page_title: Ulysses S. Grant
section_title: Reconstruction and civil rights
hierarchical_section_title: Ulysses S. Grant / Presidency (1869–1877) / Reconstruction and civil rights
caption_attribution_description: English: Amos T. Akerman
context_page_description: Ulysses S. Grant was an American soldier and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. Before his presidency, Grant led the Union Army as Commanding General of the United States Army in winning the American Civil War. As president, Grant worked with the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction to protect blacks and reestablish the public credit, while rebuilding the U.S. Navy.
  Raised in Ohio, young Grant possessed an exceptional ability with horses, which served him well through his military career. He was admitted to West Point and graduated from the U.S. military academy in 1843. Grant served with distinction in the Mexican–American War. In 1848, he married Julia Dent, and together they had four children. Grant abruptly resigned his army commission in 1854 and returned to his family, but lived in poverty for seven years. During the Civil War, he joined the Union Army in 1861, and led the Vicksburg campaign, which gained control of the Mississippi River in 1863. After Grant's victory at Chattanooga, President Abraham Lincoln promoted him to Lieutenant General. For thirteen months, Grant fought Robert E.
context_section_description: Grant was considered an effective civil rights president, concerned about the plight of African Americans. On March 18, 1869, Grant signed into law equal rights for blacks, to serve on juries and hold office, in Washington D.C., and in 1870 he signed into law the Naturalization Act that gave foreign blacks citizenship. During his first term, Reconstruction took precedence. Republicans controlled most Southern states, propped up by Republican controlled Congress, northern money, and southern military occupation. Grant advocated the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment that said states could not disenfranchise African Americans. Within a year, the three remaining states—Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas—adopted the new amendment—and were admitted to Congress. Grant put military pressure on Georgia to reinstate its black legislators and adopt the new amendment. Georgia complied, and on February 24, 1871 its Senators were seated in Congress, with all the former Confederate states represented.
  In 1870, to enforce Reconstruction, Congress and Grant created the Justice Department that allowed the Attorney General and the new Solicitor General to prosecute the Klan. Congress and Grant passed a series of enforcement laws, designed to protect blacks and Reconstruction governments. Grant's Justice Department did destroy the Ku Klux Klan, but in both his terms Blacks lost political strength in the Southern United States. By October, Grant suspended habeas corpus in part of South Carolina and sent federal troops to help marshals, who initiated prosecutions. Grant's Attorney General, Amos T. Akerman, who replaced Hoar, was zealous to destroy the Klan. Akerman and Grant appointed Solicitor General Benjamin Bristow, made hundreds of arrests while forcing 2,000 Klansmen to flee the state. By 1872 the Klan's power had collapsed, and African Americans voted in record numbers in elections in the South. Attorney General George H. Williams, Akerman's replacement, in the Spring of 1873, suspended prosecutions of the Klan in North Carolina and South Carolina, but prior to the election of 1874, he changed course and prosecuted the Klan.
  During Grant's second term, the North retreated from Reconstruction, while southern conservative whites called "Redeemers" formed armed groups, the Red Shirts and the White League, who openly used violence, intimidation, voter fraud, and racist appeals to overturn Republican rule. Northern apathy toward blacks, the depressed economy and Grant's scandals made it politically difficult for the Grant administration to maintain support for Reconstruction. Power shifted when the House was taken over by the Democrats in the election of 1874. Grant ended the Brooks–Baxter War, bringing Reconstruction in Arkansas to a peaceful conclusion. He sent troops to New Orleans in the wake of the Colfax massacre and disputes over the election of Governor William Pitt Kellogg. Grant recalled Sheridan and most of the federal troops from Louisiana.
  By 1875, Redeemer Democrats had taken control of all but three Southern states. As violence against black Southerners escalated once more, Grant's Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont told Republican Governor Adelbert Ames of Mississippi that the people were "tired of the autumnal outbreaks in the South", and declined to intervene directly, instead sending an emissary to negotiate a peaceful election. Grant later regretted not issuing a proclamation to help Ames, having been told Republicans in Ohio would bolt the party if Grant intervened in Mississippi. Grant told Congress in January 1875 he could not "see with indifference Union men or Republicans ostracized, persecuted, and murdered." Congress refused to strengthen the laws against violence, but instead passed a sweeping law to guarantee blacks access to public facilities. Grant signed it as the Civil Rights Act of 1875, but there was little enforcement and the Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional in 1883. In October 1876, Grant dispatched troops to South Carolina to keep Republican Governor Daniel Henry Chamberlain in office.
  
caption: Amos T. Akerman, appointed Attorney General by Grant, who vigorously prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan.
  Brady-Handy circa unknown
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