Grant Administration
Record
The great popularity of
General Ulysses S. Grant with Unionists during the Civil War
carried over into his presidency. Although his administration is
often derided by historians, his stature remained high with many
Americans at the time, and most of the scandals that would later
plague his presidency had not yet been exposed when he sought
reelection in 1872. Grant assumed the presidency in March 1869
as America was undergoing the sweeping, unresolved changes of
Reconstruction; thus the important and difficult
responsibilities of implementing Congress’s Reconstruction Acts
fell upon his shoulders.
During Grant’s first term, all of the former Confederate
states were fully recognized with new state governments and
Congressional representation; the 15th Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution was adopted in an attempt to secure the
voting rights of black men; the Enforcement Acts, including the
Ku Klux Klan Act, augmented the president’s powers to fight
anti-black violence; and the Amnesty Act pardoned nearly all
former Confederates. In addition, the economy was good, and the
national debt had been reduced substantially.
It was President Grant who established the nation’s first
federal civil service commission, a reform dear to the liberal
wing of his Republican party. Yet many of those same reformers
believed that Grant’s practice of appointing allegedly
unqualified cronies—which critics dubbed "Grantism"—contradicted
his rhetorical commitment to a merit system of public service.
The liberals were also upset by the president’s foreign policy,
which included an aborted attempt to annex Santo Domingo (today,
the Dominican Republic) and flirtation with the independence
movement in Spanish-controlled Cuba.
Grant’s first administration negotiated the Treaty of
Washington (1871) between the United States and Great Britain.
The parties agreed to submit American financial claims against
Britain for constructing and refitting Confederate warships
during the American Civil War (collectively called the "Alabama
claims"), as well as a dispute between British Canada and the
U.S. over fishing rights, to an international commission for
arbitration. The panel awarded the U.S. $15.5 million in
damages.
The Grant administration’s only major scandal of the first
term—Crédit Mobilier—would break in the press late in the
reelection campaign. Managers of Crédit Mobilier, the holding
company for the federally subsidized Union Pacific Railroad,
were accused of siphoning off huge amounts of public money for
personal gain. Trying to cover up their misdeeds and gain
leniency in Congress, the corporation’s officers gave key
Congressmen bribes in the form of discounted stock. Among the
accused were Grant’s vice president, Schuyler Colfax, and his
1872 running-mate, Henry Wilson.
Liberal Republican
Movement
As issues related to
Reconstruction began to fade in importance for many Northerners,
a faction of liberal Republicans became increasingly
dissatisfied with the Grant administration. The liberals
identified the patronage system as the source of inefficient and
corrupt governance, so they pushed for civil service
reform—i.e., the replacement of the partisan patronage system of
government bureaucracy with nonpartisan merit hiring, promotion,
and tenure. Most liberals also advocated free trade, the gold
monetary standard ("hard money"), and public education, and
opposed a continued military presence in the South, an
expansionist, bellicose foreign policy, and public funds for
sectarian (read: Catholic) education.
Although limited in numbers, the liberals—many of whom were
politicians, newspaper editors, public speakers, or writers—were
influential in promoting issues and defining the terms of public
policy debate. The movement, with somewhat shifting membership,
can be traced from their temporary break with the Republican
party in 1872 to their support of Benjamin Bristow for the
Republican nomination in 1876 (with a few eventually supporting
the Democrat Samuel Tilden) to their bolt from the Republican
party in 1884 to support Democrat Grover Cleveland.
In September 1870, Missouri liberals were the first to
establish a separate Liberal Republican party. Foreshadowing the
national strategy in 1872, they formed an alliance with the
state’s Democrats to overthrow the regular Republicans. On
January 24, 1872, U.S. Senator Carl Schurz of Missouri, judging
the Grant administration to be irredeemable, issued a call for a
national convention of liberals to nominate a candidate for
president. Over the next few months, Liberal Republican editors,
delegates, and other supporters warned repeatedly that caution
should be taken in choosing the best nominee.
The German-born Schurz was ineligible for the presidency and
Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts took himself out of the
running. Chief Justice Salmon Chase had long desired to be chief
executive and indicated interest again in 1872, but, aging and
ill, he was unable to secure sufficient backing. Governor Gratz
Brown was Missouri’s favorite-son candidate, but lacked broad
appeal. Horace Greeley, the maverick editor of the New York
Tribune, had some support among the New York delegation, but
was considered more as a possible vice-presidential nominee.
U.S. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois was a real possibility,
but he was rather colorless and was unenthusiastic about the
prospect. The two top candidates were former diplomat Charles
Francis Adams of Massachusetts and Supreme Court Justice David
Davis of Illinois.
Adams, the son and grandson of Presidents John Quincy Adams
and John Adams, respectively, had earned a distinguished record
as the American minister to Britain during the Civil War and a
reputation for personal integrity. The aristocratic Adams,
however, refused to sully himself with behind-the-scenes
politicking for the nomination. That aloofness, plus his
advanced age (65), pro-British views, questionable commitment to
reform, and close association with the irascible, unpopular
Schurz, all combined to work against his selection as the
Liberal Republican nominee.
In the months leading up to the convention, the amiable and
ambitious Davis was the front-runner, drawing strength from
Southern and Midwestern delegations. He was also popular with
Democrats; so much so that some Liberal Republicans wondered if
he was really a Democrat in Liberal-Republican clothing. A
quartet of Liberal-Republican editors—Samuel Bowles of the
Springfield Republican (MA), Murat Halstead of the
Cincinnati Commercial, Henry Watterson of the Louisville
Courier-Journal, and Horace White of the Chicago Tribune—conspired
to deny Davis the nomination by each attacking him editorially
from different angles. The boozy, boisterous, brazen behavior of
Davis’s own campaign workers at the convention was the coup
de grâce to his candidacy.
The Liberal Republican convention, chaired by Schurz,
convened in Cincinnati on May 1. The large, disparate group of
delegates, partially inspired by keynote-speaker Schurz, were
confident that they were initiating a new era of reform,
although there was not clear agreement on which reforms. The
party platform denounced corruption in government, endorsed
civil service reform, a one-term presidency, the Reconstruction
Amendments, equal rights under the law, amnesty for former
Confederates, and the withdrawal of federal troops from the
South. After much debate, it left the divisive tariff issue to
be decided by the electorate through their Congressional
representatives.
In the battle for the presidential nomination, Adams made a
strong showing on the first ballot with 205 votes, but well
short of the necessary 358. Greeley placed a surprisingly
competitive second with 147 votes, followed by Trumbull with
110, Brown with 95, and the weakened Davis with 92. Governor
Brown promptly withdrew and endorsed Greeley, in part to block
Adams, the candidate of Brown’s sworn enemy in Missouri, Senator
Schurz. That gave momentum to Greeley, who edged past Adams on
the second ballot, 245 to 243, even though not all of the Brown
men cast their ballots for the editor. Southern delegates began
to coalesce behind Greeley, while Midwesterners shored up Adams,
permitting the diplomat to regain and hold the lead on the next
several ballots.
Meanwhile, Davis’ base collapsed while Trumbull picked up
steam, peaking at 156 votes on the third ballot. After the fifth
ballot, the Greeley and Adams forces blocked a move to call a
recess. The sixth ballot proved to be decisive, as the South and
West solidified behind Greeley, allowing him to retake the lead
(334 to 324), and as it became apparent that enough delegates
were refusing to vote for Adams to prevent him from winning.
Minnesota and Pennsylvania then switched to Greeley and other
states jumped on the bandwagon, putting the editor over the top
with 482 to a diminished 187 for Adams. Next, the delegates
chose Gratz Brown as the vice-presidential nominee.
Carl Schurz and other Adams supporters were shocked by
Greeley’s selection, as were much of the press and public. For
one thing, the largely free-trade Liberal Republicans had chosen
an ardent protectionist as their standard-bearer. Moreover, the
Tribune editor had virtually no experience in government,
was known for his eccentric, erratic persona and support of a
wide variety of fringe ideas from vegetarianism to spiritualism,
and had left a massive paper trail of controversial and
sometimes contradictory public statements for the press and his
political enemies to pick over. One reporter blamed the
nomination on "too much brains and not enough whiskey" at the
convention. In truth, it was probably the demise of Davis; the
skillful back-room maneuvering of Greeley’s campaign
managers—Whitelaw Reid, Theodore Tilton, and William Dorsheimer;
the unpalatable nature of Adams to some; and the popularity of
Greeley as many delegates’ second choice.
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