges against him, and noting other achievements. And it analyzes the historical libel against Grant as part of a multi-generational attempt at Confederate apologia:
Most important, however, and considerably more sinister, was a deliberate, and for a long time highly successful, campaign to undermine Grant's reputation in an effort to glorify the South's "Lost Cause;" also, to minimize the role of slavery in American history in general, and in the events leading to the Civil War in particular... "William A. Dunning effectively formulated the traditional verdict on Grant and Reconstruction in the early 1900s." (55) Dunning, while a professor at Columbia University; trained a generation of historians, many of them Southerners, in the tradition of the Southern vindicators. That tradition triumphed when he assumed the presidency of the American Historical Association in 1913, and it remained triumphant for decades.
A good additional read.
Well it's about time. I bought a first edition of the Personal Memoirs of U. S Grant at a rural bookstore ~1980 for $25, the Mark Twain blowout edition in two volumes possessed by just about every surviving Union veteran. What a read -- it concludes at the end of the war. Grant wrote like Caesar but acted like Cincinnatus, except of course he did continue to serve when called, thank God, and shame on our countrymen for rolling back his advances when he left the stage, it would have saved one hundred years of shame, darkness, and tragedy.
I believe the General's star is in the ascendent and recommend the Jean Smith bio for the whole story.
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July 4, 2006 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a smart blog. I mean it. You have so much knowledge about this issue, and so much passion. You also know how to make people rally behind it, obviously from the responses. Youve got a design here thats not too flashy, but makes a statement as big as what youre saying. Great job,children health indeed.
January 13, 2011 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
No question that Grant was the most popular president between Lincoln and FDR, but McKinley also got two majority votes, though neither was large and the first was slim indeed: 50.2% and 51.6%, compared to Grant's 52.7% and 55.6%.
July 4, 2006 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
U.S. Grant's progressive policies ran head on into the brick wall called "Manifest Destiny". Manifest Destiny, the forerunner of "American Exceptionalism", was the rationale for the American Indian genocide, allowed the rise of the Gilded Age Robber Barons, and enabled the rise of the KKK...all under the guise of "spreading American values and democracy".
A Protestant Anglo-Saxon America was divinely inspired and therefore our expansion by any means was "God's Will". The American Indians stood in the way of our westward expansion and the became victims of a genocide. But in public's opinion the genocide was righteous because of Manifest Destiny. The KKK was Manifest Destiny's army. The 3 K's stood for "Koons, Kikes and Katlicks"...blacks, Jews and Catholics were not part of Manifest Destiny and therefore their enfranchisement would threaten America's greatness. The Robber Barons benefitted from and were vigorous supporters of Manifest Destiny. All 3 arms of the federal government promoted Manifest Destiny, including the judiciary which handed down rulings like Plessy, Cruikshank and Dred Scott.
Since the end of Grant's 2nd term strides have been made with Women's Suffrage in the beginning of the 20th century and civil rights legislation in the 2nd half of that same century. FDR, Bobby and John Kennedy, and LBJ made strides to build on Grant's progressive vision. But we still see black Americans being disenfranchised, the exploitation of illegal Mexican immigrants and American workers in general by the next century's Robber Barons. And a federal government which cites "American Exceptionalism" and our "Christian God" as it wages wars of aggression in the world to spread our values, even using torture as a tool. Grant knew that was the wrong way to do it but we still are on the same path close to 150 years later...the values of racial bigotry and religious intolerence, the progeny of Manifest Destiny, are still alive and well in America as American Exceptionalism. The more things change the more they stay the same. And Grant is still being mischaracterized by most historians as a corrupt, drunken, ineffective president not worthy of note.
July 4, 2006 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Grant is largely overlooked for two primary reasons. The first is that his administration was ripe with corruption throughout the eight years of his presidency. Many bloggers at this site have compared the administration of George W. Bush to that of Grant's.
The second reason is that he begins the the string of "Military" presidents of the mid to late 19th century that were relatively boring and inconsequential. Though Grant's military reputation is far more illustrious than those of Garfield, etc. he is not seen as a true politician.
Reconstruction has been defamed largely because of the fact that racial intolerance became worse in the latter stages than it was prior to emancipation. To the modern eye it appears as if the entire premise was a failure (which it was not). The likes of Booker T. Washingon, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey et al. then come into focus as the the men who fought the alleged horrors of Reconstruction.
July 4, 2006 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nathan, thank you very much for the history lesson. I learned a great deal from that post. My college education was in engineering, even though I also received a Bachelor of Arts degree, and I was not taught any of that history. In fact, what I was taught was that Reconstruction was an evil inflicted on the South, but thankfully cut short by an enlightened government. I was also taught that US Grant was the worst president we had had at that time. So, right now I am in a bit of a daze!
Hoppy in Sacramento
July 4, 2006 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Was Grant's administration more ripe with corruption than other Presidencies-- or is that a manufactured defamation? No question there were scandals but the corporate influence on Presidencies in the later Gilded Age and today is far more prevalent.
The harping on Grant's corruption as part of a century-long attempt to also libel Reconstruction is exactly what I am highlighting. There has been corruption in the US since the massive corruption in selling off the Yazoo lands of Mississippi in the early Republic to the party of Haliburton today. What evidence is there that Grant's administration was particularly noteworthy in that regard, other than folks endlessly repeating the charge?
July 4, 2006 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
A great article on an overlooked man. But the Constitution and its authors were not making a mockery of their words, and it's awfully short-sighted to say that it deserved scorn or fire for the necessary compromises it contained. Forcing the slavery issue into a divisive conflict in 1776 may very well have cost them the long goal.
Garrison’s frustration was understandable, but his point was overstated at best. I certainly don’t think it was (as you say) “worthy”.
July 4, 2006 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is most interesting.
Though I was a History major and now enjoy reading books about Abraham Lincoln as a hobby, I must admit that you present an interesting take that I've never heard before. It IS odd that we've all heard so much about Grant's corruption and so little about what he believed (oh that's right, he was just a butcher and an alcoholic so he didn't believe anything) and what actual policies his government pursued.
You've opened a new door for me to walk through in my historic explorations.
July 4, 2006 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Given that Britain abolished slavery long before 1865, was the goal of independence worth a "compromise" that de factor prolonged the slavery of millions of Americans for more years? Was autonomy for the colonies a higher ideal than abolishing slavery earlier?
Garrison was rightly scornful of a Constitution that claimed to stand for freedom but enshrined disenfranchisement and slavery that was illegal in the supposed tyrannical British mother country.
July 4, 2006 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, three cheers for the man who began reconstruction. Three cheers for the man who shoved the Civil War amendments through the Southern state houses in VERY UNDEMOCRATIC ways. Grant is no hero to America. He, along with Lincoln, pissed the Constitution away. Yeah, we got the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, but it cost us the 10th and habeas corpus.
July 4, 2006 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, it would have been so much better if Grant had not forced the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments through, so that the South could continue to have Jim Crow and to deny blacks the right to vote. Horrible thing happened to them!
Look, the South lost the war. And entirely properly-- they were enslaving people and their leaders committed treason against the United States. What is unfortunate is not that the South was forced to accept constitutional amendments that eventually were interpreted to require racial equality, but that the South was not forced to dismantle Jim Crow and to recompense the blacks that were brutalized and raped and whipped and murdered and exploited by one of the most horrible systems of government in human history.
July 4, 2006 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
UNDEMOCRATIC??
So I suppose all the laws they passed AFTER Reconstruction which prevented black folk from voting for almost a century WERE democratic? (Well they had a majority of white votes, so they must have been democratic).
Give it up, Confederate-boy.
July 4, 2006 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
After the first day at Shiloh:
--Grant Moves South, 1861-1863, Chapter 11, by Bruce Catton
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July 4, 2006 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cato, my ass. So you think the 13th Amendment was bad (abolishing slavery), the 14th (prohibiting states from denying citizens rights under the US Constitution), the 15th (guaranteeing the right to vote to former slaves). Goddamn right they were forced down your throat, after you broke up the Union to preserve slavery after losing one fucking election, people having put up with this nullifying crap for generations.
Mississippi (just as an example, the pattern was similar throughout the former Confederacy) succumbed to an armed revolt of former Confederate soldiers almost as soon as Federal troops left. I mean these fuckers marched in military formation on the state house and took it over by armed force. Then they proceeded to build a one party police state lasting for ninety years. And they were ready to do it again when the Feds integrated Ole Miss in 1963, Governor Ross Barnett inciting violence there that came within an inch of getting scores of people, including Federal officials, massacred before Federal troops arrived.
So learn what democracy is and what the history of this country is before spouting more of this crap.
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July 4, 2006 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the United States of America won the war. As a result, the United States of America deserved to have its wishes met.
Shameful that the conservatives of the time made a conscious effort to undo the United States of America and the rule of law.
But then, nothing really changes with conservatives.
July 4, 2006 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am glad that you brought up the point about the losing one election. There's a whole mythology of secession in the South that talks about how it was supposedly legal and constitutional (which is doubtful) and how the South was ticked off over tariffs and all sorts of other differences with the north.
Nonsense. What happened is that the South lost an election, couldn't abide with waiting four years and trying again, and threw a hissy fit and decided to commit treason instead. Then, when the Union understandably took the position that the secession didn't effect a transfer of title to Union property, such as forts on Confederate soil, to the Confederacy, and resupplied Fort Sumter, the South attacked and started the Civil War.
And this they call the "War of Northern Aggression".
July 4, 2006 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, the Southern grandees had cultivated an aristocratic system with democratic trappings, but real rights for the few at the top only. Propped up by a violence-laced 'honor' system common to slave societies. They practiced on each other and found their system excellent in every way, including so many whites whom the system ground into the dust. Horace Mann and public education? Forget about it, who needs that, and it remained for the Reconstruction governments to institute it a generation after the rest of the country had.
For the most part, the North didn't give a rap. Not until secession anyway, big mistake, because we had guns too, unlike their slaves.
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July 4, 2006 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting post on Grant. I suspect that part of the reason he has been overlooked is because the so-called radical phase of Reconstruction in which so many of the reforms occurred (14th and 15th Amendments ratified, federal troops into the former Confederacy, Republican dominationof former-confederate states, black civil rights, disfranchisement of prominent rebels, organizing former slaves and other African-Americans as voters and offfice holders, etc.) was largely a congressional initiative. Lincoln and Johnson tried to make it a presidential program, but radical Republicans clipped Johnson and steered the Reconstruction Act through in 1867, despite Johnson's opposition to the relatively punitive approach that congressional Reconstruction took.
Kudos to Grant for backing it and adding his moral and political authority to the effort, but the genesis of it did not come from Grant, inaugurated first in 1869, but rather from a Republican-dominated congress. Certainly credit Grant with being on the right side of history, but credit congress, not Grant, with setting the Reconstruction agenda before Grant was ever even a candidate for the presidency.
Perhaps a lesson for us is that a nation in crisis, with serious problems that go to the core of its nationhood, needs a much better president AND congress than what we presently have.
Pantheon
July 4, 2006 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: If Grant is not more respected, it is because the fight for racial justice and Reconstruction that he oversaw has been so rawly defamed over our history to the point of almost being forgotten
Well, you may wish to consider that Grant is "neglected" because his administration was rife with corruption and scandal and that it was obsequious to the point of groveling to the Big Money interests of the day, embracing a laissez faire ethic that very nearly sank the economy and left most Americans, whether Black of white, much worse off than they might have been. Grant was probably personally innocent of any malfeasance, but he did allow the robber barons to plunder the public domain and social Darwinism to flourish. In this the GOP of his day is not much different from the GOP of Bush and Delay. Save the laurels for Lincoln. Grant is not a progressive hero.
July 4, 2006 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Yeah, it would have been so much better if Grant had not forced the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments through
I may be wrong about this, but wasn't the 14th proposed and ratified in 1867-68 before Grant was president
July 4, 2006 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Yeah, it would have been so much better if Grant had not forced the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments through
I may be wrong about this, but wasn't the 14th proposed and ratified in 1867-68 before Grant was president
July 4, 2006 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Was autonomy for the colonies a higher ideal than abolishing slavery earlier?
Abolishing slavery was not on the table anywhere in the 1700s (except, rather ironically, the Ottoman Empire). So I think we're expecting too much of the Founders in that regard. Even the Jacobins didn't get rid of slavery in the French Empire. But we should remember that the Founders expected, with typical Enlightenment optimism, that advances in both technology and culture would result in slavery fading away naturally. And they weren't entirely wrong: slavery did fall by the wayside throughout most of the country within a generation of the Founding. What they didn't perceive (again, because of Enlightenment optimism) was that slavery would root itself into racist fears in areas where Blacks lived in large numbers and would thrive there long after the peculiar institution ceased to make any sort of economic sense.
July 4, 2006 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our greatest presidents were Washington, Lincoln and F. Roosevelt. JMO.
July 4, 2006 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two more comments about Grant:
- A major black mark against him for supporting genocidal policies against the Native Americans, or at least failing to check Custer, Chivington (sp?) and other such western generals who bragged openly that they intended to solve the Indian "problem" by extermination.
- A semi-major credit to his reputation for the quiet diplomacy by which Union anger against Britain (for its pro-CSA meddling in the Civil war) was laid to rest. It was quite possible that a more belligerent and jingoistic president might have stoked those fires and sought to seize Canada. Instead Grant settled Union claims against the UK with little fanfare and bravura.
July 4, 2006 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are correct that the first phase of Reconstruction was pushed through by Congress over Johnson's opposition, but the next phase clearly had Grant's Presidential power behind it. Not only did he support the legislation, it was his responsibility to administratively create the new Justice Department and prosecute the Klansmen. Remember, the troops and prosecutors busting up the Klan down South were not being managed by Congress but by Grant.
July 4, 2006 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ironically, the main scandal associated with Grant, the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal, was rooted in Lincoln's administration and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. And the Congressional bribery that was the heart of the scandal happened in 1867, two years before Grant took office.
Which highlights the point that corruption of government both preceded Grant and was endemic after his administration -- and he was personally considered spotless in his own ethics -- yet historical libel continues to claim some unique ethical lapse for Grant's administration.
To repeat, everyone who keeps mouthing the "Grant was corrupt" meme are just reflecting the success of the racist rightwing propaganda machine of the last century.
July 4, 2006 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for a great post, Nathan. I've always wondered how the classic brilliance of the Memoirs could have been achieved by the feckless President who has come down to us through history. Needless to say, the forces that trashed the legacy of Reconstruction and postponed racial justice in this country for a hundred years are alive and kicking. The battle never ends.
Ovid
July 4, 2006 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but even though Grant did these things, they still don't make him the "true founder and implementor of the modern American nation of equal rights." I agree that Grant deserves much more credit than he typically receives. But the "true founder" strikes me as a bit over-enthusiastic, especially considering what congress had already done to implement a system of racial justice in the wake of the Civl War.
Pantheon
July 4, 2006 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course Grant, and Sherman, fought the Civil War in a way that if done in Iraq would probably appall most TPMCafe posters.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
July 4, 2006 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Slightly off point but related to Grant's reputation. Why do you think so much of popular "history" from "Gone With the Wind" to many movies fundamentally takes the South's side of the War? Even the veneration of Lee, a traitor, is a bit strange. We don't venerate Benedict Arnold.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
July 4, 2006 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course credit is shared, but look at Frederick Douglas's quote for contemporary confirmation of the opinion that Grant was more steadfast -- and of course in the most powerful position -- to pursue rights on behalf of the Freedmen.
And affirming Grant is in many ways affirming the collective efforts of the Radical Republicans who nominated him and supported him through his two terms of office.
July 4, 2006 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Civil War is conventionally viewed as an attack on the US from within, an insurrection. The argument was preserving the union (existential) and was therefore total war.
Of course, if you want to consider the North telling the South go be auto-carnal I wonder, these days, if that would not have been better.
July 4, 2006 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pure trivia from the dog psychiatric unit (four dogs who have never heard extensive fireworks, and responded variously by wanting to be cuddled and eating the house).
I suppose Grant's favorite snack of cucumbers in vinegar trumps Nixon's cottage cheese and ketchup.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 4, 2006 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Cucumbers in vinegar" are pickles! You're just getting the 19th-century term for them. Lots of people like pickles as a "snack." Which brings to mind a later president of whom it was said: "he looks like he was weaned on a pickle."
July 4, 2006 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Nathan. I added the PDF of "A New Birth Of Freedom" to my Palm device for vacation reading
US Grant will take a place along with Benjamin Franklin (who was against the slavery stance in The Constitution), and others, in the Dead White Guys that I admire category.
July 4, 2006 9:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aha! I make pickles most years. No vinegar involved, although I agree it tastes like there is. The basic process of making cucumber pickles is soaking them in salt brine with spices, and their fermentation produces an acid that tastes like vinegar. Some relishes do add vinegar at a later stage, usually with sugar.
Korean rocket propellants being in the news, I also make kimchee, and that is also brined, not vinegared.
Now, there is a magnificent Thai salad that probably isn't what Grant ate. Mix sugar into white wine or rice vinegar, a substantial amount, and then marinate diced cucumber, red onion or shallot, and Thai peppers to taste.
My taste is different than most. When I lost a wallet a few years ago, I didn't miss the money or cards nearly as much as the little notes I had had friends write in Thai and Hindi: "This is a crazy American. He knows our food. Give it to him as hot as you would give to one of our people who asked for it very hot back home."
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 4, 2006 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Easy there big fella. I don't like slavery. I don't want a return to slavery. All I want is a government that follows its Constitution. Placing Republicans in office in the South so that the amendments would pass, isn't fitting with our constitutional principles. Sure, you can say, "but he saved the Union." That he did, but I assume that you would also say the same thing about the PATRIOT Act, the NSA wiretaps or this other mess that Bush is doing, right?
July 4, 2006 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Many of those white votes came from carpetbaggers sent to the South, by the North to impose Northern views on the South.
Imagine what would happen if someone from Georgia went up to Taxachusetts or over to California to impose his values. I'm sure you would see that as a good thing, right?
And could someone please show me were in the Constitution it gives the federal government the power to impose values over the states?
I assume most people here are against the Christian Right imposing its views across the nation through the federal government. How about being consistent in the view when it comes to liberal views?
July 4, 2006 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't make the North out to be a bunch of Saints. They had their fair share of racists and criminals. Also, don't make the mistake of believing that every Southernor had their own black child to whip. Nothing could be further from the truth. Only around 6% of whites in the South owned slaves.
July 4, 2006 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think a lot of movies and books are from the South's point of view because there is a romantic side to the South.
I have found it awfully difficult to find history books or textbooks that take the side of the South. Almost all denigrade the South as a region containing a 100% racist population and they claim that the war was over slavery.
July 4, 2006 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh . . . and . . . I never said the Amendments weren't democratic. I said they were shoved through the South in undemocratic ways. One is a means and one is an ends.
July 4, 2006 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
JPF311 wrote:
Actually, the Jacobins abolished slavery on February 4th, 1794. (Although most Haitians thought that Napoleon wanted to reimpose slavery when he sent an expeditionary force in 1802, and they were probably correct.)
July 5, 2006 4:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, one could argue that as a defeated insurrection, the former Confederates had lost some of their democratic rights.
Also, they were in no position to argue from the point of view of democracy. By their prewar and postwar actions they had shown themselves to be incorrigible abusers of their democratic rights.
Not only was there the obviously undemocratic character of both prewar slavery and postwar Jim Crow, but consider for a moment that much of the "Free Soil" northern movement before the war was animated not by any great sympathy for the black slaves by the majority of northern whites who weren't committed abolitionists, but by the southern slavocracy's attempt to restrict the First Amendment to make advocacy of abolition a crime. The slavocracy WAS, as Lincoln portrayed it, an affront to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and was tending toward the creation of a hereditary landed aristocracy with undemocratic consequences for even those were not slaves.
Read about the many schemes floating about the South for conquests in Central America as places where slavery might flourish. One of these actually got traction and a Southerner named Walker managed to take over Nicaragua for a few years and install slavery there before he got thrown out on his ass. And did you know that Mexico had abolished slavery in the 1820's - which was one motivation for the Texans' secession from Mexico?
It's hard to take your arguments seriously in light of all this kind of evidence.
July 5, 2006 4:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Placing Republicans in office in the South so that the amendments would pass, isn't fitting with our constitutional principles. "
The victors were in a very difficult situation. The old order in the rebel states could not be allowed to maintain. There were two paths they could go:
-Play fast and loose with the electoral process and get loyal governments in the south.
-Try and execute every governer, legislator and officer who served in the Confederacy for treason.
The latter approach had the appeal of not violating the letter of the Constitution, but I'm glad it was not pursued.
Njorl
July 5, 2006 7:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
As someone whose roots are partly Southern, I sympathize with Cato's point about Northern demonization of the South, which we have seen demonstrated in some of these posts. I am not all Southern, however. I also have roots in Canada. The Canadian side of my personality sees much to admire in what we have just learned about Grant. What strikes me is the extent to which the Civil War was a re-fighting of the English Civil War, with descendants of the Puritans fighting a grudge match against descendants of the Cavaliers. Stated so baldly, this is an oversimplification, of course. But Kevin Phillips develops the idea more fully in his book, the Cousins' War. So we are still villifying each other today, without any more insight into the basic tragedy of race relations in all parts of the United States - with the exception of a few true idealists, such as the Quakers, whom I most admire
On another point: I wrote a paper in college about the Constitutional right of secession. I don't remember the reference, but the Constitution really did permit secession. The teacher of the course was a former candidate for President on the Socialist ticket under Norman Thomas, and I don't think he would have given me an A on the paper if it had been completely wacky.
So, anyway, I don't think the secessionists were traitors. They might have been damned fools, etc., but not traitors. Part of the problem was that the cotton bubble, known as King Cotton, went to the heads of the planters and gave them the delusion that they were invincible. But the cotton bubble, ironically, was made possible by the invention of the cotton gin. So King Cotton was a deranged offshoot of industrialization, carried out in a largely undiversified agricultural economy. Slavery cannot, in fact, be separated from unregulated industrial capitalism in general. It is just another side of the same coin. The participation of Northern insurance companies in slavery has in recent years been discussed with respect to the issue of reparations, but it does not get enough attention today.
I don't want to imitate the Neo-Confederates, and just bounce back an opposite opinion to everything that has been said by the other side - but remember whose flag the slave ships were flying. That is where the holocaust against the blacks took place.
July 5, 2006 7:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Would you please cite where in the Constitution allows seccession?
The secueessions were clearly traitors especially Confederate officers who had sworn oaths to the U.S. Constitution How is firing an American fort not treasonous?
Daniel A. Greenbaum
July 5, 2006 7:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was afraid someone would ask me that question. This is not a good time for me to look that up, but in any case, the rebels of 1776 were clearly traitors, and nobody worries about that anymore.
July 5, 2006 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are no great films honoring Reconstruction because it was not a particularly 'great' time in America's history. The depiction in GWTW- chaos, strife, poverty for blacks and whites alike- was pretty close to the truth, regardless of what you think of the portrayal of the black characters in the movie.
Yes, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments held great promise. But the implementation of them NATIONWIDE was severely lacking. The North was (and is) NOT an idyllic paradise of racial harmony. Many Northerners/Mid-Westerners, even those opposed to slavery, were hardly pro-civil rights. (See, i.e., the 2nd Klan revival of the 20th Century.) This was particulalry true of most of the Northerners put in charge of Reconstruction, INCLUDING Grant. They were more interested in punishing the South then rehabilatating the union. It took the South some 100 years to catch up to the North economically and culturally after the War. Bad for whites- but worse for blacks.
I'd agree we need to remember Grant, and Reconstruction. And even honor him to the extent he did, in fact, have a vision of democracy. But even if he had that vision (a claim liable to dispute), the fact is that he failed in putting it into action.
July 5, 2006 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is there a good bio movie of Grant? If not, it seems like excellent material for such. HBO Movies would be a great studio to produce one.
July 5, 2006 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
It does sound like pickles, doesn't it? Living quite near Grant's Ohio birthplace, I think that might be a dish we still serve to this day - thinly sliced cukes in vinegar in which sugar has been generously added. Some people eat them on buttered bread and it is a very popular side dish with roast pork.
What can I say? It's southern Ohio - have you ever had our chili? It's an acquired taste...
July 5, 2006 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Robert E. Lee took the trouble to resign his commission in the United States Army.
Firing on Fort Sumter was not treason if you accept that the Confederacy was a separate nation. That was the point that was under dispute, and that is what leads to different names for the conflict.
A Neo-Confederate would point out that, although Jefferson Davis was accused of treason, he was never tried for the crime. I am not sure if that necessarily proves what they think it does, because it is possible that the political winds had changed before Davis could be tried. Does anyone know the complete history on that subject?
But this is just rehashing old arguments. The trouble with the Neo-Confederate books is that they cherry-pick their facts, with no pretense of even-handedness. They are only meaningful in a side-by-side comparison with literature that takes the opposite point of view.
I have never found a commerical magazine devoted to the Civil War that does not have a subtle aura of bias, in one direction or the other. It is disappointing that this would be true, so many years after the events.
Speaking as a Southerner, I do not sentimentalize slavery. Speaking as a Canadian, I do not sentimentalize race relations in the North.
July 5, 2006 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
And maybe if Iraq had bombarded and taken a US military installation, they would've deserved some aggression.
July 5, 2006 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Don't make the North out to be a bunch of Saints. They had their fair share of racists and criminals."
I never annointed the North for Sainthood. I simply said that the right side won the Civil War.
"Also, don't make the mistake of believing that every Southernor had their own black child to whip. Nothing could be further from the truth. Only around 6% of whites in the South owned slaves."
This is an oft-repeated talking point by apologists for the Confederacy, but I don't really see what it proves. First, it wouldn't matter if one person owned all the slaves-- the INSTITUTION of slavery was wrong, and the tangible effect on blacks was enormous.
Second, slavery was POPULAR with whites in the South. Every politician supported it; the vast majority of Southern Congressmen voted for gag rules and fugitive slave acts and other devices to ensure that the institution remained. And secession in response to Lincoln's election was popular as well.
Third, and this gets us back to the posting which was about reconstruction: disenfranchising and discriminating against blacks, and generally making their lives miserable including through extreme acts of violence such as lynching, was EXTREMELY popular among whites in the South and remained popular for an ENTIRE CENTURY after the end of Civil War. Indeed, Southern politicians worked very hard, and largely successfully, to undermine all efforts to improve the lot of freed blacks in the South. The racism that existed in the North-- which was very bad in its all right-- is simply not comparable to this. Remember, it was SOUTHERN trees that bore a "strange fruit".
July 5, 2006 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like the anecdote from the 1864 Wilderness battle. Lee had broken through the Union lines and Grants HQ knoll came under artillery fire. As Grant sat there under fire calmly whittling, a staff officer suggested moving the HQ out of range. Grant replied that wheeling up some guns and holding the position was a better idea.
July 5, 2006 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I might add that some of the issues seem to become more clear if one is not afraid to ask the Marxist questions about historical causality.
Unlike a true Marxist, I do not deny the existence of pure, disinterested idealism. In the ante-bellum period, the Quakers get very high marks.
But it is interesting how much the ante-bellum issues have been revived today in the question of illegal immigration. As I understand it, on the right there are those who are opposed to illegal immigration because they are racially prejudiced, but there are others who are in favor of illegal immigration because they welcome the opportunity to exploit the immigrants economically. On the left, there are those who are in favor of the immigrants because they believe in open immigration, but there are also those who are opposed to illegal immigration on the grounds that the immigrants take jobs away from workers who are already here. Similar issues were raised in connection with slavery. It was possible to be opposed to slavery from a pro-labor point of view but to still be against black people on grounds of racial prejudice. These issues did not divide the nation on a clear North-South boundary.
It is only in retrospect that it is possible to frame the issues in terms of a clear-cut, absolute dichotomy.
If such a dichotomy can be drawn, why was Dr. King's march for open housing in Chicago unsuccessful?
Nevertheless, I want to make it clear that I do not intend to be drawn into adopting the Neo-Confederate line. I am grateful to Nathan's article about Grant for explaining why the nation dropped the ball on racial integration.
July 5, 2006 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post, with many interesting comments. It's sad how little of our history is discussed these days. The question of race is a fundamental one in American society, rarely given the attention it deserves. If Grant & Reconstruction had prevailed, we certainly would not have GW Bush as pres today, since without a 60's civil rights era, there would've been no reactionary backlash against it.
For the interested, there is a great book on Reconstruction called, "The Era of Reconstruction" by Kenneth Stampff which debunks many of the Reconstruction myths.
IIRC my reading of Stampff, the main reason reconstruction was abandoned was because the destroyed infrastructure in the south couldn't be safely rebuilt in the face of so much domestic terrorism. Because the banks wanted to invest in the rebuilding of the south, the racists were allowed back into power and an equitable society was abandoned.
"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/039470388X/sr=8-3/qid=1152127626/ref=sr_1_3/104-4095451-0000758?ie=UTF8"
July 5, 2006 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I forgot about how Sherman used AC-130 gunships and F-16s against Atlanta's civilian population.
July 5, 2006 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I know little about Grant's Administration and appreciate your revisions to the conventional story, I would like to hear your thoughts on Grant's (lack of?) public reaction to the "Mississippi Plan" and the "redeeming" anti-Radical violence perpetrated against blacks in the South in 1875 and 1876.
What did Grant do about the Knights of the White Camelia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces, the '76 Association, the South Carolina Rifle Clubs, Wade Hampton's Red Shirts, etc.?
July 5, 2006 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
You certainly forgot something. Grant and Sherman were butchers. A total of 625,000 soldiers died on both sides. Sherman was ordered to go after the rebel soldiers but he decided to make Southern civilians pay the price. Thus the "march to the sea." It which homes were burned and civilians killed as deliberate policy.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
July 5, 2006 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Homes burned, sure, but what was the official policy for killing civilians?
I've never heard of Union policy deliberately targetting civilans. Got a source for that?
And as for those casualties, most of which were from disease, the general with the highest casualty rate was Lee.
July 5, 2006 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently the Jacobins forgot to tell anyone because France did not actually abolish slavery in its empire until 1848. Even in France proper there were some few slaves held in the Napoleonic period. Mme. de stael (Napoleon's archnemesis domestically) mae a big to-do over buying Blacks out of slavery, baptizing them and setting them free.
July 5, 2006 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The secueessions were clearly traitors especially Confederate officers who had sworn oaths to the U.S. Constitution
All resigned their commissions and were no longer in the military when they changed sides.
July 5, 2006 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Homes burned, sure, but what was the official policy for killing civilians?
People were deprived of their homes and provisions. The entire population of Atlanta was forced out of town at gunpoint, with no where to go but the woods. The people of Columbia SC were abandonned in a charred town in midwinter with nothing but the clothes on their backs. How many people do you think perished of sickness and hunger-- the same factors which are responsible for most civilian deaths in Iraq (and in every war)?
July 5, 2006 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nowhere in the Constitution does it specifically say "states you can secede." The Constitution doesn't give anyone rights. It restricts the government from infringing on them. And if you read the 10th Amendment it clearly says that "The powers not delgated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or the People." Now, there is NOTHING in the Constitution that prevent secession, therefore, it is up to the people or the States to declare it if they wish.
July 5, 2006 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
What can I say? It's southern Ohio - have you ever had our chili? It's an acquired taste...
I'll take a Gold Star 3-way please
July 5, 2006 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only one Confederate officer was executed after the war, and not for treason. Henry Wirz, commander of the horrific Andersonville prison (in some ways as ghastly as any Nazi concentration camp) was found guilty of war crimes and hanged.
Meanwhile political sentiment in favor of prosecuting Davis or anyone else for treason rapidly ebbed. Most of the country just wanted to get back to normal life.
July 5, 2006 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Jefferson Davis was never tried, because he was it was thought that SCOTUS would rule secession constitutional.
Remember, Lincoln's friend, the man he appointed to SCOTUS, Justice Salmon P. Chase said that "states' rights died at Appomattox." Perhaps he also told Lincoln how he would vote on secession if it was ever to appear before the court (I don't know?).
July 5, 2006 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have not seen one. He is an amazing story however. Here is a guy who resigned his Army commission because he couldn't stand being separated from his wife. He then failed at every aspect of civilian life and business. When the Civil War started he was working as a woodcutter. Eight years later he was President.
July 5, 2006 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about someone from Austria being propped up as a savior after corporate interests wreaked economic havoc in California and engineered a recall of the governor or a mormon from Michigan trying to impose his values on Massachusetts by using an old segregation law to outlaw gay marriage?
When a radical government comes to power and tries to impose it's will on us we fight those laws in court, in the legislature and at the polls. We don't do it with terrorism and treason though you'd never know it by the rhetoric you get from the right.
July 5, 2006 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, but many in the South believed that they had a Constitutional right to secede. You may disagree with that, but to those in the South, they were following the Constitution and the North was violating it by threatening war.
Again, you may disagree with their interpretation of the Constitution, but they believed what they were doing was in the realm of law.
July 5, 2006 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just goes to show how sick they were with war fever. Thinking secession was legal was as smart as thinking they could prevail when the South's industrial base was smaller than New York's alone.
July 5, 2006 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I said in a previous post, even some members of SCOTUS thought secession was legal. It wasn't as crazy as you make it sound. Had the South won, we would probably all be sitting her talking about how stupid the North was for not seeing the obvious Constitutional right to secede.
July 5, 2006 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both France and England gave serious consideration to recognizing the Confederate States of America. It was one of the reasons for the Emancipation Proclamation.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
July 5, 2006 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, in the 1860s. In the 1770s France and England were both slave powers too, although their slaves were out of public sight.
July 5, 2006 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't the Vatican recognize the CSA? I believe they were the only nation-state to do so.
July 5, 2006 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: I don't remember the reference, but the Constitution really did permit secession.
Yes, but the mechanism by which it could be effected (even today) would be by the calling of a new constitutional convention, thereby abrogating the old Constitution. Any state which refused to sign onto the results of that new convention would therefore be free to go its own way as a sovereign nation. This is not what the South did in 1861.
July 5, 2006 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
The 5-way at the Cinncinnati airport probably isn't a great example. I do sometimes improvise dishes of beans, meat and pasta, and, from my reading of your regional styles, have tried some sweet spices such as cinnamon as well as hot pepper.
In temporary quarters in St. Louis now, I look forward to getting my own kitchen together again. While you'd think that a mixed marriage of a Greek Orthodox and a Wiccan wouldn't have the same symbolism, once they realized my idea of hot food, they backed away, waving crucifixes and sprinkling holy wine. I think they knew, intuitively, that garlic would be ineffective.
It is my understanding that fried brain sandwiches are a St. Louis specialty, but, in this day of prion diseases, I shall pass. Fried ravioli seems innocent enough, as well as concrete ice cream.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 5, 2006 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was responding to "It which homes were burned and civilians killed as deliberate policy."
That statement implies(to me) that the Union army deliberately targetted civilians as a policy. If so, I'd like to know more about it, because I've never heard of it.
Granted, the scorched earth policy of Sherman's, the ravaging of the Shenandoah Valley etc certainly must've been responsible for hastening many civilians into their graves. Nevertheless, it's not the same as dropping a bomb on a civilian's house when they're in it, as the Allies did in WWII, under the euphemism "attacking the German worker in his home". Total war hadn't yet progressed that far.
I never did understand why Sherman ordered Atlanta evacuated. AFAIK, he didn't order any other cities evacuated.
July 5, 2006 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apropos of Hannah Arendt's phrase about Eichmann, "the banality of evil", Wirz was probably even more of a bureaucrat with no particular animus toward the prisoners. He had been given inadequate supplies and maintenance personnel, but would not question his orders -- or upset his superiors with descriptions of the situation.
He went to the gallows protesting that he was only following orders. I think he believed that was a correct defense.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 5, 2006 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some members of SCOTUS were just as goofy as some we have today. The South was never going to win the war no matter how righteous they thought their cause was. They didn't have the wherewithal. They got themselves worked up and there was no denying them a fight. In the end they proved so determined the North couldn't defeat them without destroying their ability to feed themselves.
I've posted this before here. I'd be more than happy to admit Lincoln's mistake and allow the South to secede. Give up the original states of the confederacy to those who wish to follow the policies of the radical modern Republican party. The new CSA can tax work not wealth, turn over their government to the biggest corporations, do away with all environmental regulations, outlaw abortion, only elect Christians, whatever they want to do. Even reinstitute slavery if they can con a bunch Nepalese kids to go to the CSA instead of Jordan or Kuwait like Rumsfeld's minions do. We'll take all the people who don't want to live in that kind of country and resettle 'em on land the Rebs leave here in the USA.
The Soviet Union broke up without a lot of violence, same for the Czechs and Slovaks. It'd take a lot of self selecting social engineering but there's no reason a split can't work. Now making the CSA work is another matter.
July 5, 2006 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not inclined to impute the abolition of slavery by the Jacobins at the height of the Reign of Terror to pure motives.
They decided to do the right thing because squashing the slave rebellion in Haiti just wasn't in the cards in 1794.
However, they did abolish slavery, ending the rebellion and freeing 500,000 Haitian slaves in the process. The proclamation applied to all other French slaves as well.
As there seems to be a lot of "what if" history posts around, let me submit that I have no idea if the French would have tried to undo all this if they had been able to keep their Republic, to paraphrase Franklin.
In 1795 the French Republic was on the up: the Terror had ended, France had conquered Northern Belgium, turned the Netherlands into a tax-paying vassal state, and repelled all the invasions from the First Coalition. Haiti (with slavery) used to be France's most profitable colony. They could have mounted an expedition. Maybe a democratic French Republic would, in time, have done just that. Maybe not. But in the end the expedition was sent by a warmongering dictator.
As for France after the Restoration, as Napoleon said of the Bourbons: they had "learned nothing, and forgotten nothing". They went as far as to demand recompensation from the Haitians in 1833 for lost French property.
July 6, 2006 2:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: However, they did abolish slavery
No they didn't,. Any such proclamation was ineffective. Slavery was not eliminated from the French Empire until 1848.
July 6, 2006 3:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Union did shell Southern cities under siege (Atlanta, Vicksburg) and some of those shells landed on civilian homes. Other thgan the scale of the technology how is that different from what's happening in Iraq?
July 6, 2006 3:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
We're getting into semantics here.
Wikipedia sez that the Emancipation Proclamation of Jan 1 1863 "freed most (but not all) of the slaves of the United States".
Acoording to your definition, it didn't.
In 1794, there was no French Empire. There was a French Republic, and the National Convention of that republic voted to end all slavery within it's territories. True, this proclamation was never fully implemented, but slavery was made illegal. It's abolition was enshrined into law.
That would be Napoleon's definition of a government ending slavery, as he went through the trouble of officially reinstating slavery within the French colonies on May 20, 1802.
And the 1794 proclamation did have significant effect. Because of it, the rebel slave leader Toussaint L'Ouverture and the French Republican army (not the French planters) on Haiti could join forces. Hundreds of thousands of slaves were freed. Trained and armed former slaves fought the British in 1798 under the French flag. It was more than an empty letter.
July 6, 2006 4:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
The 10th Amendment though largely a nullity even before the Civil War does point out why the Right Wing's whining about the Supreme Court has been misplaced. The Constitution gives no rights to the People. It is a grant by the People of Power to both the Federal Government and to a lesser extent state governments. Therefore, if the people have not given up the right they retain it.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
July 6, 2006 7:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Andersonville was the worst, but the difference between Andersonville and other prisons, north and south, was only a matter of degree. I will spare you an illustrative war story, as that might be going too far off topic.
By the way, there was another point of view on the war. I also have roots in a border state. One of my ancestors spent the war at home, defending his farm against bushwackers and deserters from both armies. He would go outside to take cover, and shoot at the intruders as they approached. His attitude was "A pox on both your houses." Something to ponder.
July 6, 2006 8:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I just remembered one of Grant's blunders, committed while he was commanding the occupation of Tennessee. In response to the surge of black market cotton dealing, he came up with this doozy, General Order # 11:
LA GRANGE, November 10, 1862.
General WEBSTER, Jackson, Tenn.:
Give orders to all the conductors on the road that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them.
U. S. GRANT,
Major-General.
Grant, acting on Lincoln's orders via Halleck, rescinded Gen Order 11 a few days later.
July 6, 2006 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Other thgan the scale of the technology how is that different from what's happening in Iraq?
Gimme a break. As Groucho Marx said, "if that's your best offer, I'll stay here".
If you don't know the difference between the CW and Iraq, maybe you should read a book or two.
The point was if there was a stated policy of the Union army to target civilians.
July 6, 2006 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
BRAVO on this post by Mr. Newman!!!!!!!!!!
I couldn't agree more! Many of my friends think I am a fanatic when I talk about Grant and how pivotal a character he was and is for American life and when I mention that the then morphed slave powers in very calculating and deliberate ways set about to assassinate his character and discredit him as a fool, a drunk, and less of a General than Marse Lee. They did this less to destroy Grant himself than the standard he proudly bore which was that of true equality before the law and allowing that great American idea to come to fruition. Grant's portrait hangs in my study, next to one of Sherman. Without those two men the union may well have been destroyed and the groundwork for modern civil rights laws and equality before the law would not have been laid. It is a shame that so little is in the public consciousness about Grant, who he really was, what he did that was worthy of him being known as one of, if not the, greatest President of the United States. Perhaps it is time for historians and patriots to revive and refurbish the reputation of this great man.
Viva the great Ulysses!
July 6, 2006 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I think that the "inventors" of Cincinnati chili were a restaurant owning Greek family.
What I really miss about Cincinnati is Graeter's Ice Cream. Really some of the best!
July 6, 2006 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
A respected military historian, John Keegan, has an excellent short biography of Grant in his book on styles of command entitled "The Mask of Command"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140114068/sr=8-1/qid=1152213657/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3901705-8264134?ie=UTF8
I would recommend it to anyone interested in Grant
July 6, 2006 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
That makes a lot of sense -- I can think of several Greek pasta dishes that make use of sweet spices with tomato. I'll ask my Greek housemate this weekend.
I am not being at all cute when I observe that asides about food are one of the best ways to ease tension and actually promote better content in online communications. "The way to the blog is through the stomach" sounds, however, far too much like a bad horror movie.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 6, 2006 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed--Keegan is always good, and that is one of his best. In contrast with Alexander the Great as a heroic leader and Hitler as a false leader, he describes Grant as an anti-heroic leader. That is one of those descriptions that brings up layers and layers of thought.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 6, 2006 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The second reason is that he begins the the string of "Military" presidents of the mid to late 19th century that were relatively boring and inconsequential.
It's actually more than that the presidents were boring. Grant was the first general from the Civil War to be elected as president, and it triggered a new wave of "waving the bloody shirt" to get elected. One simply had to have served in the military to have any credibility as a presidential candidate.
So, perhaps that's not Grant's fault. But his election definitely triggered a trend that dislike in any guise.
PSA: There is a Users' Help Forum.
July 6, 2006 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Slavery was ended legally in the US by the 13th Amendment. That is the correct date for the abolition of slavery in the US.
As you note, the Jacobin proclamation was never implemented. It was a feel-good law never put into effect, like much of their grandiose legislating.
And yes, the French did hold overseas territories in the 1790s.
July 6, 2006 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course there are differences between the Civil War and Iraq. Good grief. But the shelling of civilian targets in the Civil war and the scorched Earth policies of Sherman and Sheridan are identical in moral character to the bombings and so forth done in WWII, Vietnam Iraq, etc. From Sherman onward Americans (and many European leaders) have decided that economic warfare, even with considerable "collateral damage" (i.e., civilian deaths) is a morally acceptable tactic.
By the way, the death toll of the Civil War was several times greater than that of Iraq, even with its far more primitive technonogies. Had we possessed today's weaponry in the 1860s and the same will to use them that we had with the less deadly means of that era, the Civil War's death toll would look like the Russian losses in WWII. It was, quite simply, a far, far fiercer war than Iraq.
July 6, 2006 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Andersonville was the worst, but the difference between Andersonville and other prisons, north and south, was only a matter of degree.
Andersonville was designed with deliberate malice aforethought, rather like Auschwitz or Dachau. Gen Winder, head honcho of the CSA military prison system, openly bragged that his new prison would kill more Yankess than had died at the front, and he threatened treason prosecutions against various persons, both civilian and military who sought to remedy the horrors of the the prison camp. (Winder died in the last days of the war, or he would surely have been on the gallows besides Wirz).
There is a romnance about the Civil War and especially about the Old South that sometimes blinds us to the evil that came seeping out of the woodwork in that struggle.
July 6, 2006 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the only thing we disagree on is wether the Jacobin proclamation had any effect. I think it did, as it legitimized a slave rebellion on Haiti, causing the Republican French and the slaves to join forces against French planters and against a British/Spanish invasion. If that invasion had succeeded the Brits would just have returned Haiti to the Bourbons and Haiti would not have become the second independent state in the Americas.
Sure, the reason for issuing the proclamation was pretty much hypocritical realpolitik, and it is by no means sure that even the radical National Convention of 1794 would have abolished slavery had it not been for the succesful uprising of Toussaint L'Ouverture and the wars with Spain and Britain.
And yes, the effect of the French proclamation was not a de facto abolition of slavery in all French territories. The French government had no way to enforce it's will on say, planters in French Guyana.
But the French Republicans did however, have the means to enforce their's will in Haiti, where hundreds of thousands of slaves were freed. So, at least in Haiti, the proclamation was put into effect. French (and Polish) troops fought alongside rebel slaves to make it so. You can deny this as much as you want, but the fact remains. Calling it a "feel-good law never put into effect" is rather belittling towards those soldiers.
As for France being an empire because of it's colonial territories: that is a confusing definition when discussing this period. In 1805 France got itself an Emperor, in 1794 it was a Republic. It's a bit silly to suppose that I deny the existence of French colonies in 1794.
July 7, 2006 1:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
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April 27, 2011 5:56 AM | Reply | Permalink