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Ulysses S. Grant Died 130 Years Ago. Racists Hate Him, But Historians No Longer Do.
The Huffington Post ^ | 23rd July 2015 | Nick Baumann

Posted on 07/24/2015 2:30:32 PM PDT by the scotsman

'After Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, died 130 years ago today, a million and a half Americans watched his funeral procession. His mausoleum was a popular tourist attraction in New York City for decades. But for most of the 20th Century, historians and non-historians alike believed Grant was corrupt, drunken and incompetent, that he was one of the country's worst presidents, and that as a general, he was more lucky than good.

A generation of historians, led by Columbia's William A. Dunning, criticized Grant for backing Reconstruction, the federal government's attempt to protect the rights of black southerners in the 1860s and early 1870s. Black people, some Dunning school historians suggested, were unsuited for education, the vote, or holding office. Grant's critics were "determined the Civil War would be interpreted from the point of view of the Confederacy," said John F. Marszalek, a historian and executive director of the Ulysses S. Grant Association. "The idea that Grant would do things that would ensure citizenship rights for blacks was just awful and so he had to be knocked down."

Grant's "presidency was basically seen as corrupt, and it took place during Reconstruction, which was seen as basically the lowest point of American history," said Eric Foner, a civil war historian at Columbia University. "Whatever Grant did to protect former slaves was naïveté or worse."

In recent decades, that's all changed. The Grant you learned about in school isn't the one your kids will read about in their textbooks. And that's because historians are in the midst of a broad reassessment of Grant's legacy. In just nine years, between 2000 and 2009, Grant jumped 10 spots in a C-SPAN survey of historians' presidential rankings, from 33rd to 23rd -- a bigger jump than any other president.'

(Excerpt) Read more at huffingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: butcher; civilwar; columbia; corrupt; corruptpresident; democratsforslavery; grant; hiramulyssesgrant; presidents; reconstruction; thebutcher; thecivilwar; theconfederacysucked; ulyssessgrant; williamadunning
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1 posted on 07/24/2015 2:30:32 PM PDT by the scotsman
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To: the scotsman

Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?


2 posted on 07/24/2015 2:33:35 PM PDT by Rebelbase ( NASCAR 2015: "Bootlegger to boot licker"--FReeper Crim)
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To: Rebelbase

No one. The deceased aren’t “buried “ in a tomb:-)


3 posted on 07/24/2015 2:36:03 PM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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To: Rebelbase

Maybe they can dig up Bedford Forrest and put him there.


4 posted on 07/24/2015 2:36:34 PM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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To: the scotsman

His liver hasn’t been officially declared dead.


5 posted on 07/24/2015 2:38:07 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: the scotsman

Actually his memoir is well written.


6 posted on 07/24/2015 2:38:44 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: the scotsman

if only one could go back in time , bearing a scoped Whitworth , at Pittsburg Landing ....


7 posted on 07/24/2015 2:39:14 PM PDT by LeoWindhorse
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To: the scotsman

Live him or hate him

Grant knew how to win.

Wish we had him for the fight against muslim terror


8 posted on 07/24/2015 2:40:24 PM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: central_va

I’ve got Grant’s memoir sitting on the shelf beside me. It is indeed a great read.


9 posted on 07/24/2015 2:41:27 PM PDT by Rebelbase ( NASCAR 2015: "Bootlegger to boot licker"--FReeper Crim)
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To: LeoWindhorse

I was thinking the (almost) same thing earlier today. Imagine how many lives could have been spared if someone had just put a bullet in jeff davis’s brain as he abandoned the senate.


10 posted on 07/24/2015 2:41:57 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: Rebelbase

IMO I think his publisher Mark Twain helped him.


11 posted on 07/24/2015 2:44:39 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: 2banana

Grant was good at turning the handle on Lincolns meat grinder.


12 posted on 07/24/2015 2:45:40 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: rockrr
How much of a plus was Davis to the Confederate war effort, though?

MacKinlay Cantor has Grant dying in a riding accident outside Vicksburg in his If the South Had Won the Civil War. But he also has to make Lee's Gettysburg gamble pay off in the capture of Washington DC.

13 posted on 07/24/2015 2:48:28 PM PDT by x
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To: Rebelbase

Find out what kind of whiskey he drinks so I can send a barrel of it to all my generals. - A. Lincoln


14 posted on 07/24/2015 2:49:58 PM PDT by scrabblehack
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To: x

Lee always spoke very highly of Davis.


15 posted on 07/24/2015 2:50:01 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: the scotsman
... But Historians No Longer Do.

Most historians are statists. Grant was a monster who broke with centuries of precedent governing the conduct of war. When he couldn't defeat Lee in the field he turned to making war on civilians. Western civilization had not seen that kind of barbarism since the Thirty Years War.

16 posted on 07/24/2015 2:50:32 PM PDT by SeeSharp
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To: the scotsman

17 posted on 07/24/2015 2:51:45 PM PDT by xp38
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To: the scotsman
Here is President Grant writing his memoirs as he had been stricken with cancer and
he hoped the sales from the book would take care of his family after he died.

Yeah, in those days, the president did not get millions in benefits when they left office.

18 posted on 07/24/2015 2:53:06 PM PDT by Slyfox (If I'm ever accused of being a Christian, I'd like there to be enough evidence to convict me)
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To: SeeSharp

Actually IMO the Army of the Potomac was the best behaved union Army. Not saying much though. They were good at marching south and running north.


19 posted on 07/24/2015 2:53:30 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: x

If for no other reason that to cut the head off the snake.


20 posted on 07/24/2015 2:53:41 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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