ULYSSES GRANT

Ronald C. White, American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant (New York: Random House, 2016) ("In early 1871, Grant resolved to mount a comprehensive campaign against the Klan. In his first two years in office, sensitive to criticism of military overreach and placing his confidence in the ballot box, he had not moved against the Klan. Now he made the decision to act, even as he knew Congress was retreating form Reconstruction. Some Republicans--once strongly antislavery and supportive of Reconstruction amendments--joined with Democrats in minimizing stories of Klan violence and argues that any and all solutions should be left to the southern states. Grant believed that their terrorism had moved beyond the control of any one state and became convinced that the federal government needed to act." Id. at 521. "Grant's aggressive campaign against the Ku Klux Klan alienated many of his former Republican allies. at the 1870 Missouri Republican state convention in Jefferson City, Senator Carl Schurz bolted to preside over an alternative convention Calling themselves 'Liberal Republicans,' they nominated B. Gratz brown for governor. Promising to do away with a test oath that barred thousands of ex-Confederates form voting, Brown ended up winning a decisive victory against Government Joseph McClurg--a Radical Republican. Schurz hastened to assure Grant that what happened in Missouri was purely a local affair." Id. at 528. However, it was not a purely local affair. "The term liberalism changed definition over the course of the nineteen century and suggested a set of values quite different form what people think of as liberalism in the twenty-first century. Liberal Republicans in 1872 embraced the timeless values of individual liberty, limited government, and free trade, while at the same time focusing on what they believe were the more timely imperatives of civil service reform and general amnesty for Confederates." Id. at 531. Also see T. J. Stiles, "A Man of Moral Courage," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 10/23/2016.).