Ulysses Grant was an excellent General during the Civil War, but did not live up to the American people's expectations as president.
During the Campaign of 1868, there was only the Democratic and Republican parties: the National Union did not survive to see this campaign. President Johnson was not going to become the Democratic Parties candidate: instead they choose Horatio Seymour, Governor of New York. The Republican Party choose Ulysses S. Grant, the Civil War Hero.
Ulysses S. Grant did not have many problems getting votes from the people: they assumed that he would run the country as he did his troops, hard and fair. This was the kind of man Ulysses Grant was. Grant won the election of 1868 with two thirds of the electoral votes and seventy-five percent of the popular vote.
Ulysses Grant was born on April 27,1822 in Point Pleasant, Ohio. He raised in point pleasant with a father that owned a leather tanning business. As a child Grant was a shy boy: he loved horses, so his childhood chores were mostly taking care and tending to the families' livestock. Since, Grant was a fine student, at seventeen he was honored by receiving an appointment from West Point Military school.
But unfortunately for Grant, as he grew older, he developed a drinking problem that the military could not tolerate. He was dismissed from service in 1854. When he left military service he tried making a living as a farmer and even tried his hand in real estate, but he could not make it. He finally sought work in his father's tanning shop. When the Civil War broke they needed experienced officers, so Grant was recalled back to service, it did not take him long to make Brigadier General.
Grant, as President was not at all what the people expected, he was gullible and lacked the political leadership needed to force his word on tough issues. Grant would let his appointed members make the difficult policy decisions. Although Grant was an honorable man some of his members were not, so Grants administration, from the beginning had rumors of scandal, which did not sit well with the American people.
Grant's time as President was filled with one scandal after another. The first scandal was improvised with the help of one of Grant's close family members, which made it worse for Grant. The scandal was devised by two men named James Fisk and Jay Gould, they were going to buy up all the Gold supply and resell it at a higher price, but there was one problem with this scheme. The federal government owned the largest supply of gold. They would have to keep the governments gold off the market if they wanted to succeed, so they paid Grant's brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, to help them do this. But, Grant soon found out about this and ordered for four million dollars of the gold to be sold. This ruined their scheme, but in doing so it sent the price of gold to a low that threatened banks to close. This became the day the gold crashed otherwise known as Black Friday.
Grant had to try to work around numerous scandals of this nature in his term as president, so when the Campaign of 1872 rolled around, grant did not have much to show for his term in office. But, the people realized that the scandals were not his fault, he had to deal with them like every one else. The people were forgiving and Ulysses S. Grant was re-elected as President of the United States for a second term.
Unfortunately the scandals followed Grant into his second term as well. While the scandals continued, Grant was able to accomplish some work, he helped establish The Civil Rights Act of 1875, which allowed blacks to have the same rights as everyone else, which was being denied to them by the South. The Act was not enforced and in 1883 the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.
If nothing more was accomplished in Grant's administration, the best of all was the groundwork for the beginning of the greatest industrial nation in the world. Grant was the fore leader in establishing the United States as an Industrial might with the trade of coal, iron ore, the ability of the railroad and the many factories that were built.
Grant finally left office in 1877, soon after he discovered he had an advanced stage of throat cancer. He had decided to write memoirs of his life, one week after he finished his book he died. Grant with all the turmoil of the Presidency did not live to see his book published and remembered throughout history.
