Ulysses S. Grant
Although 's contemporaries placed him in the highest position of great Americans along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the twentieth century has seen him fade. His presidency has been almost universally condemned, and he is consistently ranked second to rock bottom Warren G. Harding in polls of historians to rate the presidents. Although his military reputation has declined as well, it nevertheless continues to win him a steady following. Even his most faithful admirers, however, tend to end their studies conveniently at Appomattox, and one senses a wide regret that Grant's public career extended beyond the Civil War. Taking note of this trend, John Y. Simon observes that some ...
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Although such a minority can sometimes be a source of enlightenment, in this case, it has contributed a monolithic picture of a complex era that is about as depressing as it is inaccurate. Little consideration is given the checkered nature of Grant's eight years of the Gilded Age. Michael Les Benedict observes that Grant "dominated his era, a stronger resident than most have recognized". In both the domestic and foreign realms, President Grant could claim a wide range of achievements. In the aftermath of the most serious fiscal problems the nation had ever faced, he pursued policies that stopped inflation, raised the nations credit, and reduced taxes and the national debt by over $300 million and $435 million respectively. His veto of the Inflation Act of 1874 and subsequent drive for what became the Resumption Act of 1875 shocked many who looked to Congress to cure the nation's economic ills, and the panic of 1873 came to an abrupt end when the act went into effect in 1879. ...
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two terms, for the most part, was merely the practice of making appointments through the spoils system. As Benedict points out, scholars have tended to accept the judgment of the anti-Grant reformers that this (patronage) system was inherently corrupt, but that is a very questionable conclusion, and reformers had ulterior, political motives for making the charge. The matter of whether patronage is necessarily synonymous with corruption provides an additional question of consistency; for historians, if the reformers' verdict is true, must explain how Grant's predecessors, most of whom practiced patronage, led administrations exempt from the brand of corruption. What is ironic about the ...
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"Ulysses S. Grant." Essayworld.com. January 29, 2006. Accessed December 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Ulysses-S-Grant/40395.
"Ulysses S. Grant." Essayworld.com. January 29, 2006. Accessed December 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Ulysses-S-Grant/40395.
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