The Campaign and Election of 1864

Uncertain about his chances for reelection in 1864, President Lincoln tried to balance the ticket by convincing Republican delegates to their National Union Convention to drop Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as vice president in favor of Andrew Johnson, who was the most prominent "War Democrat" in the nation. Moderate Republicans eagerly supported Johnson, who was known for his tough stand against the planter aristocracy, although Hamlin lobbied hard to retain his place on the ticket.

At his party’s national convention in Baltimore in June 1864, President Lincoln relied on Tennessee’s convention delegates, William G. Brownlow and Horace Maynard, to publicly make the case for Johnson—and this they did, with stirring speeches that praised Johnson for having stood loyal while “in the very furnace of the rebellion.” Lincoln’s backers in the North delighted in contrasting Andy Johnson’s rock-ribbed loyalty to the Union with the altogether less admirable record of McClellan’s running mate, George H. Pendleton of Ohio. Pendleton was the very personification of the treacherous Copperhead Democrats, who wanted to make a peace settlement with the Confederates. Johnson also strengthened Lincoln's appeal to the Union's working class, especially the Irish. The Irish Catholic voters favored Johnson for his strong record of opposing anti-Catholicism while governor of Tennessee.

Additionally, Johnson was a widely recognized champion of the nation's so-called yeoman Democrats, a term that embraced small farmers and village artisans everywhere in the Union. But there were some Radical Republicans who felt differently. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania grumbled in the Senate that the Republicans should have found a candidate "without going down into one of those damned rebel provinces." Other Radical Republicans had called a convention in Cleveland and nominated John Frémont for the presidency and General John Cochrane for the vice presidency, but with Johnson on the ticket, Lincoln's hand was strengthened with moderates even as he lost support from the right wing of his party.

The Lincoln-Johnson ticket, opposed by Democratic candidates, General George B. McClellan of New Jersey and George H. Pendleton of Ohio, went into the election with several advantages: Most rank-and-file Republicans greatly supported Lincoln and his determination to win the war. So too did most Union soldiers, even though McClellan, whom Lincoln had dismissed because he felt that the general was unwilling to decisively engage the Confederate forces of General Robert E. Lee in the Virginia theater, was popular with most bluecoats. Also, McClellan rejected the peace plank of his own party platform, which called for immediate cessation of hostilities and the restoration of peace "on the basis of the Federal Union of States." Most importantly, when General William Sherman successfully marched through Georgia in September, delivering Atlanta to Lincoln as an election present, the sentiment for Lincoln united the party behind him. Lincoln was reelected in a landslide victory in which he earned ten times more Electoral College votes than McClellan.

The Campaign and Election of 1866

Although not a presidential election, the off-year congressional election of 1866 was in fact a referendum election for President Andrew Johnson. By the summer of 1866, Johnson had lost support within the Republican Party for his Reconstruction policies. (See the Domestic Affairs section for details.) After a unity meeting of 7,000 delegates at the National Union Convention—which met in Philadelphia on August 14—failed to bridge the growing gap between Johnson and the Republicans, the determined President decided to take the issue to the people.

Beginning on August 28, accompanied by such notables as Civil War hero Admiral David Farragut, President Johnson launched an unprecedented speaking tour in the hopes of regaining public and political support. He traveled from Philadelphia to New York City, then through upstate New York and west to Ohio before heading back to Washington, D.C. This "swing around the circle" was marked by an intemperate campaign style in which Johnson personally attacked his Republican opponents in vile and abusive language reminiscent of his Tennessee stump speech harangues.

Provoked by hecklers, Johnson hissed that he was as prepared to “fight traitors at the North” as he had been to fight Southern traitors. In his view, Radical Republicanism was like secessionism: both were forms of extremism which tended toward the destruction of the Union. Having worked during the war to discredit secessionism, Johnson now focused on discrediting Radical Republicanism; having cast blacks as the pawns of the planters, he now cast them as the pawns of the Radicals. What most angered Republicans who read the press reports of Johnson’s public speeches was that he brazenly accused the “Radical Congress” of inciting black violence in the South and of trying to “poison the minds of the American people” against him. On several occasions, it also appeared that the President had had too much to drink, nearly stumbling from the platform. In the end, the campaign was a disaster for Johnson. One observer later said that the President lost one million Northern voters as a result of his tour.

In the congressional elections, the anti-Johnson Republicans won two-thirds of both houses, thus sealing Johnson's doom and giving his opponents enough power to override his programs. Later, the House of Representatives, in voting its articles of impeachment against Johnson, would charge him with disgracing his office by attempting to appeal directly to the people for support in the 1866 elections—something that was considered to be demagogic and beneath the dignity of a President at the time.

The Campaign and Election of 1868

Having escaped being convicted in his May 1868 impeachment trial by one vote, Johnson had no chance of being reelected as President. (See the Domestic Affairs section for details.) He attempted to win the Democratic nomination at the convention in the newly completed Tammany Hall in New York. He told his supporters that a united Democratic Party, with him at its helm, stood the best chance of blocking the drive for black political equality in the South. At the convention, Johnson came in second in the balloting on the first vote, trailing first-place leader George H. Pendleton of Ohio 105 to 65. After that ballot, in which Democrats tried to allow Johnson to save face, the incumbent President never surfaced again. Instead of Johnson, the Democrats ran Horatio Seymour, the former wartime governor of New York, who was the presiding officer of the convention, and Francis P. Blair of Missouri.

The Republicans bitterly attacked Johnson as a traitor to Lincoln and the nation in their convention in Chicago, nominating General Ulysses S. Grant and House Speaker Schuyler Colfax of Indiana as President and vice president, respectively. Running a "bloody shirt" campaign, which tagged the Democrats as the party of secession and treason, the Republicans swept to victory, winning 53 percent of the popular vote to Seymour's 47 percent. (See Grant Biography, Campaigns and Elections section, for further details.) Johnson took a little active role in the campaign for Seymour, but Seymour echoed Johnson’s arguments that Congressional Reconstruction was corrupt and punitive.

On April 15, six weeks after Andrew Johnson was sworn in as vice president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Had the assassin's plot gone as planned, Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Secretary of State William Seward would have also been killed. As it turned out, co-conspirator George Atzerodt had stalked the vice president but lost his nerve at the last minute. Johnson, who was staying at the Kirkwood House hotel, rushed to Lincoln's bedside when he was told of the attack. A few hours after Lincoln's death, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase swore Johnson in as President of the United States. Republicans were relieved that Johnson had not been killed and could provide continuity; they thought that he would be putty in their hands and would follow the dictates of Republican congressional leaders.

Although Johnson came into the presidency with much political and administrative experience, the task confronting him would require extraordinary talents of leadership that Johnson had yet to exhibit. Most immediate was the question of what to do with the defeated Confederate states—that is, what rights would be granted the 4 million former slaves, and what punishment, if any, would be applied to the supporters of the Confederacy? Just prior to Lincoln's death, indeed the very morning of his assassination, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had presented to Lincoln's cabinet the outlines of a reconstruction program. The program would impose military rule and stiff conditions upon the defeated Southern states for their restoration to the Union. This represented a substantial modification of Lincoln's earlier stand urging a quick return to equal status with few conditions beyond oaths of loyalty and the abolishment of slavery. Although Lincoln favored granting voting rights to black men with property and education, he had not been prepared to force the issue, which aroused intense opposition and concern among Radical Republicans within his own party.

The Question of Black Suffrage

In the minds of most Republicans, there were three related problems to Lincoln's easy no-strings-attached postwar policy toward the Confederate states. First, the defeated states would certainly take advantage of the freed slaves to impose racial strictures and labor conditions that would keep intact the economic and political power of the old planter class. This situation would enable the South to continue its obstructionist role in Congress and opposition to federal programs benefiting industrial and western interests. Secondly, unless Southern blacks were enfranchised and Confederate leaders disfranchised, a united Democratic Party might win the congressional elections in 1866 and then run and elect someone like Robert E. Lee to the presidency in 1868. As a new party, the Republicans understood how fragile their hold on government was. In a fully restored Union, the black vote was considered essential to continued Republican control of the White House and Congress. And thirdly, the presence of black soldiers stationed in Southern states, the intense expectations of the former slaves for full civil rights, and the demands of abolitionist reformers, such as Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner and Frederick Douglass, for racial equality could not be ignored easily.

At first, many Radical Republicans had assumed that Johnson shared their broad and expansive concept of federal power and their commitment to political equality for blacks. In this, they were mistaken. Although a strong Union man, Johnson had always believed in a strict construction of the Constitution and in states' rights, which did not include the rights of secession. He followed Lincoln's earlier reasoning that while individual "traitors" should be punished, the states had never legally left the Union nor surrendered their rights to govern their own affairs. Indeed, he echoed Lincoln's view that 600,000 dead soldiers had determined the issue that the South had been unable to leave the Union. So how could the Southern states be treated as if they had? In Johnson's mind, the issue of what to do with the defeated Southern states was simple: impose conditions upon their return to full standing, such as the irrevocable abolition of slavery written into their state constitutions and loyalty oaths as a condition of suffrage, but do not impose black suffrage as a condition of readmission.

Phase I: Presidential Reconstruction

From the day he became President in April 1865 until December 1865, the question of Reconstruction was almost totally in the hands of Johnson because Congress had recessed shortly before he took the oath of office and it did not reconvene until December. In those eight months, Johnson rushed to implement his own Reconstruction policies based upon his interpretation of Lincoln's program. He appointed provisional governors to the defeated states and required them to call special conventions to draft new constitutions that abolished slavery and renounced secession. After the ratification of these constitutions, newly elected governments were to send representatives to Congress, and the states thereby would be restored to the Union. According to his program, every Southern voter would have to swear an oath of loyalty in order to obtain amnesty, or pardon. Several classes of Southerners were not to be given amnesty, however: (1) former federal officials who had supported the Confederacy, (2) graduates of the military academies at West Point or Annapolis who had fought on the side of the rebels, (3) high-ranking Confederate officers and political leaders, and (4) all individuals who had aided the rebellion and owned taxable property valued at more than $20,000. Individuals who fell into these four categories had to apply personally to the President for pardon and restoration of their political rights.

During the summer of 1865, the white residents of every Southern state worked feverishly to abide by Johnson's program so as to be ready to take seats in the U.S. Congress upon its reconvening in December. Surprisingly, Johnson handed out thousands of pardons in almost routine fashion, thus enabling most members of the old planter class and many Confederate leaders to reemerge in power on the state level. Historians have offered a variety of explanations as to why Johnson so quickly abandoned his tough talk against the Confederate elite and settled into a policy of appeasement. They have cited Johnson’s deep-seated racism; his pleasure in having the planter class come before him on bended knee to receive their pardons; his commitment to states’ rights; his desire to build a new electoral constituency, composed of conservative Democrats and Republicans, for a presidential bid in 1868; and his belief that if African American men were granted the vote, planters would control their votes, and the middling white man would continue to be marginalized.

In the rush to reenter the Union, some state conventions defiantly refused to reject secession and the Confederate debt. Almost all of these states imposed severe laws that limited the freedom of former slaves. Known as "black codes," these laws required, with variations in each state, former slaves to carry permits on their body when off plantations, to observe curfews in town, and to have signed contracts of employment by the end of January or be arrested as vagrants. These codes were designed to force the former slaves into a slave-like employment status on the plantations. Each youth, for example, was required to be apprenticed to an employer, who could exercise parental authority over their wards. According to law, parental permission was not required, and in many cases, the courts bound young men and women in their twenties as apprentices. Some state conventions disallowed former slaves to own or rent farms. Rights to hunt, carry firearms, fish, or freely graze livestock were typically revoked for blacks. And most state-supported institutions, such as schools and orphanages, excluded blacks completely.

Phase II: Congressional Reconstruction

Not surprisingly, when Congress reconvened in December, the Republican majority established a Joint Committee of Reconstruction to examine Johnson's policies and voted not to admit the newly elected Southern representatives or to recognize the newly reestablished state governments as valid. Thereafter, Congress and the President clashed continually over the next two years. In the ensuing confrontation, the Republican membership in Congress united in support of a military Reconstruction program that would guarantee political and civil rights for Southern blacks. Johnson aided this party unity by his heavy-handed efforts to block black suffrage and congressional programs that he considered a usurpation of presidential authority.

When Congress passed an extension of the Freedmen's Bureau in February 1866, most Republicans fully expected Johnson to sign it into law. Congress wanted this agency to continue a federal refugee program aimed at protecting and providing shelter and provisions for the displaced slaves as well as trials by military commissions of individuals accused of depriving African Americans of their civil rights. To Congress's surprise, Johnson not only vetoed the bill but he also attacked it as race legislation that would encourage a life of wasteful laziness for Southern blacks. In response, Congress passed this bill over President Johnson's veto five months later.

President Johnson also vetoed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1866, which defined as citizens all persons born in the United States (except Native Americans). The bill also listed certain rights of citizens, including the right to testify in court, to own property, to make contracts, and to enjoy the "full and equal benefit of all laws" and the due process accorded to all citizens. It authorized federal officials to bring suit in federal courts rather than state courts for civil rights violations. Johnson tried to strike down the law as a violation of states' rights, expecting his veto to appeal to anti-black sentiment among Northern voters. In April, Congress passed the act over Johnson's veto—this was the first time that Congress had overridden a veto of major legislation.

As tensions mounted further, Johnson's determination to deny civil rights to African Americans motivated the Joint Committee on Reconstruction to formulate the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Fearful that the Supreme Court might at some future date rule unconstitutional the Civil Rights Act, Congress passed this far-reaching amendment on June 16, 1866. For the first time, the nation's lawmakers defined national citizenship, which authorized the federal government to protect the rights of U.S. citizens. Congress also revoked the three-fifths clause of the Constitution, and it now provided for a proportionate reduction in representation when a state denied suffrage to any male citizen, except for those who have participated in rebellion or other crimes. When most Southern states rejected the amendment, the Joint Committee made its acceptance a condition of a state's restoration to the Union.

Off-Year Election Showdown

It was in this intense atmosphere that the congressional elections of 1866 loomed large. Southern whites hoped to use the expected popular backlash to Republican militancy to seize control of the House and then overturn the Congressional Reconstruction initiatives. Johnson hit the campaign trail in an unprecedented effort to elect congressmen who supported his policies. Johnson's "swing around the circle" backfired on him, however, as his blatant racism came to the forefront in his personal attacks on his opponents, offending many Democratic moderates and uncommitted voters. When Republicans won two-thirds control of both houses, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction passed—over the President's veto—the Reconstruction Act of March 8, 1867. This act divided the eleven Southern states—excluding Johnson's home state of Tennessee—into five military districts subject to martial law. To be fully restored to the Union, Southern states were required to hold new constitutional conventions elected by universal manhood suffrage. These conventions would then establish state governments to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and guarantee voting rights for black males. A military governor, who was authorized by Congress, controlled each district with the power to use military force to protect life and property. Once these provisional governments had fully complied with congressional directives, they might be allowed full status in the Union, but Congress reserved the right to decide each case.

On March 2, 1867, Congress moved to limit Johnson's powers as President in several ways. The Command of the Army Act instructed the President to issue orders only through the General of the Army, then Ulysses S. Grant, who could not be removed nor sent outside of Washington without Senate permission. Then Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, on the same day, which prohibited the President from removing certain federal officials without senatorial approval. It did this by specifying that officials appointed with the advice of the Senate were to remain in office until the Senate approved a successor.

When Southern whites refused to cooperate in the calling of new constitutional conventions, Congress passed a series of supplementary Reconstruction acts from March through July 1867. These new pieces of legislation gave the military commanders broad powers to initiate the calling of the conventions and to declare a convention valid if supported by a majority of the votes cast, thus overriding the white boycott. Union commanders were expected to follow congressional policy and not directives from the commander in chief on this matter. By late 1867, most Southern states held constitutional conventions, and all of them were dominated by a Republican coalition consisting of white Southerners supporting Reconstruction, Northern transplants to the South, and the newly enfranchised freedmen. Between June 22 and 25, 1868, Congress readmitted seven Southern states—Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina—to full status in the Union.

Johnson’s vetoes of the Reconstruction Acts tried to preempt Radical Reconstruction by associating it with vengeance, subjugation, and disunion. He called the congressional program an exercise in “absolute despotism” that would “Africanize” the South, and he repeatedly claimed that the reunion of the North and South would have been “easy and certain” if only Congress had not defied him. Although he believed he represented the will of the masses of whites in the North as well as South, Johnson was out of step with public opinion, and Congress easily overrode his vetoes.

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

Thoroughly blocked at every turn, Johnson felt he had no choice but to challenge what he considered to be the usurpation of presidential authority in the Tenure of Office Act. Understanding that he risked impeachment, Johnson challenged the act by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton on August 12, 1867, while Congress was out of session. He then named General Grant as interim secretary of war. When Congress reconvened in December, Johnson submitted his reasons to the Senate, but the Senate refused to concur with the dismissal under the provisions of the law. Grant broke with the President. The crisis flared up again, however, on February 21, 1868, when Johnson dismissed Stanton once more. On February 24, 1868, the House voted to impeach Johnson by a vote of 126 to 47 without holding hearings first or having specific charges against him. The House subsequently drew up eleven charges against the President, principally associated with his alleged violations of the Tenure of Office Act and the Command of the Army Act but also including charges that his actions had brought disgrace and ridicule to the presidency.

The managers of the House of Representatives Impeachment Committee presented the articles to the Senate for trial on March 4, and the trial began with opening statements on March 30, presided over by Chief Justice Chase. Johnson's legal counsel argued that Johnson had fired Stanton to test the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act and that his action constituted neither a high crime nor a misdemeanor by any sensible definition of the terms. Voting on May 16, the Senate failed to convict Johnson by one vote of the two-thirds necessary—35 votes to 19 votes. Two subsequent ballots on May 26 produced the same results, and the Senate adjourned as a court of impeachment.

The impeachment of Andrew Johnson, the first of only three Presidents to be impeached in U.S. history—the second was President William Clinton, the third was President Donald Trump—involved complicated issues of law, politics, and personalities. At its heart lay the nearly irreparable relations between President Johnson and Congress over which agency of government should oversee Reconstruction. This question of competing authority masked, however, a more fundamental issue: Congress had instructed the U.S. Army to implement a policy that its commander in chief vehemently opposed. In direct violation of congressional intent and the Command of Army Act, Johnson had used the summer of 1867, when Congress was not in session, to remove several military commanders in favor of officers more supportive of white rule in the South. Later, he tried to create an "Army of the Atlantic," headquartered in the nation's capital, as a means of intimidating his opponents in Congress. Seeing that Johnson was using the Army to play politics and thus endangering the lives of soldiers in the field, Grant turned against the President.

The principal issue was Johnson's loss of support within the majority congressional party. Had the nation been governed by a parliamentary system, which requires a prime minister to have the support of a majority of the legislature, Johnson would have been summarily removed in a vote of no confidence. Almost all Republicans agreed that Johnson was totally unfit for office. Republicans felt that Johnson had disgraced the government and the party, and abdicated the moral high ground that the Union and Republicans had won in the war. Article Ten of the impeachment charges arraigned Johnson for his “intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues” during the 1866 “swing round the circle” tour.

But these were not clearly impeachable offenses, and this uncertainty worked in the President’s favor. Also, because no vice president had been elected after Johnson's ascent to the presidency, his successor would have been Benjamin Wade, president pro tem of the Senate, an extreme radical on Reconstruction and a soft-money, pro-labor politician feared by many Northern businessmen. With Senator Wade in the wings, many Johnson opponents were hesitant about voting to convict, especially those who thought that if Wade assumed the presidency, he might try for the nomination in 1868, thus blocking General Grant. Also, Chief Justice Chase refused to allow deviation from the charges to discuss or include broader issues of policy.

In the end, the seven Republicans who voted to acquit—most of them supporters of Grant—were silently supported by their moderate party colleagues. Had these seven not indicated a willingness to acquit, others stood ready to change their votes. Many Senate Republicans had decided to make it a close vote but not a conviction, especially once it became clear that if Johnson was acquitted, he was prepared to cease his obstructionist ways for the rest of his term and stop his interference with Reconstruction and with the military commanders and the War Department.

The final vote maintained the principle that Congress should not remove the President from office simply because its members disagreed with him over policy, style, and administration of office. But it did not mean that the President retained governing power. For the rest of his term, Johnson was a cipher without influence on public policy. Moreover, between his presidency and the turn of the century, a "weak presidency" system of governance was instituted, one which Woodrow Wilson referred to in the 1870s as "Congressional Government" because after the Johnson collapse, the country was really run by congressional committee leaders and cabinet secretaries.

Although Andrew Johnson's presidency was marked by significant chaos and administrative ineptitude on the home front, Secretary of State William H. Seward ably managed its foreign affairs. In 1866, the Russian minister to the United States indicated that Czar Alexander II might be willing to sell Russian holdings in North America—nearly 500,000 square miles. Seward offered $7.2 million, which was two cents an acre, and the Russians accepted, transferring land that would become Alaska to the United States.

The treaty of sale differed from earlier territory arrangements by not promising eventual statehood. Its inhabitants—except for Indians—would become American citizens immediately, but it left open the question of statehood, thus relegating the new territory to the status of a colonial possession. Some critics ridiculed the purchase as a frozen, worthless wasteland, as "Seward's Folly." But the Senate embraced the sale with enthusiasm. Charles Sumner, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, viewed the purchase as a step leading toward the ultimate possession of Canada. Seward himself wanted the United States to annex much of the Northern Hemisphere, but he was unable to gain Senate consent to acquire the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Greenland, or Iceland.

Forcing the French from Mexico

At the end of the Civil War, Mexico was embroiled in war. A French army had occupied key parts of Mexico in 1861, installing a puppet ruler, Archduke Maximilian of Austria, as emperor. The Mexican government, led by Benito Juárez, resisted the forces of Napoleon III who was trying to install the archduke yet had little decisive effect. As soon as the American Civil War ended, Secretary of State Seward sent 50,000 battle-tested U.S. soldiers to the Mexican border to back up his demand that Napoleon withdraw all of his forces. Napoleon agreed, and the last French soldier left in 1867. Although the Monroe Doctrine was never mentioned by name, the confrontation reinforced its hold on American foreign policy.

Relations with Great Britain

During the Johnson presidency, the bumpy U.S. relations with Great Britain were repaired. Johnson tamped down a crisis by enforcing neutrality laws against Irish American Fenians, who made several armed attacks in Canada in an attempt to annex Canadian territory, then controlled by Britain. Civil War claims against the British for building Confederate warships that had sunk Union shipping were sent to arbitration.

After President Johnson lost the Democratic Party nomination for the 1868 presidential election, he finished his term in office and then returned to Tennessee. "I have performed my duty to my God, my country, and my family," he insisted as he left Washington. "I have nothing to fear.”

Back at home, he stayed involved with politics, running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. However, he returned to the Senate in 1875, becoming the only U.S. President to serve in the Senate after his presidential tenure. On learning of his election, Johnson commented, "I’d rather have this information than to learn that I had been elected President of the United States. Thank God for the vindication." As a senator, Johnson spoke out against the policies and corruption of the administration of Ulysses S. Grant.

He did not serve long in the Senate; he suffered a stroke in July 1875 and died shortly thereafter. He is buried in Greeneville, Tennessee, in what is now the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery. The cemetery is part of the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, which also includes his residence.

Life in the White House for Andrew Johnson's family was an ongoing cavalcade of visitors and activity. Because his wife, Eliza, was a semi-invalid and kept to her room most of the time, suffering from tuberculosis, Johnson asked his two daughters, Martha and Mary, a widow, to live in the White House and serve as official hostesses. They brought their five children and Martha's husband, David T. Patterson, who later became a U.S. senator from Tennessee, with them.

Johnson's sons were tragic figures: The oldest, Charles, died in 1863 after being thrown from a horse. He was serving at the time with the Middle Tennessee Union Infantry as an assistant surgeon. Johnson's next son, Robert, suffered from alcoholism. His drunken escapades led to his retirement from the First Tennessee Union Cavalry, after which he served as Johnson's private secretary. He died from his affliction in 1869 at age thirty-five. The youngest boy, Andrew Jr., a teenager during the White House years, liked to write and tried his hand at journalism after the war, founding the Greeneville Intelligencer. It failed after two years, and he died soon after at age twenty-seven.

No clearly established routine dominated daily life in the White House. The President rose early and worked late. He was not a religious man, although he sometimes attended Methodist services with his wife. He liked best the Baptist faith because of its democratic structure. But he also admired Catholic services because all Catholics had equal access to church pews regardless of their money.

For entertainment, Johnson practiced politics, talked for hours with old friends who would come to visit, played an occasional game of checkers, and enjoyed circuses and minstrel shows. He probably took some of his racist banter on the stump from the humor poked at blacks in the popular minstrel shows of the day. He also enjoyed drinking Tennessee bourbon, and he suffered from perhaps an undeserved reputation for overindulging. At the grand inauguration ball in 1864, Johnson, while suffering from a severe cold and fever, had taken a whiskey just before making his formal speech. He looked and sounded drunk to the embarrassment of his family and President Lincoln. At several other times during his presidency, Johnson appeared in public in what looked to be an inebriated state. He never lived these incidents down, although historians contend that they were greatly exaggerated.

During Andrew Johnson's presidency, the composition of the American electorate underwent revolutionary change. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, in conjunction with Congressional Reconstruction, set the stage for extending suffrage to hundreds of thousands of African American males. Congress did this indirectly, however, threatening to penalize states that did not enfranchise African Americans by reducing their congressional and electoral representations in proportion to the adult males disfranchised. But the amendments did not specifically guarantee suffrage to African Americans. It would take the Fifteenth Amendment, approved by Congress in 1869 and ratified in 1871, to actually guarantee voting rights to African American males. It prohibited the federal government or any state from restricting the right to vote because of a person's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." More important in extending suffrage to formerly enslaved males during the Johnson years were the actions undertaken under the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, which required African American male suffrage as a condition of a state's readmission to the Union.

Black Political Participation

In the state constitutional conventions that met in 1868, 265 black delegates were included. In Louisiana and South Carolina, half or more of the delegates were black. Starting in 1869 and lasting until 1877, fourteen African American men served in the U.S. House of Representatives, and two African Americans served in the U.S. Senate, Hiram R. Revels and Blanche K. Bruce from Mississippi. Six blacks served as lieutenant governors, and more than 600 black men served in Southern state legislatures. Moreover, in heavily black populated counties, African American men were elected to every village, town, and county post from tax collector to mayor.

The upsurge of black political activity was met with a racist propaganda campaign and terrorist tactics implemented by Southern whites to intimidate both black and white Southern Republicans. With Johnson at their head, white Southerners argued fraudulently that Congressional Reconstruction had brought “black rule” and the prostration of the white South. This potent myth obscured the fact that African Americans never dominated the Republican coalition or Southern office-holding, and that the congressional program had tried to implement interracial democracy and to bring modern social services such as public education to the South.

Beginning in late 1866, a terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, which was a secret veterans' club, spread through the South. It practiced nighttime harassment, whippings, torture, and even murder. The Klan attacked the white schoolteachers of black children; the Union League Clubs, which organized black voters; and anyone suspected of supporting Republicans. In 1868, one-tenth of the black delegates to the state constitutional conventions had been attacked. When Johnson left office, in much of the South, especially in counties dominated by white majorities, terror had become a common aspect of race relations.

Women's Suffrage Movement

Although black male suffrage increased substantially by 1868, not all reformers were happy with the Fourteenth Amendment. Advocates of women's suffrage objected to the exclusion of women from the amendment, pointing out that it introduced the word "male" for the first time into the Constitution. The amendment, when followed by the Fifteenth Amendment, left feminist leaders feeling betrayed. Thereafter, many women activists severed their historic alliance with the cause of civil rights for African Americans and created an autonomous feminist movement independent of the existing reform crusades. More and more, feminist leaders equated suffrage with liberation from all male dominance and also viewed it as an expression of equality in the voting place.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats intended to do anything about expanding the franchise to women. At the Democratic Convention of 1868, a petition was read from Susan B. Anthony, a leader of the Women's Suffrage Association. She asked the convention to acknowledge the principle of women's suffrage. The delegates roared with laughter, refused to take the petition seriously, and then adjourned for the day in general merriment.

For the most part, historians view Andrew Johnson as the worst possible person to have served as President at the end of the American Civil War. Because of his gross incompetence in federal office and his incredible miscalculation of the extent of public support for his policies, Johnson is judged as a great failure in making a satisfying and just peace. He is viewed to have been a rigid, dictatorial racist who was unable to compromise or to accept a political reality at odds with his own ideas. Instead of forging a compromise between Radical Republicans and moderates, his actions united the opposition against him. His bullheaded opposition to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment eliminated all hope of using presidential authority to effect further compromises favorable to his position. In the end, Johnson did more to extend the period of national strife than he did to heal the wounds of war.

Most importantly, Johnson's strong commitment to obstructing political and civil rights for blacks is principally responsible for the failure of Reconstruction to solve the race problem in the South and perhaps in America as well. Johnson's decision to support the return of the prewar social and economic system—except for slavery—cut short any hope of a redistribution of land to the freed people or a more far-reaching reform program in the South.

Historians naturally wonder what might have happened had Lincoln, a genius at political compromise and perhaps the most effective leader to ever serve as President, lived. Would African Americans have obtained more effective guarantees of their civil rights? Would Lincoln have better completed what one historian calls the "unfinished revolution" in racial justice and equality begun by the Civil War? Almost all historians believe that the outcome would have been far different under Lincoln's leadership.

Among historians, supporters of Johnson are few in recent years. However, from the 1870s to around the time of World War II, Johnson enjoyed high regard as a strong-willed President who took the courageous high ground in challenging Congress's unconstitutional usurpation of presidential authority. In this view, much out of vogue today, Johnson is seen to have been motivated by a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution and by a firm belief in the separation of powers. This perspective reflected a generation of historians who were critical of Republican policy and skeptical of the viability of racial equality as a national policy. Even here, however, apologists for Johnson acknowledge his inability to effectively deal with congressional challenges due to his personal limitations as a leader.

Ulysses S. Grant is best known as the Union general who led the United States to victory over the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. As a two-term President, he is typically dismissed as weak and ineffective; historians have often ranked Grant's presidency near the bottom in American history. Recently, however, scholars have begun to reexamine and reassess his presidential tenure; recent rankings have reflected a significant rise. Every President presents historians with some contradictions, but Grant might do so more than most. He was quiet and soft-spoken but able to inspire great bravery from his soldiers on the battlefield. He was an honorable man who was unable or unwilling to see dishonor in others. He disdained politics but rose to the country's highest political office. He was no great orator, but he possessed a coherent political philosophy mirrored in Lincoln's Republican Party that won the war, freed the enslaved people, and saved the Republic. Grant presided over a powerful if unstable economy unleashing productive capacities only dreamed of before the Civil War. A great supporter of the transcontinental railroads, Grant oversaw the completion of the one running from Sacramento, California, to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1869 in his first year in office. Overall, Grant's intentions were honorable, and he made efforts that few had attempted before him, especially in the areas of African American rights, Native American policy, and civil service reform. He also executed a successful foreign policy and was responsible for improving Anglo-American relations.

Early Life

Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio, the first of six children. He was small, sensitive, quiet, and well-known for his talent with horses. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York and excelled in mathematics, writing, drawing, and horsemanship. After graduating, he was assigned to an infantry company in Missouri. His company soon moved south to prepare for the conflict brewing with Mexico over disputed Texas territory. From 1846 to 1848, Grant fought in the Mexican War and was twice cited for bravery. After the war, Grant moved to various Army postings in Detroit, New York, and the Pacific Northwest. He resigned suddenly from the Army in 1854 and returned to the Midwest to be with his family. Grant then attempted a variety of jobs, including farming and insurance sales, before finding work in his family's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois. Through these difficult times, he relied on his wife, Julia Dent Grant. The two were a devoted couple and adoring parents to their four children.

Civil War Hero

When the American Civil War began in 1861, experienced officers like Grant were in short supply. The Illinois governor assigned him to make a disciplined fighting unit out of the rebellious Twenty-First Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Lieutenant Colonel Grant drilled the men, instituted badly needed discipline, and soon earned the respect of the volunteers. The Army noted his efforts and promoted him to brigadier general. Grant garnered attention as he led his troops to fight and win battles in the Western Theater. He captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in Tennessee, forced the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and defeated a larger Southern force at Chattanooga, Tennessee. In the last year of the war, he was both praised and criticized for his willingness to fight and sustain a high number of casualties. Grant helped end the bloody Civil War when he directed the Union forces to lay siege to General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in Petersburg, a small city south of Richmond, Virginia, forcing its surrender in April 1865. At that point, General Grant was the most revered man in the Union.

Lincoln's tragic assassination at the end of the Civil War was followed by the ineffective leadership of President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee. Johnson urged a moderate approach to Reconstruction that would not punish the South or protect the rights of the newly freed slaves beyond emancipation. Radical Republicans wanted to ensure the civil and political rights of African Americans. In the election of 1868, postwar social and economic policies were the major campaign issues. The Republicans backed Grant, who concluded his acceptance speech with "Let us have peace." The popular general won the election to become the nation's eighteenth President.

Presidency

Coming into office, President Grant alienated party stalwarts by rejecting party politics. When he appointed his cabinet, he did not turn to Republican leaders for their advice. Instead, he chose people he thought he could trust and to whom he could delegate responsibility. This strategy led to some good cabinet appointments but also to a number of dubious ones. Grant was also loyal out of all proportion to anyone who had helped him or worked with him. As a result, he was sometimes unwilling to remove ineffective people, and some areas of his administration suffered from incompetence and corruption.

In his first inaugural address, Grant spoke of his desire for the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, which sought to grant citizens the right to vote regardless of race or previous servitude. He lobbied hard to get the amendment passed, angering many Southern whites in the process. He also, on occasion, sent in the military to protect African Americans from newly formed terrorist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, which tried to prevent blacks from participating in society. Grant incurred the wrath of citizens who blamed him for the economic woes that plagued the nation in the aftermath of the war. In 1872, however, Grant won reelection by a landslide.

During his second term, a depression in Europe spread to the United States, resulting in high unemployment. Like so many Presidents before and after Grant, scandals tended to divert attention from the administration's policy agenda. Although Grant was never personally implicated in any of the scandals, he did not disassociate himself from the members of his administration who were guilty. His inability to clean up his administration tarnished his reputation in the eyes of the American public. In 1875, he announced that he would not seek a third term. The Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes to be their standard-bearer in the 1876 election. After his presidency, Grant found himself in economic difficulties and dying of throat cancer. He lost his money in a financial scandal, yet he was determined to provide for his family after his death. After Century Magazine approached him to write articles about his Civil War experiences, Grant discovered that he enjoyed the process and decided to compile his memoirs. He approached this last battle as he had all others—with grim and dogged determination. His final days were spent on his porch with pencil and paper in hand, wrapped in blankets and in fearsome pain, slowly scrawling out his life's epic tale. He completed the book just days before his death. It was hugely successful and provided for his family's financial security.

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. He was the first of six children born to religious and hard-working parents, Jesse and Hannah Grant. His father was a tanner who took animal hides and processed them into leather. He made a good living, but the work conditions were horrible—skinned and raw animal carcasses everywhere, their hides tossed into kettles of stinging, stinking chemicals. Although Grant occasionally worked in the tannery as a child, he hated the work and swore to his father that once he was an adult, he would never do it again.

Ulysses was a small, sensitive, quiet youth. The simple local schools bored him, and other children mistook his quietness for stupidity, nicknaming him "Useless." The boy, however, had an incredible knack in what was a critical skill in that time and place—horsemanship. On the family farm, his father often gave him the responsibility of taking care of the horses and the other farm animals, and he was renowned in the area for managing unruly horses. Grant's father supported his son's ambitious nature to go beyond the limited life of a tanner. The family had little money for college, but the United States Military Academy at West Point, then as now, offered a deal: a superior free education in return for Army service after graduating. Without telling Ulysses, Jesse Grant applied for an appointment to the Academy for his son, who was accepted. Told of his acceptance, the shy Ulysses did not want to go. His father stated that he thought his son would go, and Ulysses "thought so too, if he did." With his father's encouragement, Grant decided to go to West Point to fulfill his own desire to travel and take advantage of the education being offered to him. When his congressman applied for Grant's appointment to West Point, he incorrectly wrote the name as Ulysses Simpson (his mother's family name) Grant instead of Hiram Ulysses Grant. Although Ulysses tried to correct the mistake when he arrived at West Point, it was too late, and thereafter he signed his name as Ulysses S. Grant. West Point was difficult for the humble youth from the Midwest. He was good at math and drawing, but his prior education was limited, leaving him an otherwise unexceptional student. His skill with horses, however, was unmatched, and he amazed everyone with his riding abilities. He seemed sure to win a coveted spot in the Army's cavalry, its horse-soldier elite, but he was assigned to the infantry after graduating twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine.

First Army Career

The United States Army of the 1840s was a small one. Grant was assigned to the Fourth Infantry at the Jefferson Barracks, just south of St. Louis, Missouri. His West Point roommate, Frederick Dent, had grown up nearby, and Grant often visited the Dent home, where the family's hospitality made him comfortable. One day while visiting, Grant met Frederick's sister, Julia Dent. Charming, smart, and sociable, Julia soon attracted Grant's declaration of love, although his service in the Mexican War would delay their union for several years. Their mutual devotion was deep and abiding throughout their courtship and 37 years of marriage. Lieutenant Grant's regiment moved further south, first to Louisiana and then Texas, to prepare for the conflict with Mexico that was brewing over the Texas territory. From 1846 to 1848, the young lieutenant fought in the Mexican War and was twice cited for his bravery. He was appointed quartermaster for the Fourth Infantry and was responsible for providing supplies and transportation as his regiment moved through the Mexican countryside. This post gave him valuable experience in the logistics of war. He also greatly admired General Zachary Taylor and his calm, confident leadership. Grant, however, did not glory in the ideals of war. He mourned his lost comrades and the waste that war created. When the war ended, Grant traveled back to St. Louis to marry Julia. Unbeknownst to the groom, all three of his Southern attendants, including James Longstreet, would fight against him during the Civil War. The Army then transferred the young lieutenant to Detroit and New York. At first, Julia was able to travel with him, but the Army then sent Grant to the Pacific Northwest, first to the Oregon Territory and then to California. He could not take his family to these distant locations and he hated being separated from them. He also ran into financial problems, became depressed, and, according to some accounts, began to drink to excess. In 1854, Grant resigned suddenly from the Army. It is still unclear what precipitated his resignation.

Hard Times

After leaving the Army, Grant returned to his wife and children in Missouri. Julia's father had given her some land, and Grant tried to farm it, building a log house he dubbed "Hardscrabble." Working hard, Grant found it difficult to make a living. When extra labor was needed, he hired free blacks. He could have made money from selling the one slave that his father-in-law gave him but instead freed the slave. The painful reality was that Ulysses could not support his family, which eventually grew to four children. He also attempted a half-dozen other lines of work over the next several years. One bleak Christmas, he pawned his watch for $22 to buy presents for his family.

By 1860, Grant was forced appeal to his father for help, and he went to work for his younger brother in a leather shop in Galena, Illinois. Soon thereafter, the South seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The Civil War had begun, and, suddenly, the North needed experienced Army officers like Grant. The governor of Illinois appointed the former captain to lead a volunteer regiment that no one else had been able to train. Grant instituted badly needed discipline, focusing on the regiment's main goals and overlooking minor details. He gradually won the men's respect and allegiance and was subsequently appointed to brigadier general.

American Civil War

From the outset of the war, the Confederacy had the advantage of fighting on its own territory, as well as fighting a limited war for independence; in contrast, the United States needed to conquer vast territory and subdue a large population. The Confederates also enjoyed strong support from their citizens and, initially, had superior commanders. But over the years, the industrial capacity of the North proved consequential. The North had the advantage in factories, money, and manpower to fill the battleground with better weapons and more soldiers. The U.S. Navy also imposed an increasingly successful blockade that prevented the South from importing materiel (equipment and supplies).

But the Northern advantage did not translate into victories, and the war dragged on. Incompetent Northern military leadership and strong Southern fighting ability continued to fan the flames for four long years. During the early phases of the conflict, the North lacked a commander with the nerve and logistical skills to take the offensive against the outgunned Rebels. President Lincoln grew frustrated with his ineffective, overcautious commanders, especially General George B. McClellan who commanded the principal Union force of the Eastern Theater, the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was the first of many generals who fought not to win but to avoid losing. In time, Lincoln would select Grant as the man to lead the North to victory.

Grant displayed his military prowess early in the conflict. In 1861, he led 3,000 troops into his first major engagement. The clash at Belmont, Missouri, was a draw, but he showed a rare Union trait at the time—a willingness to fight. More than that in this early period Grant learned something about the enemy, and about himself. "I never forgot," he wrote, "that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable." In February 1862, he captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, two critical Confederate fortifications in Tennessee. At Fort Donelson, he accepted the surrender of an entire Confederate force, earning a nickname, "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. Fort Donelson was the first real Union victory of the war, and Grant became known nationally overnight, earning a promotion to major general.

But the good press did not last long. That April of 1862, the press blamed Grant for massive losses at the Battle of Shiloh, also in Tennessee. He had been surprised by an early morning Confederate attack that pushed the Union line back, resulting in the capture of many Union soldiers. At the end of the day, however, Grant had managed to hold his position. Supported by reinforcements, he launched a counterattack on the second day that led to a Southern retreat. Although the battle was a strategic success for the Union, it came at great cost, and many held Grant responsible.

But Lincoln stood by his general. Grant was the first Union commander to truly take the war to the South and put the region on the defensive. His calm during battle astounded everyone who witnessed it. His strategy for securing the Western Theater was sound; while puffing cigar after cigar, he issued his commanders clear, concise orders while staying out of their way in the heat of battle. In 1863, Grant, now placed in command over the District of Tennessee, orchestrated the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which sat high on a bluff above the Mississippi River. Grant first attempted to capture this key installation from the north, but eventually decided to march his troops down the other side of the Mississippi and cross over it. Once they landed south of Vicksburg, Grant disregarded convention and cut his supply lines, using enemy resources to feed his troops. After defeating two separate Confederate armies at Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill, and Big Black River, the Union forces settled into a siege of Vicksburg. Six weeks later, Confederate commander Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg and with it an army of more than 27,000 men to Grant on July 4, 1863. This federal victory ended the Rebel's stranglehold on the Mississippi River, checking Confederate momentum and dealing a devastating blow to Southern morale. "Grant is my man, and I am his" declared President Lincoln after hearing of Vicksburg's fall. Not long afterward, Grant was running the entire Western Theater of the war. By November 1863, Grant secured Chattanooga, Knoxville, and eastern Tennessee for the North, and left the Confederate military command in disarray and defeat. At this time, Grant emerged as the undisputed top U.S. military hero, bringing along for promotion his talented group of western generals—William T. Sherman, Philip H. Sheridan, and James B. McPherson. In early 1864, President Lincoln named Grant lieutenant general and commander of all Union forces directing strategy and planning several major campaigns simultaneously. Grant was transferred to Washington, D.C., to oversee the war effort, especially the defeat of General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. Rather than stay in the capital and direct the war from afar, Grant joined General George Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac in the field for the spring effort. In the six-week "Overland Campaign" that followed, the Union Army suffered setbacks and high casualties in the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor as the titanic fight between Grant and Lee raged over the Virginia countryside. Grant's direct, relentless battle tactics led to such huge losses that the Democratic press began calling Grant, "The Butcher."Still, Grant pressed on against Lee, and Sherman continued his relentless march to Atlanta, Georgia, then to Savannah and South Carolina, while Sheridan led a destructive campaign in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. In late 1864 and early 1865, the invaded, decimated South lost the means and the will to fight. Union troops trapped the main Confederate Army west of Richmond and forced a surrender on April 9, 1865, at the little village crossroads of Appomattox Court House. General Lee's surrender to Grant effectively ended the war. In four years, Grant had gone from a leather-shop clerk to the most revered soldier in the Union. In 1866, he was named general of the armies, a rank that had been achieved by no one other than George Washington. Along with the military promotion came political opportunity, a development largely due to the war's centrality to American life. The Civil War dominated public discussion and the media for generations afterward. It was therefore far from surprising that a man widely credited with keeping the nation together was seen as a possible presidential candidate.

The Campaign and Election of 1868:

President Abraham Lincoln's assassination at the end of the Civil War was a tragedy beyond measure. It deprived a shattered nation of great leadership when it was most needed. Lincoln's successor, the uncharismatic Andrew Johnson, took charge of an embattled and ineffective administration.

The critical question in the aftermath of the Civil War was what to do with the defeated South. Congress and the President struggled to find a balance between support for black civil rights and support for white leadership. This effort at Reconstruction, at bringing the shattered South back into the Union, nearly destroyed the Johnson administration. Johnson wanted to reunite the nation as rapidly as possible while maintaining the electorate as an exclusively white entity. He had comparatively little interest in protecting the rights of the newly freed slaves. The Republican Party was divided over the President's approach to Reconstruction. The Radical Republicans supported policies that did not allow the leaders of the Confederacy to hold political power and provided African Americans with civil and political rights, including the right to vote. They were opposed in that effort by many moderate Republicans and nearly all Democrats.

At the beginning of the Reconstruction era, Grant, as general of the armies, attempted to work with Johnson. However, he did not like the President's policies, which he thought repudiated the war's legacy. A dispute arose between the two in 1867 when Grant refused to back Johnson in his struggle with Congress. Thereafter, the general moved increasingly towards the Radical's viewpoint. He came to believe that the federal government had to preserve the sacrifices of the war by protecting African Americans from racist Southern governments and preventing former Confederates from retaking power. The Radicals began to court Grant with the idea of running him for President. Grant claimed that he had little interest in the presidency, but popular demand for his candidacy was too strong. At the Republican Party convention in 1868, Grant's nomination, which he won on the first ballot, was a mere formality. Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax of Indiana was designated his running mate. The Democrats named New York governor Horatio Seymour to oppose them. As was the custom of the times, the 46-year-old Grant did not campaign. But he was easily the most popular candidate, and his election was never seriously challenged. He won the Electoral College vote by a nearly 3:1 margin over Seymour. Helped by the newly enfranchised Southern blacks in some reconstructed states, he won the popular vote by 300,000.

The Campaign and Election of 1872

After four years in office, Grant's popularity was still high but a segment of the Republican Party was disenchanted with his policies. They split from the Republican Party to challenge Grant, calling themselves the Liberal Republicans. They opposed the President's policies in the South, specifically his support for civil rights for African Americans and federal government intervention in the South. They wanted to replace Reconstruction in the South with local self-government, which essentially meant the return of white rule. The Liberal Republicans nominated Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune, as their candidate. The Democratic Party, thrilled at the divided Republicans, jumped on the Greeley bandwagon, nominating him as its candidate as well. However, the eccentric newspaper man was no match for Grant. Greeley supported high tariffs (even though the Liberal Republicans advocated free trade) and had switched sides on many major issues—for example, he first supported secession but then later called for total war against the South, he wanted a tough Reconstruction but amnesty for former Confederates. Election results rejected Greeley and the Democratic platform with the electorate confirming Grant's stature by a margin of 56 percent to 44 percent and an Electoral College majority of 286 to 66. The President's reelection victory also brought an overwhelming Republican majority into both house of Congress.

When Ulysses S. Grant came into office, he sought to remain above politics. When he announced his first cabinet appointments, he dismayed Republican Party leaders who thought the President owed them cabinet positions for their support in the election. However, Grant kept his own counsel and balked at using his appointments for political leverage. He wanted to surround himself with people he could trust and to whom he could delegate responsibility. The result was a decidedly mixed cabinet. While he made some good selections, most notably Hamilton Fish as secretary of state, he made many mediocre appointments. His cabinet also had a high turnover rate. In addition, Grant was extremely loyal to those who had helped him or worked with him in the past; this loyalty prevented him from ruthlessly purging his administration of ineffective or corrupt politicians, and his administration was often noted for its scandals, although the President was never personally implicated in any of them.

Reconstruction

Grant came into office during an incredibly difficult time in American history. The Civil War was over, and the country was grappling with how to rebuild and reunite in the war's aftermath. As President, Grant was determined to follow Lincoln's policy of reconciliation with the South rather than one of retribution or appeasement. He also wanted to make sure that the federal government preserved the sacrifices of the war by sustaining a strong Union while at the same time protecting the newly freed slaves and preventing former unreconstructed Confederates from regaining power in the South. Those goals proved difficult, if not impossible to reconcile.A majority of Americans—both Northerners and Southerners—rejected civil and political rights for blacks. Racism plagued much of American society, and although the North supported abolishing slavery to hasten the end of the war, many whites did not equate black freedom with racial equality. In this social climate, the President faced a unique challenge: How could he actively protect the rights of the newly freed slaves without alienating a large segment of the American public? In the beginning of his presidency, Grant continued the policies of congressional Reconstruction, and he used both the military and federal legislation to protect black citizens. He also wanted to help the Republican Party flourish in the South, a goal unattainable without black voters and at least a portion of the white voters. In his inaugural address, he urged the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, which would give citizens the right to vote regardless of race or previous servitude. He proudly signed off on the Amendment in 1870, declaring that it was "a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free government to the present day." Beginning in 1870, Congress passed a series of laws known collectively as the Enforcement Acts to help protect the right to vote. One of these was the Ku Klux Klan Act, which Grant signed in April 1871 to counter the rise of terrorist activity in the South. When white Southerners could not prevent blacks from voting legally, they terrorized them to try to keep them away from the polls. The President used South Carolina as an example to prove that the federal government would intervene in extreme cases of violence. In October 1871, he instituted martial law in nine counties in South Carolina and used federal troops to restore law and order in those areas. However, there were many examples when the President did not interfere in the South, especially when such intervention became increasingly unpopular in the North, threatening the Republican electoral majority. He did not always want the federal government to become the arbiter of state conflicts. He believed in a federal system in which the states maintained much of their autonomy separate from the federal government. So when conflicts arose in states such as Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, or Mississippi, Grant did not always intervene. He sometimes provided federal troops to maintain law and order but often refused to decide which state authority was paramount. Eventually much of the country, especially people in the North, lost interest in Reconstruction. White Southerners, who wanted the federal government to stay out of what they considered internal state affairs, were only too pleased with this development. The Panic of 1873 and the subsequent depression generated an even more heightened desire by Americans to focus on their own individual needs. Many were also disgusted by the corruption of Southern governments, both Democratic and Republican. This political climate did not augur well for Republicans. Already the Democrats had regained control of many Southern state governments, and the Republicans had little chance of reestablishing power in the South. But if they continued to push federal intervention in the South, they might lose votes in the North as well. Many Republicans, therefore, including those within the Grant administration, began to turn away from the South in order to maintain their strength in the North. Critics have assailed Grant's policy toward Reconstruction as either doing too much (by sending federal troops into Southern states) or by doing too little (not effectively protecting black rights). Grant wanted to meet the needs of the newly freed slaves and, at the same time, entice white Southerners into a Republican Party dedicated to creating jobs and solid businesses in the defeated region. However, it proved impossible for him to achieve these two competing goals. When he used federal troops or legislation to defend the rights of blacks, whites assailed him as a tyrant trampling states' rights. Yet it went against his personal and political goals to abandon the freed slaves and the Republican Party in the South. In the end, Grant had little chance to take his good intentions and make them into effective policy.

Fiscal Policy

Grant was essentially a fiscal conservative, a hard-money man who believed that the country's currency should be backed by gold. During the Civil War, the government had issued an excess of paper money, known as greenbacks, to finance its wartime spending. Greenbacks were backed by faith in the federal government and therefore had more value after the Union won the war. However, this currency was an inflationary force and helped to destabilize the economy. In 1869, two New York speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk, hatched a plan to corner the gold market. If they could convince the Grant administration not to sell any of the government's gold, the gold that they owned would become more valuable. So they plotted with Grant's brother-in-law to convince the President to withhold gold from the market. However, Gould and Fisk overestimated their agent's influence with Grant. When the President and his treasury secretary, George Boutwell, realized what was at stake, they ordered the sale on Friday, September 24, 1869, of $4 million in gold to break the speculators. This action caused a crash in the price of gold and resulted in financial ruin for many investors. The event, which became known as Black Friday, tarnished the administration's reputation, although Grant played no part in the scheme.

After his reelection in 1872, Grant faced a new fiscal challenge when the Panic of 1873 touched off a nation-wide depression. The economic downturn had many causes, including an economic depression in Europe, rapid industrial and agricultural growth, overexpansion of the railroads, and the effects of the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War in Europe. The panic began when various Wall Street firms started going under and led to failing banks, increased bankruptcies, rising unemployment, and lost farms. In the midst of this depression, President Grant vetoed what was known as the inflation bill, which would have injected more greenbacks into the economy. Many people argued that expanding the money supply would improve the economic situation and help end the depression. Although Grant initially intended to sign the bill, he later changed his mind and vetoed it. In 1875, the President signed the Specie Resumption Act, which resulted in the government once again placing its currency on specie (gold) following Europe's example and gradually removing the remaining greenbacks from circulation. These two important actions by Grant resulted in the United States following a hard-currency course for the rest of the nineteenth century. They also established the Republican Party as the party of economic conservatism and fiscal restraint.

Native American Policy

In his first inaugural address, Grant pledged to rethink the treatment of Native Americans, referring to them as "the original occupants of this land." He wanted to shift federal Indian policy toward what became known as the Peace Policy. This approach attempted to move Indians closer to white civilization (and ultimately U.S. citizenship) by housing them on reservations and helping them become farmers. Grant appointed a former military aide and Seneca Indian, Brigadier General Ely S. Parker, as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Parker was the first nonwhite appointment to a major federal position. To address corruption in federal Indian affairs, Grant also created a new Board of Indian Commissioners headed by philanthropic leaders. The board recommended the government stop using political appointees as Indian agents. Grant adopted that recommendation and turned to missionaries—especially Quakers—and Army personnel to serve as agents. However, these changes fell short of radically altering conditions for Native Americans in the United States. White settlers, with governmental support, continued to push Indians aside to take land, and they relied on the Army to prevent Indian attacks. At the same time, Native Americans on reservations had little chance of creating farms out of desolate pieces of land and were beset by poverty and desperation. While Grant's approach marked an improvement in U.S. Indian policy, it is remembered more for its good intentions than for lasting changes.

Scandals

Historically, much has been made of the scandals that rocked the Grant administration. There is no denying that the President was not a great judge of character when it came to the men who served under him. He was too loyal to those who were dishonest and opportunistic. However, Grant himself was never a target of investigation. His honesty was never questioned, and he did not personally benefit from any of the scandals. Still the charges of corruption damaged his presidency in the eyes of the American people. In 1872, the Credit Mobilier scandal was exposed. Although the bulk of the charges predated Grant's presidency, it involved railroad companies overcharging millions of dollars for government contracts. Previously, when Congress was about to launch an investigation into the overcharging in 1867, the company's directors bribed various government officials with company shares to prevent it. When Congress finished a subsequent investigation in 1873, it had a negative impact on the Grant administration. Indeed, in the run-up to the 1872 presidential election, Grant had taken his vice president, Schuyler Colfax, off the Republican ticket in part because of his ties to this scandal. In 1875, Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow investigated distillers in the Midwest who were swindling the national government out of excise taxes with the help of federal agents. When Bristow presented Grant with evidence of the fraud, the President encouraged him to prosecute what became known as the Whiskey Ring. However, the prosecution soon implicated Grant's personal secretary, Orville Babcock, who had known about the fraud. Babcock was indicted and brought to civil trial in 1876. Grant then took the unusual step of giving a deposition in his defense. Babcock was found not guilty but had to leave his position as private secretary. In the midst of these scandals, Grant focused on the problem of patronage, becoming the first President to recommend a professional civil service to combat the vices of the spoils system. He appointed the first Civil Service Commission, which recommended administering competitive exams and issuing regulations on the hiring and promotion of government employees. Grant put their recommendations into effect in 1872. However, Congress thwarted long-term reform by refusing to enact the necessary legislation to make the changes permanent.

After the Civil War, much of America's attention turned inwards as the country concentrated on rebuilding. Nevertheless, Grant's appointment of Hamilton Fish as secretary of state was one of his best decisions. The two men worked well together and respected each other's opinions although they did not always agree. Fish remained in the Grant administration for its entire eight years.

Cuban Insurrection

From the outset, both President Grant and Secretary of State Fish focused their attention on the Caribbean region. In 1868, Cuban rebels began to fight a guerrilla campaign against Spain to win independence. Although many Americans were sympathetic to the rebels and wanted to support them, Grant and Fish sought to avoid a possible war with Spain just as the United States was trying to recover from the Civil War. Despite the administration's stance, many in Congress wanted to support the rebels. When Congress attempted to pass a resolution recognizing the Cuban rebels' fight against Spain, Grant sent a message reasserting the administration's position, and the resolution was defeated. The administration tried to negotiate with Spain to acquire Cuba but talks failed. Ultimately, Spain reasserted its control over the island nation, and the United States stepped back from the situation.

Annexing Santo Domingo

One of Grant's failed initiatives in foreign policy involved the Caribbean nation of Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic). For many years, the U.S. Navy had wanted a base in the Caribbean to house its operations. Santo Domingo had a suitable bay, and its government was interested in having the United States annex the country. The President was also interested in the island nation because it presented black Americans with an alternative to staying in the South and facing discrimination and violence. He believed that blacks would be in a better position to negotiate with Southern whites about improving working conditions if they could chose to leave the South and immigrate to Santo Domingo. Although Secretary of State Fish did not support annexing Santo Domingo, he agreed to send Grant's private secretary to the country to assess the situation. After his secretary returned with a report favoring annexation, Grant spoke with Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner, chair of the foreign relations committee, to gain his support. The two men had always been uneasy allies and their talk left Grant with the impression—incorrect, as it turned out—that Sumner would support annexation. However, when the President presented the relevant treaty to the Senate in 1870, Sumner spoke out against it and withheld his support. In the end, it failed to pass the Senate. However, Grant was unwilling to give up. He persuaded enough senators and representatives to support a fact-finding commission of three men that would explore the situation in Santo Domingo. Although the commission recommended annexation, public opinion had turned against the treaty, and the issue disappeared from public debate.

Alabama Claims

During the Civil War, Britain had declared its neutrality but some of its citizens, interested in the cotton trade and other profits, aligned with the South. English firms constructed Confederate warships, which the South used to disrupt Northern shipping. After the war ended, the United States claimed that Britain owed it compensation for disrupting shipping, prolonging the length of the war, and violating its neutrality. Known collectively as the Alabama Claims (the Alabama was a Confederate cruiser), these accusations strained British and American relations. The United States and Britain also divided over a number of unresolved issues regarding Canada, such as fishing rights and boundary disputes. Secretary of State Fish convinced Grant of the importance of improving U.S. relations with Britain, and Grant let him handle the negotiations to resolve the Alabama Claims and other issues. A Joint High Commission made up of American, Canadian, and British negotiators met in Washington, D.C., in 1871 to hammer out an agreement. The commission resolved most of the issues and agreed to submit the Alabama Claims to international arbitration. The Senate quickly approved the resulting Treaty of Washington, which determined that Britain owed the United States $15.5 million. Although the 1872 treaty favored the United States, it greatly improved Anglo-American relations and made international arbitration more widely accepted. It was also seen as one of greatest accomplishments of Grant's presidency.