Popularity from Civil War victories resulted in him being chosen as Republican candidate for President in 1868.
Elected the 18th President, Grant supported ratification of the 15th Amendment guaranteeing freed slaves the right to vote.
Grant signed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, limiting Democrat vigilante and lynching activity in the South.
Grant
worked to stabilize the country's currency by having it backed by gold,
as during the Civil War the Federal Government printed an excess of
paper money with no backing except 'faith' in the Federal Government.
In his First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant stated:
"Every dollar of Government indebtedness should be paid in gold...
It
looks as though Providence had bestowed upon us a strong box in the
precious metals locked up in the sterile mountains of the far West, and
which we are now forging the key to unlock, to meet the very contingency
that is now upon us."
Of his Indian policy, Grant stated in his First Annual Message, December 6, 1869:
"The Society of Friends...succeeded in living in peace with the Indians in the early settlement of Pennsylvania...
These considerations induced me to give the management of a few reservations of Indians to them."
President Grant stated in his 2nd Annual Message, December 5, 1870:
"Religious
denominations as had established missionaries among the Indians...are
expected to watch over them and aid them...to Christianize and civilize
the Indians, and to train him in the arts of peace."
President Grant wrote to Congress, January 1, 1871:
"Indians
of the country should be encouraged...to adopt our form of government,
and it is highly desirable that they become self-sustaining,
self-relying, Christianized, and civilized."
President Grant stated in his 3rd Annual Message, December 4, 1871:
"I
recommend liberal appropriations to carry out the Indian peace policy,
not only because it is humane and Christianlike...but because it is
right."
Grant,
being the youngest President to that date, 46 years old, had a military
training of trusting subordinates, leaving him ill-prepared for dealing
with political intrigues, hidden motives and greed of Washington
politicians.
As
a result, a number of those in his Administration were involved in
granting government favors and monopolies in exchange for bribes and
insider deals.
Called the "Gilded Age" by Mark Twain, a friend of Grant's, America saw:
-Immigrants arriving in record numbers;
-Railroads crossing the nation;
-Industry and manufacturing expanded;
-Iron, steel production rising dramatically;
-Western resources of lumber, gold and silver; and the
-Oil industry replacing the use of whale blubber oil, saving the whale.
Industrialists,
called "Robber Barons," amassed great wealth by providing more goods to
people at cheaper prices, raising the country's standard of living:
John Jacob Astor (real estate, fur);
Andrew Carnegie (steel);
James Fisk (finance);
Henry Flagler (railroads, oil);
Jay Gould (railroads);
Edward Harriman (railroads);
Andrew Mellon (finance, oil);
J.P. Morgan (finance, industrial);
John D. Rockefeller (oil);
Charles M. Schwab (steel); and
Cornelius Vanderbilt (water transport, railroads).
Get the book, America's God and Country Encyclopedia of QuotationsUlysses
S. Grant did not personally profit from being in office and even went
bankrupt as a result of naively trusting investors.
Struggling
financially, and suffering from throat cancer in his later years from
cigar smoking, Grant was encouraged by Mark Twain to write his Memoirs
of the Civil War in order to provide an income for his wife after his
death.
Encouraged by the outpouring of support from people across the country, Ulysses S. Grant, who was a Methodist, wrote in 1884:
"I
believe in the Holy Scriptures, and whoso lives by them will be
benefited thereby. Men may differ as to the interpretation, which is
human, but the Scriptures are man's best guide...
I did not go
riding yesterday, although invited and permitted by my physicians,
because it was the Lord's day, and because I felt that if a relapse
should set in, the people who are praying for me would feel that I was
not helping their faith by riding out on Sunday....
Yes, I know,
and I feel very grateful to the Christian people of the land for their
prayers in my behalf. There is no sect or religion, as shown in the Old
or New Testament, to which this does not apply."
Just days after delivering his final manuscript to the printer, Ulysses S. Grant died, July 23, 1885.
Nine years earlier, President Grant wrote to the Editor of the Sunday School Times in Philadelphia, June 6, 1876:
"Your
favor of yesterday asking a message from me to the children and the
youth of the United States, to accompany your Centennial number, is this
morning received.
My
advice to Sunday schools, no matter what their denomination, is: Hold
fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties; write its
precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives.
To the
influence of this Book are we indebted for all the progress made in
true civilization, and to this must we look as our guide in the future.
'Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people.' Yours respectfully, U.S. Grant."
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