with that, i will turn it over. professor calhoun: thank you very much, colonel borg. thank you all for being here today. thank you for the professor who could not be are today. he is in hawaii. i know we did a lot of background work on this as well. as professor borg indicated, i am going to be talking about presidency of ulysses s. grant. his leadership in the white house. i have a couple caveats. i am a political historian, not a military historian. i am sure a number of you in this room know more about grant's military career, particularly after taking this course, than i do. my specialty is late american politics. the second caveat relates to i am writing a book on the presidency of ulysses s. grant for the university of cambridge.

it is still very much a work in progress. i haven't figured out everything about this man the white house. perhaps that is an impossibility. some of the things i will be saying today are tentative in nature, shall we say. we do not have the time to go through an entire chronology of the events of grant's very busy two terms in the white house. instead i would like to raise a few points to how to look at the grant presidency. first to historiography. how he has been treated in the past. i will be very brief about that. then we will look at some of the problems in the country during his presidency. then i would like to discuss some of the assets that he brought to the office that help him succeed. not only personal assets, but assets in the culture in which he was operating. and then i would like to talk about some of the liabilities.

and then i will talk about grant's achievements in the white house and a little bit about the impact on the evolution of the presidency. first to historiography. grant has had fairly bad press as president ever since he took the white house and really it started before he took office. the standard view is that he performed badly and was criticized. the truth of the matter is there were some people who were ready to criticize him even before he came president. i can name names. one is charles sumner who was disappointed he was not appointed secretary of state. he became a very severe critic of grant until he died in 1874. he was always criticizing grant for things that he thought were not being handled properly. another critic was henry adams.

he was turned off by the johnson administration and even before grant became president -- he was had vowed to write articles exposing corruption in the government. he was ready for bear even before ulysses s. grant put his hand on the bible to become president. throughout his term, henry adams wrote quite critical articles about him. if you know about henry adams, grant comes off badly there as well. these men thought that he was a liar, a rogue, he was stupid, he was conniving. very nasty portrait of grant in the past. some newspapers, particularly democratic newspapers, gave him a very hard time.

congressional investigations, was the democrats got control of the house of representatives severely investigated and criticized grant's performance. the significance of all this is that these critics' comments and notions about grant became embedded in the literature about it. historians doing their work in the first 75 or so years of the 20th century, when they looked back at the grand administration, they tend to pay more attention to what his enemy said about him than what he had accomplished in the white house. if you look at the presidential polls that were conducted, among historians and political scientists, journalists, and others, you will see that grant tended to rank low in those polls. never rock-bottom.

that was usually reserved for andy johnson or james buchanan but still nonetheless quite low. reflecting the scullery we -- scholarly image of grant trade the scholarly criticism of him. but 25, 30 years ago, there began to be something of a rehabilitation of the scholarship on grant, grant's reputation, and i think that that was largely due to the civil rights movement. the development of civil rights in the 20th century. grant came to be seen in many historians' views as a defender of civil rights, and his estimate tended to rise ever since that time. if you look at the presidential assessment polls, if you well, you will see the ranking somewhere in the middle. never in the top five or even top 10, but certainly doing much better than when those polls

first began around the middle of the 20th century. so, grant had an evolving impression or reputation shall , we say, among historians and other scholars. what kind of problems did grant face when he became president? the most significant was the domestic problem in the question of reconstruction. what to do about the self, what -- what to do about the south what to do about race relations in the south. grant like to refer to this as the effort to secure the results of the war. this was a question of enormous difficulty. not only because of the problems in the south, but because the approach to reconstruction in the immediate postwar years was the subject of great wrangling between the president andrew johnson and the republican party in congress. one way of looking at reconstruction is not only what

is dealing with is in the south, but also looking at this as an institutional struggle between the president and the congress. grant was not only trying to fortify reconstruction efforts to a poll the rights of the former slaves and so forth, but also to rebalance, recalibrate the relationship with the congress and that was a very tall order. another problem with the civil war related to the nation's finances. during the civil war, the united states government, of course needed to raise very large sums of money. it passed a tremendous new load of taxes. taxes were raised, tariffs were raised, income taxes were instituted, inheritance taxes and on and on. the federal government taxed just about everything that moved

to during the civil war. still was not enough to cover the cost of the war. so, the government also engaged in heavy borrowing, selling bonds, and the national debt was something like $2 billion. it would seem like chicken feed to us today, but it was an enormous sum of money at that time and the question was, what kind of program could the government put in place to pay that back? borrowing was not enough either. the government got in the situation of printing money -- the so-called greenbacks unbacked by gold or silver. the question of the postwar years is what we do with that money? do we get back into the situation of where we can take older silver for it? there were lots of questions related to the war that grant would confront in the white house. there were problems on the frontier of course. in grant's time, this treatment of indians was continuing. it was nothing new in grants -- grandpa sarah.

-- grant's era. this was something grant felt very deeply about and try to deal with as president. in dealing with those problems i submit the grant did have available to him a certain group of assets he could bring to bear. some of them were personal. others were, i think, more institutional or contextual, if you well. we will look at the personal ones first. grant had experience as an administrator. that came from his war years. not only the civil war, but also the mexican war. in the mexican war, he was in the quartermaster corps. he learned how to organize in that situation, learned the value of supply lines and so forth and this was important. he honed his organizational skills in that role.

those commands in the civil war became ever and ever larger, until of course the last years when he was in charge of all of the union armies. this was very important for him to carry into the white house because he had run this huge organization, he had learned how to see the big picture, he had learned how to delegate tasks, to see his roles. when he was running for president, the chicago tribune ran an editorial and compare d him to other candidates who had legislative experience in the congress or judicial experience, supreme court justices people were thinking about for president, and they said grant was superior to them because of his military experience. and the reason for that was his military experience was primarily executive.

not legislative, not judicial, but executive and that is what we needed in the white house. so, that was an important asset for him. he also had a great asset of determination to see things through to a successful conclusion. this was with him all his life. if you had a chance to read his memoirs, you will see he never liked retracing his steps. he always wanted to move toward his goal and take the steps to get there. you can see that. during the war grant also showed that he could be a great judge of men. he could assess their strengths. he could assess their weaknesses. this was his reputation during the war this was borne out by experiences of great lieutenant such as sheridan and mcpherson and so forth. there was some question about how well he translated that into

civilian life. it took him some time to do that. he did it, i think, primarily when he realized the republican party at the time was sort of the army he was now commanding. and his lieutenants were not only the people in his cabinet but the key figures and the congress. these were important senators who helped grant achieve his goals. doing the same things that sherman or sheridan did to help him achieve his goals in wartime. grant also -- in a little more abstract sense -- he was quite a dedicated patriot. he one of the army to succeed. he wanted his country to succeed in the postwar years and his commitment to democratic ideals initially, before the war, he was not interested in politics

had a suspicion of politics. after the war, when he was in the white house, he did come to realize the great potential for positive good through political action and he did very much uphold the rights of former slaves to vote -- black suffrage. that commitment to democratic ideals as part of the american credo. it was a very important part of his response to a poll be amendments of the constitution that undergirded civil rights. and the right to vote. what we have to remember about ulysses s. grant is he did not undergo a lobotomy between appomattox and becoming president. as a general, he had demonstrated capability with the generality of things and the details of things. he manipulated performance well

-- subordinates well and he showed a dogged perseverance to achieve his goals under heavy odds. that did not abandon him when he went into the white house, but i think it is fair to say it took him a little time to adjust. all right, those are his personal assets. the list could probably go on. what about institutional assets or external assets that could aid him in his operations as president? i think one of the things that was working for him was a wealth of good will in the country at large. he went into the presidency respected, generally. he was the savior of the union after all. and after the death of lincoln he was the most revered man in the united states. certainly in the north. in the south, he was respected by many people. not only for his treatment of lee at appomattox, but his

protection of lee and other officers from trial. he sensed it would be good to get the country back together as soon as possible. that was important, it worked to his advantage. this atmosphere of goodwill when he took the oath of office. also working to his advantage, the republican majorities in both houses of congress, very large majorities as a matter of fact. his party controlled both houses of congress for the first six years of his presidency. the last two years, the democrats had the house of representatives. this is important because it eased grant's legislative tasks. he could get things done a bit more easily, as we well know.

president to have divided governments do have difficulties. another asset this president had was the patronage power. that is to say, the appointments to office of subordinates around the country. not only in washington, but in federal offices around the country. this is important because he like other presidents would take the advice of senators and representatives about who to appoint to those positions and that patronage power helped grant forge alliances. that strengthened his ability to get through congress what he wanted to. so, on the plus ledger, there were a number of things working to grant's advantage. both of his personal makeup, his personal experiences, and the

institutional setting in which he conducted the white house. on the other side of the ledger, there were liabilities. they were obstacles to his success. practices that worked against him. we can divide them into personal deficiencies and institutional or contextual ones. i think it is worth noting that despite his experience, he did lack political knowledge. he did lack some little goal -- political experience because he had never held a political office before. he was briefly general in chief of the army, and briefly the interim secretary of war. during that time he learned a great deal about how washington works. he was somewhat naïve when he took the oath of office, and the feeling he could somehow remain above politics, above the fray.

it was not going to work out that way. he rather quickly realized that -- as i said, you need to forge those positive relationships. another element in his personal makeup that perhaps worked to against his success to some degree, his taciturnity. he was known as the great silent man. he didn't like public speaking. he seldom spoke as president other than to acknowledge the crowd. i think this is unfortunate because grant missed the opportunity to use the presidency as a bully pulpit. for the things that he believed in that he favored. why was he this way? i think there were components in his personal makeup that made him very averse to public speaking, but it was also a reaction to andrew johnson, who grant believed made a full of -- a fool of himself during

several of his speaking tours. grant accompanied him on one in which andrew johnson got into shouting matches with people in the crowds and it really brought the presidency low and grant's idea was not for me. i am not going to do that kind of thing. could you speak effectively? yes, on occasion he did. in 1875 he made a speech quite effectively in the ohio gubernatorial campaign when rutherford b. hayes was reelected that year and positioned him to run for president the following year. in a sense, that is the exception that proves the rule on grant about public speaking. it's too bad he did not do more of it. when he went abroad after his presidency, he came to enjoy it, but not in the white house. grant was an excellent writer, and he used his messages to congress, both his special

messages and his annual message to propose policies, defend positions, and so forth and he could be quite eloquent doing that. particularly in messages that related to civil rights questions. grant did not go to congress in person. it wasn't done. it wouldn't be done again until -- thomas jefferson stop that and woodrow wilson picked it up. most presidents sent their work to congress on paper. grant could do this effectively but i think you could've done more that and been more effective. there was some use of the press in the grand presidency. feeding favorable information to reporters, grant sometimes gave interviews to "the new york herald," for instance.

but i think one of the contextual problems for grant was his taciturnity -- he didn't control the narrative. he did not control the narrative. what happened was, his enemies his adversaries did tend to control that narrative and when it came time for historians of the 20th century to look back and write about his administration, they tend to pay attention to those adversaries much more than what the president and his advocates were saying. another personal deficiency that i think was against grant is what i think we might term and excessive loyalty to people around him. loyalty to a fault, really. with many of his associates. grant was a highly sensitive man. he was an appreciative man. he held friendships dearly.

he stood by those who stood by him. but sometimes he remained loyal to people whether or not they were worth his loyalty. that was unfortunate. his own son, ulysses s. grant jr., once said of his father, he is incapable of supposing his friends to be selfish. and the fact of the matter is that some of them were selfish. and grant may have had too trusting a relationship with some of them. that opened them up to charges of corruption. that is the most enduring condemnation of the grant to administration. part of the reason i think that grant did cling so tenaciously to proven friends was his own sense of, believe it or not, inferiority. we do not have the option of putting grant on the couch, but it is inevitable that we try to

analyze his personality. there was elements of an inferiority complex in some sense with ulysses s. grant. he did greatly admire men of wealth. because they compared so favorably to his own early failures in business. and he felt that they had a deep understanding of the american economy and perhaps he was too willing to listen to their advice regarding economic policy in the white house. grant also had a sense of inferiority with people we might term intellectuals. grant was a man of simple tastes. he enjoyed his family life very much. not particularly interested in cultural matters. there is some evidence he may have felt his west point, basic engineering type of education was somehow inferior to the classical education men received at yale and harvard and such places. so, grant had trouble reaching

out to those men and tended to avoid their company, and hence to avoid their counsel. and i say this is an inferiority complex, but in fact, grant may have been right about the way these people felt about him. they did tend to look down on him as a matter of fact. they thought that he was base and vulgar, ill mannered. henry adams' wife once referred to ulysses s. grant as "the king of vulgaria." that stuck. he was an intelligent man. that is more than abundantly clear. but he lacked the self-confidence that abraham lincoln had that could scoff and blow off people who criticized his background. he of course laughed at his own background. grant had trouble reaching out to intellectual leaders.

the vulgarity leads to rumors of grant's drinking. i will not spend a lot of time on this question. most of it stems from his war years. highly exaggerated, nothing. he did drink in the white house. he served alcohol. he did not drink to excess in the white house. an article came out in 1983 alleging grant was an alcoholic. he did not drink to function. neither was it the case he would go on binges. i think that that public miss the mark -- that probably misses the mark. again, we do not have grant's medical chart in front of us but i think if we did, we would see that grant have low tolerance for alcohol, and very little would have that effect on him.

that might have appeared to be a binge. i think it is important to put the drinking charge into a wider context. in the mid-19th century, we witness a real upsurge in the sensitivity to the evils of drink. this is a time when the temperance movement is very strong. this is when the wctu was created. this is a time when the prohibition party came into being. it is this cultural sensitivity against alcohol that gave grant's enemies a weapon against him. the rumors from the war could blow up into a real charge against him. what is important here -- not that grant had a couple drinks in the white house. he certainly did on occasion. what is important is these murmurings about his habits. whatever the reality was, those

murmurings diminished his reputation, and to some degree did undermine his effectiveness as president. there are a number of personality -- i hate to use the word deficiency -- elements of his personal makeup that worked against him. but there were also institutional problems and obstacles that worked against his success in the white house. for one, grant was highly unlucky in his predecessor. andrew johnson dealt the presidency a devastating blow with his overbearing manner, his fights with congress, his poisoned relationships between congress and the presidency. what happened was many congressional leaders came to

feel that the president, whoever he was, needed to be hemmed in. we did not want another man like andrew johnson. there was a lingering skepticism about the president having too much influence over policy. and grant recognize this in his inaugural address, the very first speech as he entered the white house. he said, i shall on all subjects as a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people. this was a direct reaction to johnson's poor relations with the congress. it was a calculated sense for how he was going to deal with them. but it was a huge task to make

those relationships were amicable. that passed was made more difficult by the fact that his own party and the congress was written by factions. yes, they had majority, but they were split in many ways, the republicans. reconstruction policy to rid republican split between radicals and moderates. the tariff issue. the money issue between hard money men and inflation us. on patronage questions. regular politicians and civil service reforms. these were important. they made operating with the congress a little more difficult. it was something known as the liberal republican party nominating horace greeley. this is one focused on the question of reconstruction and intractability of southern whites. the degree to which grant failed

to achieve real change reflected the determination of southern whites to regain political control and to keep it. no president, not even lincoln could have won acceptance of political equality between blacks and whites at that moment and there is some evidence today that the problem lingers to some degree. the dominant whites in the civil war in the south were determined this was going to be a white man's government and it was very difficult to counteract that. another contextual problem grant confronted was almost endless assault by his enemies. nonstop. as noted above i talk about , sumner and adams. these were men determined to bring grant down from the very beginning even before he took , office.

he was under constant barrage of criticism. some of it was selfishly motivated. some of these were disappointed office seekers. they thought they deserved appointments from grants, did not get them. but those enemies would reach for just about any kind of criticism, and one of them was corruption. they charged corruption in the administration. and so, another problem grant confronted during his presidency was the united states at that time was kind of experiencing a culture of corruption and a sensitivity to corruption that tended to undermine his power in the white house. there was a belief at this time that the government was riddled with corruption. that was not particularly new. it reached back into the civil war years. we know that people were on the take during the civil war,

manipulating contracts and so forth. this continued into the johnson years. and in fact, republicans said, put us in power and we will get rid of the corruption of the johnson administration. what we have to remember is ulysses s. grant inherited a culture of corruption. he did not created. you have to remember the context. this is a postwar period. very often in a postwar period we see ethical considerations take a backseat, as it were. during the war, it is about sacrifice, self-denial. another example would be world war i gives way to the roaring 20's. in the post-civil war period you have boss tweed in new york, reconstruction governments in the south, malfeasance in congress itself.

some of the allegations of corruption during this time are focused on grant, are actually things that happened in congress like these so-called salary grants. i do not mean to suggest there was no corruption. that is not true. i think it has been a exaggerated some. but it is true, the secretary of war was caught taking bribes to appoint certain men to what were called posted traderships. he was forced to resign. the whiskey ring was probably the most important corruption scandal during his administration.

that started before he became president and it was his secretary of state that attack and brought it down. this was a conspiracy between distillers of whiskey and officials in the internal revenue service to avoid taxes. it touched grant in the sense that one of his secretaries, babcock, was thought to be involved, and babcock was brought to trial. i think the evidence against him was pretty significant. it was circumstantial, but it was pretty incriminating. although he was acquitted. this was 1876, grant testified on orville babcock's behalf. cooler heads in the white house prevailed. i guess they suggested you should not go out there and

testify. but he did give a deposition on behalf of his friend and aide, and he was acquitted. you might ask, why would he do that if the evidence seems so clearly -- that babcock was involved? i think probably we can say grant saw the attack on babcock as an attack on himself personally. after six or seven years of continued criticisms, i think by that time he had developed a circle the wagons mentality and decided to give the deposition. some other points about corruption.

the secretary of state may have had some inklings about the shady goings-on and parts of the administration, but i can find no evidence he gave a "cancer on the presidency" speech like john dean gave richard nixon. in fact grant supported him for the presidency when he tried to get the nomination that year. patronage power. power to appoint people to office. civil service reformers tend to equate that with a kind of corruption. the simple fact of the matter was it was the inherent system -- inherited personnel system of the federal government at that time. many presidents have used it over the years. if you see the movie "lincoln," you can see abraham lincoln using it effectively to round up support for the 13th amendment to pass congress.

support. so, again, it became a handle to use against grant in particular. expenditures, another thing. particularly conservatives tended to label any expenditures as corrupt. they called them raids on the treasury. expenditures became in some people's minds equivalent to extravagant which became equivalent to corruption. this is unfortunate because at a time when the economy was changing and the government's role in the economy was changing, this described expenditures of an unusual or increased nature and tended to undermine having a real discussion about what the government's role ought to be and was stifling for the government to do that.

but what is important here today, the enemies found the corruption charge as a ready tool to demonize him in the white house and some of them -- not all of them, but some of them were using it for vesting in politics. they used highly charged language, full vulgarity, caesar -- thievery, brutality. what is important to remember is what may change is our sensitivity to corruption or it -- corruption. the historian mark summers has done a good job describing this dichotomy. the overall take is that charge was seized by grant's enemies and undermined his effectiveness as president. it certainly tended to this merchant's historical

reputation. did he achieve anything? i think he did. despite these obstacles he had to overcome, i think there were important achievements. but we have to, i think, also say it's something of a mixed record, in part because some turned out to be insurmountable. in the area of reconstruction -- when grant gave his inaugural address -- on the right of these slaves to vote, the male former slaves, he pushed state legislatures to put it on the books and a achieved it in 1870. it was not self actuating, however. it would need legislation to undergird it and put it into effective operation. and so, we also see favoring enforcement legislation that would protect whites under the

14th and 15 commitments. grant would use troops to put down the ku klux klan. he had a bill in 1975 and it did pass. it was a public accommodations bill. it was certainly very moderate in its intent. it basically mandated equality of treatment in public accommodations. it became law. unfortunately it years later the supreme court of the united states declared it

unconstitutional. one thing to remember about grant and reconstruction, he championed blacks' rights at increasing political risk. his enemies, when they looked at the troop movements and south carolina, for instance, they accused grant of militarism and this was unfortunate because he tended to get lost in people's minds and the purpose of those troops got lost in people's minds. the bottom line for reconstruction, the more that public opinion at band in project, if you will, despite grant's efforts to keep it alive -- and as i mentioned earlier, whites were determined it would not succeed and ultimately reconstruction would come to an unsuccessful end. after he was out of the white house, 1870, grant speaking with a reporter once said, perhaps we should have kept a military occupation of the south for 10

years in order to ensure the success of true reconstruction. but of course that did not happen, probably could not have happened. at one area where he did achieve success -- the alabama claims. these were the claims that were registered against great britain by the united states in dealing with the css alabama. there were a few of them. ships that had been built in great britain during the civil war. they went into the confederate service and served primarily as commerce raiders.

united states commerce raiders were attacking northern merchants on the high seas and were quite successful. they held great britain accountable for the activities of their ships. this was a problem in our diplomatic relations with great britain after the war. and grant and his secretary of state hamilton fish did set up the geneva arbitration to arbitrate those claims and great britain paid $15.5 million as a result of that arbitration. but it was not just the money. the $15.5 million that the arbitrators paid. there was also the strategic vision in this. between washington and geneva, there was a relatively narrow definition of things that country could be held accountable for during a belligerent time of war and this was exactly what grant was looking for.

grant believed down the road when wars were going on, the united states would probably not get involved, generally speaking, and as a neutral, we would want to be able to do as many things as possible, particularly in the area of trade. the geneva arbitration gave a relatively narrow definition of the restrictions on neutrals during the time of war, was to work precisely to the united states' advantage, grant believed. another effort, the effort to annex what is today the dominican republic. this was an island nation in the caribbean. it had unstable government. revolving governments.

revolutions every other week practically. even before grant became president, its beleaguered president asked the united states to annex it. grant did not invent this idea of annexing santo domingo, as is sometimes alleged. when he became president, they renewed the offer and grant investigated it. it brought to bear a consideration of a certain nature and thinking about santo domingo. one of the lessons the united states learned in the civil war was the importance of controlling sea lanes in the western hemisphere. great britain at that time had a cordon of island colonies and outposts, in central and latin

south america, which enabled her navy to pretty much control the caribbean seas, so the united states going from the east coast to the gulf coast would have to go through what grant referred to as foreign waters. so, santo domingo sounded like an ideal spot for a base and would serve a vital function in time of war if necessary. everybody was thinking at this time about building a canal through central america. this was before the panama canal, of course. everyone had it on their minds. grant thought, if we did have such a canal, we want to be on

the eastern determinists of that. santo domingo could serve that very well. there were no doctrine considerations. if the united states did not take santo domingo, perhaps someone else would. there was some fear that germany was looking or a would hold -- looking for a foothold there. grant also had in mind considerations related to santo domingo's resources. it was a fertile country. sugar, chocolate, large stands of timber. all of these things would come in to the united states free of tariffs if the united states acquired santo domingo. grant thought it would be a great plus for both sides, both united states and santo domingo. also, there was a reason related to reconstruction, and that was this. everybody knew, grant well knew that blacks were being mistreated in the south, and

perhaps santo domingo, which the population was black or mixed-race, could serve as a haven for american blacks looking for a better life. and even if they didn't go there -- i don't mean to portray grant as an ardent colonizer. that was not the point. he also felt that the possibility of going there might be used by blacks in the south to leverage better treatment from their former masters in the south. so, frederick douglass, for example, was a strong supporter of annexation. there are lots of reasons grant believed santo domingo was a real plus. but it was not approved. he failed to get the annexation treaty approved. this is not to say that the united states did not have a history of annexation. certainly the whole 19th-century

story, moving westward and acquiring real estate, chunks of real estate after chunks of real estate as they moved westward -- but it is almost unprecedented. people thought perhaps we are not quite ready for that. also, a few years before grant became president, they bought alaska at a pretty hefty price. people thought that it was corrupt and a waste of money anyway. so, let's not repeat that. they were charged with corruption. a couple businessmen who definitely would have made more money if the united states had annexed santo domingo -- but as

mark twain's book, "the gilded age," reminds us, this was a time when they would just dismiss it as corrupt. this was working against the project as well. the fact that orval babcock was involved in the project. he went down and investigated and negotiated a treaty with the annexation. he worked closely with them, and this of course was used against the project, which was also kind of a corrupt conspiracy to work a deal. racism was involved as well.

we all have a very serious racial problem. we want to take on another area that is predominantly black and deal with that in addition? a black, mixed-race population. even a champion of african-american rights, charles sumner exhibited a kind of racism in his opposition. sumner said the tropics were ideally suited for blacks. the united states ought not to interfere. let them run their own affairs in their own natural habitat. really quite a racist argument to make. not in the sense of overt racism that he hated blacks, but the , perception of the differences in the races. it was defeated in the senate. grant eventually stopped pushing annexation, but he never gave up the idea.

he never admitted it was the wrong thing. even in his memoirs where he talked almost exclusively about his military career, he did say, one of the few things he mentioned about his presidency was the project presented domingo and he thought it was the right thing to do. again, this question of helping southern blacks by acquiring santo domingo. there were achievements in other areas. in the economy, taxation. tariff taxes were lower. the income tax was abolished. the national debt was lowered by 17%. the resumption act was passed, which scheduled a date by which the united states would pay gold and silver for greenbacks. the united states achieved a favorable balance of trade during grant's term.

the government ran eight years of surpluses during grant's term in office. it was not always roses. you had the panic of 1873, which was the classic bankers' panic, leading to a serious depression. what we have to remember is, there was no federal reserve at that time to counteract the effects of a depression, so the economy spiraled downward. grant toyed with the idea of public works spending. the way to generate jobs is to spend federal money and get people back to work. it is a horrible idea to the orthodox thinkers within his party and most economists of his day. it was a stimulus package, and that sort of thing was unacceptable at this time. james a. garfield, who was the chair of the house appropriations committee, was shocked by this notion. and grant did back off.

but in his heart, i think, he was keynesian before keynes, if you well. to counteract the depression the congress passed the inflation bill, which would have pumped $90 million of currency back into the economy, and grant very seriously considered signing that bill, but orthodox thinkers said, no, you will flood the economy with too much money. and he did veto that bill. the inflation bill did commit the republican party to orthodox thinking on monetary policy. in civil service reform, grant became a civil service reform or -- reformer, at least for a while. congress authorized a commission to be established to write rules

for appointment in the federal bureaucracy. grant appointed the premier civil-service reform or two had that commission, a man named george william curtis. it went into operation in 1782 -- 1872. with strong opposition in congress, however, because that was a direct assault on the patronage machine that the senators in congress had built up to recommend people to office. the civil service commission needed appropriations to operate. year after year, they would work -- they would ask for in appropriation. and year after year they got less and less. after a while, it was cut off altogether and grant gave up the experiment. the american indian -- once again, grant had great sympathy for the american indians and one of the things he wanted to do was improve their lives. he wanted to clean up the indian bureaus.

get rid of the political appointees as agents who were really the front-line people out of the west, representing public government policy, and return it to religious organizations, to serve for those federal indian agencies. but although this is a great humanitarian notion, approach to the indian policy, it still had a fundamental flaw. and that was the primary means to change the indian culture. grant hopes they would become self sustaining farmers and would be it eligible to vote.

but the indians resisted that kind of change. generals like sherman and sheridan thought, no, probably extermination is the best policy. during the latter part of grant's administration incidents set off warfare once again. although he continued to keep the religious organizations in place, there was warfare out west during the latter part of his administration. so, overall i think it is a mixed record of achievements. but there is also one other question. what kind of impact did grant have on the office of president? what lessons did he leave for future presidents, whether or not they pay attention to them? first, he was a great improvement from andrew johnson. he began rebuilding the presidency after johnson's term in the white house. he established amicable relations with congress. generally speaking, he was able to treat the republican party in

congress as he had treated the army during the war and exercise some effective legislative leadership. he began to realize pretty soon on for a president to be effective, he had to be a party leader as well. he himself said it is folly, a utopian idea to run a government without your party. that was a notion he brought to the presidency. he also made a very important contribution in organizing white house operations. he created a professional staff in the white house, a device for helping him bear the ever-increasing burden of the executive branch. previous presidents had had a private secretary, one or two. grant took the step of drawing upon his wartime experience to

give his staff actual substantive responsibility. it did mirror his staff in the army. in fact, some of the same people serve in the white house. horace porter and babcock again. they retained their army slots but were detailed to the white house. they did not cost the government any extra money, but they were there to serve their chief again. with this kind of staff assistance, grant was able to extend the range of issues he could deal with effectively. it sort of gave him extra sets of eyes and ears, if you will. others in the government were put off by this. some people in congress, some people in his own cabinet felt you have to run through this military clique around the president to get to him. even with that set aside, i

think we can say grant had taken an important step in strengthening the office of the president and a step toward developing the apparatus that made the executive branch more effective when we get to the modern presidency. staff also helped grant in his relationships with the cabinet. some in the cabinet has this notion they were freestanding agents to do what they wanted. granted not brook that. anybody who thought they could go off unattended by themselves usually found themselves out of a job quickly. another contribution grant made was to the mobility of the presidency. this has a lot of modern ring to it as well. he traveled extensively as president, turned aside partisan criticism he was somehow neglecting his duties. he used the railroad, the telegraph.

his aides traveled with him so he could keep on top of business. when he issued the proclamation against the ku klux klan in 1871 in south carolina, he was traveling in new england at that time. this again is an important step in the creation of the modern presidency because what grant was essentially saying is the presidential office is where ever the president happens to be. we take this for granted now. i would also submit i think there are a couple of lessons grant left perhaps in spite of himself. that is that you should pick your aides wisely, that you should hold them at arm's length. not all subsequent presidents have learned this, i think. orville babcock has had many successors over the years. sherman adams, walter jenkins, the list goes on and on.

but this is an important lesson. you have to be careful in the people you have close around you. another lesson, tell your story, tell it early, and tell it well. because if you don't, others are going to tell it for you to your disadvantage. presidents give the impression of success in considerable measure because they control the narrative. i think the measurement of grant's effectiveness in the white house was his reelection in 1872, despite the criticisms i have been describing the people leveled against him. he was a popular and reasonably effective president. up for reelection in in 1872, you had the republican split that nominated horace greeley. the democrats were so desperate that they nominated greeley as

well. he still won the white house with 66% of the popular vote, which still is a very substantial win. another measurement of grant's effectiveness as president was during the second term in toward the end of his second term there was a movement against his running for a third term. i think that is a measure of his effectiveness because that movement came about because his enemies thought this guy is so effective and popular he could probably get a third term. so they began to talk about the two-term tradition. we don't want to break that. it was a way of saying, in a negative way, this man was doing a popular job in the white house, and so they invoke this notion that somehow this violates our ancient customs by putting this man forward for a third term.

presidents were not limited to two terms constitutionally at that time. after four years being out of office when rutherford b. hayes was there, when it got to 1880 a number of people want to grant to run again for a third term at that time. he came very close to winning the nomination in 1880, but it did go to the dark horse, james a. garfield. what is significant about that is a large part of the argument for grant in 1880 was he would be a strong man in the white house after what people regarded as the weak hayes. some called him nancy jane hayes. in the minds of his supporters in 1880, grant had established the notion the president should be a strong voice.

he should be an activist leader. we take this for granted today. if you look at the long evolution of the presidency versus the congress, this is a milestone. more and more, we will see presidents being assertive. that is what grant was up to during his presidency. these people who voted for him at the convention in 1880 was saying it should not be a handmaiden to the congress. that is another step in the creation of the modern presidency, that this was the appropriate role for a president to make. all right. thank you very much. [applause] please. >> a quick question. you briefed us on grant's actions for the annexation and that it was defeated. in his annual address to congress in 1870, he pushed

again. he asked congress to authorize another commission to go to the dominican republic and look into the annexation issue. my understanding is the commission went down there in the spring of 1871. they came back and said they favorably made a decision for annexation, that we should pursue it. at that point, president grant took no further action. do you have any idea why he did not continue to pursue it? professor calhoun: i do, actually. let's remember the treaty initially failed 28-28, for all the reasons i was cataloging earlier. there was a good bit of opposition to it.

i think there was an element of looking for vindication, not necessarily that he felt -- i think part of him thought this would work out. i think another part of him wanted it on record that what i proposed was right for the country. i'm glad you brought up that commission because this was not some sort of cronyism in selecting this group. he selected some very well respected leaders in the country to make this trip. andrew white, the president of cornell university was one of them. one of charles sumner's most ardent supporters was a commissioner. they did the kind of thorough

examination orville babcock did not on his first trip. what you had between babcock's trip and the commissions report was all of this political brouhaha over santo domingo for some of the reasons i was talking about. i think grant realized it would not go through. as i was indicating, he thought the united states had made a big mistake. he had done everything he could. what he did in may of 1871 when he sent the commission report to congress, he said, here it is. it is up to you if you want to do something about it. it is up to the american people if they want this. i have done everything i can on behalf of a project i think is good for the country. but circumstances, he did not have to name names at that point, circumstances have decided otherwise. as i said, he gave up on pushing it after that.

although in his last annual message to congress in december of 1876, he brought it up one more time saying we missed an opportunity. and on his deathbed writing the memoirs, he briefly mentioned it as well. a good question. anyone else? please. >> [indiscernible] do you think that was developed when he was a general in the wars, that he learned his lieutenants would be loyal and do whatever he needed them to do and that carried over in his whole history? and he believed they were mistakes and not devious corrupt decisions? professor calhoun: i do think he brought to the white house a sense of loyalty developed in the war. that is part of war, you are loyal to one another, you stand with one another under all kinds of circumstances. there were people grant did not get along with particularly in

the war and whom he felt were not doing their job. indeed, they found themselves relieved of command occasionally. the same was true when he was in the white house. i don't think there is any question the wartime experience fed that deeply. for a man like orville babcock probably the most grievous personal traitor to grant, he joined the staff in 63-54, something like that. and had worked closely with him, run errands of all kinds. when congress passed the reconstruction act in 1867, the south was to be divided into five districts, five military districts. the president was supposed to determine what those were.

jonathan said since these are military districts, perhaps you should tell me who the commanders of those districts should be. grant turned to them and said you work this out. he delegated this because he felt they served him well. he had a makeup that made him less than worthy of the loyalty. i don't think there's any question that the pattern of the relationship with subordinates he developed during the war stuck with him in the white house. grant went into the civil war at age 38. his life had not been very successful before. he was in a set of circumstances where he was achieving success. forging the relationships you are talking about was part of

achieving that success. i think he felt at least implicitly the same kind of thing could work to his advantage in the white house. harry truman used to say, “if you want a friend in washington, get a dog.” the point was that the way things worked was you have to be careful. that is what i meant when i said choose your aides wisely because you never know who may not be worthy of the choice you have made. >> [indiscernible] do you get this feeling grant was a hesitant leader? he never was one to raise his hand and say i want to command this.

he kind of let his actions speak for himself. even how he came to be nominee for president, it was almost like he backed his way into it. do you get a sense he was a reluctant leader or more driven toward success in higher positions than maybe portrayed in some of these writings? professor calhoun: that is an excellent question. the psychological makeup of grant is something that has puzzled me for many years. there was a hesitation in him. i think there was also an element of ambition. grant liked listening to people and coming up with his own decisions and moving forward on them.

clearly, when the war came on, he was eager to get into it. it was not somebody knocking on his door and saying, you went to west point, why don't you see if you can get in the army after fort sumter? he definitely put himself forward. he did resign his commission in the 1850's, largely for personal reasons, a dreary life away from his beloved family. when the war came on, after a string of personal economic issues, he thought i am trained to do this and will offer my services. in that sense, he was eager to do his part. when he had the initial successes, i think in his memoirs you may remember him saying it was a battle in which he discovered the enemy is as afraid of me as i am of him. it was the lightbulb going off.

it taught him he could accomplish things and have the wherewithal to do something of importance. i think he drove himself as general after that to succeed and did. as far as accepting the nomination for president is concerned, i think there definitely was an element of hesitation in that. as i said, he had been in washington for four years. he had seen the horrible wrangling between the president and congress. he served briefly as secretary of war and sat in those cabinet meetings and saw awful performances. do i really want to be involved in that? on the other hand, i think there was a kernel of ambition within him. as you point out, he also believed, i may be the only one that can secure the results of the war.

we have politicians wrangling with one another. i may be the only one. i am a national figure. for whatever reason, i am there. maybe i can bring some sense into people's minds. when grant became president, within a year, he sat down with his secretary of state one time. hamilton said you kept a wonderful diary. this was after he had undergone a lot of criticism and so forth. he said i don't know what it is about this job that people want. if it were not for my sense of duty, i would resign the presidency. i think it was june of 1870 he said that. there were times when he said the president is being $25,000 a year. a general at the time was paid $17,000 a year. these were very large salaries. $17,000 was easy street, a lifetime job. i gave that up, and here i am in this cauldron, this storm, of criticism all the time. why should i do this?

he did feel he had something to contribute to the country. when he was reelected and took the oath of office for the second time, you could see the pain he felt because he did say i take the result of the election for something of a vindication of what i have tried to do. it did not shut up his enemies particularly, but he did say it looks as if the american people have a different sort of idea about what i am up to. good question. others? yes, please. >> [indiscernible] my question is concerning the political perspective of the grant administration. is there any historical record that could give us information about the relationship or the

view of the grant administration toward mexico in that time? i know in that time, there was reconstruction. but is there any information about that relationship? professor calhoun: relations with mexico were generally peaceful. remember, there was the attempt to establish an empire in mexico with maximilian and so forth who was assassinated. before grant became president, he engaged in this thought that perhaps the united states should invade mexico and throw out maximilian and so forth.

he was very interested in maintaining amicable relationships with mexico. he was quite close to the mexican ambassador, then it was called minister, in washington. i think those two men working together did keep the relationship between the countries fairly strong. you are right in pointing out grant's attention was primarily focused elsewhere. there was no sense at that time of an activist foreign policy with the state department having all these ideas of how we treat central america and europe. it was a most as if the united states in its foreign affairs operated on an ad hoc basis. when crises came up like the alabama claims, he dealt with them. the united states paid a lot more attention to cuba at the time because of the cubans attempt to overthrow spanish

rule. grant may have wanted to help out militarily. i don't think he really did, but he certainly was sympathetic to the cuban insurgents. within the administration, he thought strongly about perhaps recognizing their belligerency which would have been a boost to their efforts to overthrow the spanish from control there. but that was in tangled with the alabama claim incidentally because the alabama claim, part of the problem was we thought great britain recognized the belligerency of the confederacy much too early and perhaps never should have done so. so we could not really turn around and say, by the way, we think the cuban insurgents are real belligerents and deserve all the rights belligerents should have in times of war, particularly in relations with neutrals. that was occupying him much more than relations with mexico.

he and romero did sort of develop a strong personal tie that managed to keep things reasonably peaceful. definitely peaceful. anyone else? please. >> i had a question about grant's relationship with sherman after the war. sherman continued on as chief of the army later on. this notion of grant and his ties with army colleagues, with this brotherhood established. in his memoirs, he speaks highly of sherman as a friend colleague, and trusted subordinate. i would be interested to hear your thoughts on their relationship after the war personal relationship. especially since sherman advised grant not to enter politics at all, and then we know sherman's own view of presidential politics. could you shed light on that and how it affected grant or what counsel sherman may have given him? professor calhoun: good

question. sherman was anti-political. he hated the whole game of politics and did not want to get involved. i think you may have thought to grant, you are unsuited for this . this is not what you were cut out to do. some would argue perhaps there was an element of truth to that. sherman's own brother was a politician, senator john sherman, a successful one. he did try to get the republican nomination for president. there was a sense, i think there was an element of tension between sherman and grant because of that, that sherman may have thought grant made some mistakes in becoming president. and also particularly in the western policy, the indian policy, i think sherman was much more sympathetic to sheridan's

ideas of trouncing these people, exterminating the indians if necessary. grant, much more sympathetic to the indians trying to protect them. grant early on said the problem in the west is encroachment by white settlers and what we need to do is to somehow work out the relationship between the newcomers to the region and the longtime occupants. sherman was more sympathetic towards sheridan's approach of warfare to deal with the problem in the west. i think there were some questions about how much independence grant let sherman have as general in chief. i think they had a little difficulty working out that relationship as to what sherman would be able to do on his own

and what he would need to check with the secretary of war or white house for. i do think there is an element of disappointment on sherman's part that grant did go the political route, something he refused himself. he made that famous statement. he is often thought of, sherman, of making that statement -- he actually made it as early as 1871 when people were thinking of running him to defeat grant. he said there is no way i want to get involved in politics. i don't think it was animosity that developed by any means, but perhaps disappointment when you see a friend doing something he is not particularly suited for. who else?

all right. thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you're watching american history tv. 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our scheduled coming programs and to keep up with the latest history news. history bookshelf features popular american history writers and airs on american history tv every weekend at this time. up next, author tony williams examines the first ever american inoculation program introduced during the 1721 austan smallpox epidemic.

in his book, he describes public resistance to be inactivation program and the resistance appeared to ministers. posted in 2010, this event is about an hour. [applause] tony: thank you very much. thank you for the kind introduction. i'm glad we have a full house. thanks for coming out for the independent book sellers. a wonderful asset to your community. delightful bookstore. i'm tempted to leave the podium and range among the shelves for a couple of hours and have you join me with a cup of coffee. my hosts are so bring the 20th anniversary. congratulations to the bookstore, and hopefully i'll be able to come back on their 40th anniversary in a couple of decades, god willing.