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6 Grant and the Republic, 1868–1872 I n their long struggle to preserve republican government, the liberal republicans initially embraced Ulysses S. Grant as a savior. From the late 1840s onward their classical republican ideology had led them to fight against various perceived forms of corruption and tyranny threatening the nation’s republican institutions. During the antebellum period, most of their focus had been on the dangerous effects of slavery. While battling the Slave Power during the Civil War, the liberal republicans increasingly expressed concerns about the measures being taken to ensure victory, such as protective tariffs and the growth of federal power. By 1868, they wanted to finish the reconstruction of the South and turn their attention to the corruption and centralization of power that had taken root in government during the war. They thought Grant would renew republican government in the United States and eagerly embraced his presidency. Grant soon disappointed the liberal republicans, however, as he seemed to exacerbate the existing threats to republican institutions, creating more corruption and acting tyrannically. Their hesitant opposition to Grant in 1872 represented the continuation of a long struggle to preserve republican government. The liberal republicans were among the earliest and most enthusiastic Grant supporters. In late 1867 the Springfield Republican, The Nation, and the New York Evening Post began a long campaign to make Grant the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. The newspapers repeatedly expressed faith in his ability and judgment, with the Republican declaring, ‘‘The real republican platform for 1868 will be Ulysses S. Grant, as embodying honesty, executive ability, justice and generosity to the South, and an earnest purpose to restore the Union.’’ Such sentiments were not mere political rhetoric, for the liberal republicans privately expressed similar confidence in Grant. Edward Atkinson wrote to his friend David Wells in early 1868 that in the political intrigue between Grant and Andrew Johnson, ‘‘Grant is too honest and too self-sacrificing and only by his integrity has carried the day.’’ While also reflecting his growing frustration with Johnson, Atkinson’s letter still confounds the traditional assessments of liberal republican attitudes toward Grant and demonstrates impossibly high expectations for Grant’s ability to reform the government.1 Grant and the Republic 109 After Grant’s nomination at the Republican Convention held in Chicago in May 1868, the liberal republicans quickly joined the presidential campaign. As usual in Civil War–era politics, the liberal republican newspapers ran constant assaults on potential challengers while lavishing praise on their chosen candidate . The Nation, for instance, attacked longtime Republican Salmon P. Chase when the opportunistic Chief Justice of the Supreme Court began flirting with the Democrats after losing the Republican nomination to Grant. ‘‘A man’s fitness for the presidency is rather a question of character than of acquirements,’’ argued The Nation, and ‘‘there is little in our humble opinion to be said for the Chief-Justice, and a great deal to be said for Grant.’’ The liberal republicans’ partisan support of Grant in some instances included their assuming formal roles in his campaign. Carl Schurz stumped across the country proclaiming that ‘‘no fitter man than General Grant could be found’’ to reconstruct the nation, and Horace White served as an insider in the Grant campaign machine.2 The liberal republicans’ enthusiasm for Grant reflected their belief that his election would signal the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of a comprehensive reform of the government. Upon Grant’s nomination, the Springfield Republican insisted that the reason he had been chosen ‘‘was because of a general sentiment that precisely this man was needed to secure the full and final reconstruction of the South, to inaugurate a thorough and searching retrenchment in the expenses of the government, to introduce into the civil service the same high standard with which his military selections have ever been made.’’ Atkinson informed a Republican congressman in July that corruption in Congress would destroy the Republican Party, as ‘‘no honest or decent man can be content in a party of which a majority declare themselves to be thieves and swindlers. I trust Genl Grant will disown such a connection as every honest man must.’’3 Reconstruction, however, was the key campaign issue. Carl Schurz focused on it in his major campaign speech and cast it in typical republican terms. Reviving the antebellum Slave Power arguments, he contended that the Civil War had been about the struggle ‘‘to break the power of aristocratic class government...

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