“Grant returns … again” didn’t have the same ring. His chances of a third term diminished as voters remembered his actual record. He had only fitfully defended black suffrage while in office, and largely abandoned the freedmen at the end of his second term. Why would he protect them now? A third term was unprecedented, and this made it even harder to explain why it should go to a man whose administration was marred by constant scandal.
Grant's presidency gets crushed in this book
