(via Yglesias, again) Name a great U.S. President - A great civil rights President: Lincoln? TR? FDR? LBJ? .... U.S. Grant?! This essay argues that General Grant was one of the greatest progressive presidents. His administration bore the Department of Justice, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, the 15th Amendment, and attacked Klan violence. Grants presidency represented the brief period in American history where blacks could vote and elect their own representatives, and his Administration's "corruption" was a convenient explanation for why the period failed ... while the author argues it was really the rightward turn in the Supreme Court and then (without the black vote) the Republican Party's embrace of the Robber Barons that led to another 100 years of injustice.
Fredrick Douglas said of Grant:
"To Grant more than any other man the Negro owes his enfranchisement and the Indians a humane policy. In the matter of the protection of the freedman from violence his moral courage surpassed that of his party."
1 comment:
Love Grant. Always have, always will and now I have even more love.
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