Stolengood
Banned
...actually, it was during the Lincoln Administration. Yet old Father Abraham never gets blamed for that one...Grant gets blame for Credit Mobilier but the actual deeds took place during the Johnson administration.
...actually, it was during the Lincoln Administration. Yet old Father Abraham never gets blamed for that one...Grant gets blame for Credit Mobilier but the actual deeds took place during the Johnson administration.
...actually, it was during the Lincoln Administration. Yet old Father Abraham never gets blamed for that one...
...I was just pointing it out. The rot started under him, sadly; he wasn't entirely a goddamn saint, yohnny ranklins...Probably because most people figure that Lincoln had better things to worry about like a civil war.
...I was just pointing it out. The rot started under him, sadly; he wasn't entirely a goddamn saint, yohnny ranklins...
Which makes Grant a bona-fide one, since he wasn't a politician at all?Of course he wasn't entirely a saint, he was a politician after all.
Which makes Grant a bona-fide one, since he wasn't a politician at all?![]()
...I knew it was a joke. Hence, my reaction.It was a joke . In any case Lincoln had his faults along with everyone else.
It peaked under Grant, but it also began to decline under Grant. At the end of the day, Grant (especially in his second term) saw the various multiracial Reconstruction-era governments give way to the Redeemers and their white supremacist politics.
Certainly, Grant was a vastly better civil rights president than either Johnson or Hayes, but that's hardly a high bar. One can respect what he accomplished without overlooking his very serious failures, and I do think these failures are important in evaluating his presidency. Just because Lost Causers also hated him for terrible reasons doesn't mean that his presidency was a success.
Isn't the strongest narrative by far in popular culture more "Grant was a butcher a drunk and a crook"? Not that we should go too far in the other direction in imputing uniquely liberal attitudes to Grant, but his pop culture reputation is a little unfairly negative to say the least.More meant as a corrective to the general "Grant as civil rights champion." There is a strong narrative out there that tends to whitewash his faults;
Traditionally? Sure (and as you note, that's quite unfair to arguably the best general in the ACW).Isn't the strongest narrative by far in popular culture more "Grant was a butcher a drunk and a crook"? Not that we should go too far in the other direction in imputing uniquely liberal attitudes to Grant, but his pop culture reputation is a little unfairly negative to say the least.
I guess with the rather small sample size of this thread that could be true; and I agree with you that Grant as a politician or a leader on civil rights was not exceptional (he did not that great with the already bad hand most gilded age presidents were dealt)Traditionally? Sure (and as you note, that's quite unfair to arguably the best general in the ACW).
At the same time, there has been a more recent attempt to rehabilitate him that has also sometimes gone too far (IMHO). People can have different reputations in different groups, and I suspect this thread tends to attract more of the latter than of the former.
More meant as a corrective to the general "Grant as civil rights champion." There is a strong narrative out there that tends to whitewash his faults; he certainly could have done more than he did (e.g. by taking action to prevent the general fraud and intimidation that characterized the 1876 election, and led to the final end of Reconstruction, which he essentially acquiesced to).