Fortunately for Grant, the fervor on his side was equally passionate. Frederick Douglass wisely saw that the random corruption cases that tarnished the administration’s reputation were far less consequential than the president’s unqualified support for southern blacks. Reconstruction was the essential sequel to the Civil War, completing its mission. “If we stand by President Grant and his administration,” he wrote, “it is from no spirit of hero worship or blind attachment to mere party, but because in this hour there is no middle ground. [Grant] is for stamping out this murderous ku-klux as he
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