# Talk:Scandals of the Grant administration

The following are scandals or instances of federal corruption associated with the Ulysses S. Grant presidential administration from 1869 to 1877. Particularly noteworthy are Black Friday and the Whiskey Ring.  The Crédit Mobilier is not included as a Grant scandal since the company was founded during the President Abraham Lincoln administration.  The fraudulent Emma Silver Mine swindle that involved Ambassador to Britain Robert C. Schenck was a Grant administration embarrassment and is not included as a scandal.  An analysis of the scandals and frauds reveals that a majority had to do with illicit financial gain; the Safe Burglary Conspiracy, however, involved breaking and entering, property damage, and framing an innocent citizen.  Two scandals involved women: Black Friday and the Trading Post Ring.  Orville E. Babcock, who was indicted in the Whiskey Ring, insinuated that the coded entry "Sylph" signed on communication letters referred to a woman intimately involved with the President.  That allegation was never proven and there was nothing to suggest that a presidential affair took place.  Babcock invented the story to frustrate the prosecution. Although Grant was never proven to be directly involved with or to have personally profited from the scandals or frauds, his acceptance of personal gifts and his associations with men of questionable character severely damaged his own presidential legacy and reputation. Most of these scandals began during the eight years of prosperity after the Civil War, while many prominent scandals were exposed after the U.S. economy crashed after the Panic of 1873.  The breach of treaty between the Lakotas and the United States, signed in 1868, the year before Grant took office, was engineered by Grant in order to accommodate miners seeking gold in the Black Hills.  Known as the Paha Sapa (literally, "hills that are black"), this area was essential to the survival of the Lakota living in Unceded Territory (versus those living on the Great Sioux Reservation), as a game reserve.

Moved this information to the talk page. Added section on Liberal Republican Revolt. Please keep for any future reference to the article. Cmguy777 (talk) 07:22, 28 November 2020 (UTC)


### Liberal Republican
The Liberal Republican movement initially began out of dissatisfaction with the centralized federal government controlled by the Radicals, a faction of the Republican Party who favored African American civil rights, a patronage system, high tariffs, and disenfranchising former confederates. It was the Radicals who sponsored the Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. Senator Schurz, did not favor federal military intervention in Southern affairs or protecting blacks, and he was against miscegenation. In 1870, Senator Carl Schurz and B. Gratz Brown, Governor of Missouri, broke away from the Radicals and officially founded the Liberal Republican Party. The founders argued that dependent citizens, corruption, and centralized power endangered people's liberty. The party advocated confederate amnesty, civil service reform, and free trade. As the party grew nationally prominent persons joined including Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Senator Charles Sumner, and editor of the Missouri Democrat, William M. Grosvenor.   Grant, who was persuaded that the Liberal Republicans were bolting from the Republican Party, used the patronage system to purge them out of office in Missouri.
In 1872, the Republican party split completely in half with Horace Greely nominated by the Liberal Republicans and Ulysses S. Grant again nominated by the more conservative Radicals. A few prominent Democratic Party leaders supported the Liberal Republican cause in Missouri. The result being that the Democratic Party endorsed the reformer and Liberal Republican presidential candidate Horace Greeley.  Grant, though, remained very popular in the nation and won the national election of 1872 by a landslide. However, as more scandals broke out the Liberal Republicans became a party of reform who, along with the Democrats, wanted to purge the government from corruption. The wave of reform was beginning in 1875 with the Democrats controlling the House of Representatives.    Eventually, Grant put reformers on his cabinet as House investigations in 1875 were beginning to expose the  Whiskey Ring depleting tax revenues in the United States Treasury Department.  Newspapers exposed bogus agents in Interior Department in 1875. Navy Department corruption was exposed in 1876. These Grant reformers included Benjamin Bristow as Secretary of Treasury (1874), Edwards Pierrepont as Attorney General (1875), and Zachariah Chandler as Secretary of the Interior (1875).  No reformer was appointed to the Navy Department, however.
The Liberal Republican movement lasted from 1870 to 1875 and at times it is difficult to distinguish between party members, both Democrat and Republican, who adopted all or parts of the Liberal Republican reform agenda. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Amnesty Act of 1872, a Liberal Republican platform, that gave amnesty to former Confederates. Another instance occurred when the Democratic Party reluctantly and chaotically melded with the Liberal Republican Party in the presidential election of 1872, in support of the reformer, Horace Greeley.   The height of the Liberal Republican era in the U.S. Congress was from the periods of 1873 to 1875 with 7 Liberal Republicans in the Senate and 4 Liberal Republicans in the House of Representatives.


### Democratic Party
The Democratic Party reform movement in Congress, although initially a minority after the American Civil War, began during their investigation into the Grant Administration following the Black Friday gold speculation scandal in 1869. The Democratic reform movement sought to expose the corruption in the Grant Administration and to do this needed a majority in the House of Representatives.   Following the inability of the Grant Administration and Republican Congress to stop the damaging economic effects from Panic of 1873, in addition to the unpopularity of the Republican Reconstruction Acts, the Democratic Party, on March 4, 1875 gained a majority in the House of Representatives. Having gained the majority, the Democrats became the reforming party. For the next two years they investigated corruption scandals in the Grant Administration to increase their chances of winning the 1876 presidential election.

This section does not read as having a neutral tone to me. A sentence like "Grant often treated men of superior intelligence and ability as threats rather than assets", for instance, comes off as opinion. Maybe adding an example of this could help? Could changing the language to something along the lines of "Grant has been characterized as..." remove some of the subjectivity?
In general, I don't know if a section discussing the character of Grant is truly relevant to an informational overview of scandals that occurred during his tenure. The conclusion that he was, at times, loyal to a fault but ultimately acted in good faith is one probably best left up to the reader to draw. Using the same available evidence, it's just as possible for someone to conclude he was a crook (not to say I agree with that). Bath-taker (talk) 03:30, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Economic policy of the Bill Clinton administration which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 22:19, 9 September 2025 (UTC)