Grant

by Ron Chernow

Grant pleaded with white southerners to do justice to blacks or he would have no choice but to send in unwanted federal troops. He issued a prophetic warning of the perils facing America’s two parties: Under existing conditions the Negro votes the republican ticket because he knows his friends are of that party. Many a good citizen votes the opposite not because [he] agrees with the great principles of state which separate party, but because, generally, he is opposed to Negro rule. This is a most delusive cry. Treat the Negro as a citizen and a voter—as he is, and must remain—and soon parties will be divided, not on the color line, but on principle.46 From southern Republicans, Grant heard heartrending pleas for help, a sorrowful chorus of concern. From a black minister in Tennessee, he learned of blacks flocking to his town because so many had been murdered by night riders elsewhere. He promised Grant that “these Colored peopel will all die for you to day. they have a great love for you. So we want you to do all [you] Can for us.”47 A Houston resident complained of Democrats riding roughshod over Texas Republicans. “Send your Bayonets to Texas—and break up the assemblage of Maniacs—Ruffians—and Thieves At Austin.” The writer asserted that Democrats wouldn’t hesitate to make a constitution that placed “the colored man in a peonage worse than Slavery—But they fear the mighty Ulysses might Break up there Government.”48 Unfortunately, Grant was progressively hamstrung in copi...