Charles Francis Atkinson and John Fiske

“ The evil rose to alarming proportions during Grant’s presidency, partly because of the immense extension of the civil service, partly because of the growing tendency to alliance between spoilsmen and the persons benefited by protective tariffs, and partly because the public attention was still so much absorbed in Southern affairs that little energy was left for curbing rascality in the North. The scandals, indeed, were rife in Washington, and affected persons in close relations with the president. ”

“ The cause at stake over-rode every prejudice and the people of the United States, since the war, have been in general content to leave the question alone, as was evidenced by the outcry raised in 1908, when President Taft reopened it in a speech at Grant’s tomb. ”

“ President Johnson was much disgusted at the readiness with which Grant turned over the office to Stanton, and a bitter controversy ensued between Johnson and Grant. Hitherto Grant had taken little part in politics. The only vote which he had ever cast for a presidential candidate was in 1856 for Presidency, 1868. James Buchanan; and leading Democrats, so late as the beginning of 1868, hoped to make him their candidate in the election of that year; but the effect of the controversy with President Johnson was to bring Grant forward as the candidate of the Republican party. ”

“ In 1869 the government of Santo Domingo (or the Dominican Republic) expressed a wish for annexation by the United States, and such a step was favoured by Grant, but a treaty negotiated with this end in view failed to obtain the requisite two-thirds vote in the Senate. In May 1872 something was done towards alleviating the odious Reconstruction laws for dragooning the South, which had been passed by Congress in spite of the vetoes of President Johnson. The Amnesty Bill restored civil rights to all persons in the South, save from 300 to 500 who had held high positions under the Confederacy. ”

“ The feeling was widely prevalent in the spring of 1872 that the interests of pure government in the United States demanded that President Grant should not be elected to a second term. This feeling led a number of high-minded gentlemen to form themselves into an organization under the name of Liberal Republicans. They held a convention at Cincinnati in May with the intention of nominating for the presidency Charles Francis Adams, who had ably represented the United States at the court of St James’s during the Civil War. ”

“ That he succeeded in the efficient exercise of the chief command of armies of a total strength of over one million men, operating many hundreds of miles apart from each other, while at the same time he watched and manœuvred against a great captain and a veteran army in one field of the war, must be the greatest proof of Grant’s powers as a general. In the end complete success rewarded the sacrifices and efforts of the Federals on every theatre of war ”

“ The most important event in foreign policy was the treaty with Great Britain of the 8th of May 1871, commonly known as the Treaty of Washington, whereby several controversies between the United States and Great Britain, including the bitter questions as to damage inflicted upon the United States by the “Alabama” and other Confederate cruisers built and equipped in England, were referred to arbitration. ”

“ Grant, however, insisted that the United States government was bound by the terms accorded to Lee and his army at Appomattox. He went so far as to threaten to resign his commission if the president disregarded his protest. This energetic action on Grant’s part saved the United States from a foul stain upon its escutcheon. In July 1866 the grade of general was created, for the first time since the organization of the government, and Grant was promoted to that position. In the following year he became involved in the deadly quarrel between President Johnson and Congress. ”

“ Early in 1862 he was entrusted by General H. W. Halleck with the command of a large force to clear the lower reaches of the Cumberland and the Tennessee, and, whatever criticism may be passed on the general strategy of the campaign, Grant himself, by his able and energetic work, thoroughly deserved the credit of his brilliant success of Fort Donelson, where 15,000 Confederates were forced to capitulate. ”

“ For the next six years he lived in St Louis, Missouri, earning a scanty subsistence by farming and dealings in real estate. In 1860 he removed to Galena, Illinois, and became a clerk in a leather store kept by his father. At that time his earning capacity seems not to have exceeded $800 a year, and he was regarded by his friends as a broken and disappointed man. ”