Ulysses S. Grant was a better general than he was a president. But by comparison to Barack Obama, his performance in the White House was stellar. Grant made mistakes, but he learned from his mistakes.
Ulysses S. Grant and Barack Obama: A study in opposites
April 9, 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia by Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant. After the war, Lee became the president of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, where he established the model for the modern American institution of higher learning. Grant was elected President in 1868 and reelected by an even wider margin in 1872.
Grant's presidency is not highly regarded by many historians primarily because it was plagued by scandals involving public corruption by officials in his administration. However, when Grant became aware of potential wrongdoing, he told his Attorney General to "let no guilty man go unpunished." By comparison, Barack Obama's Attorney General seems to have been instructed to see no evil, and Eric Holder has been careful to find none when he has looked into everything from Fast and Furious to the IRS targeting of non-profit conservative organizations.
Most recently Holder has looked the other way, in spite of the fact that actions taken by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State were very likely to have been in violation of the Federal Records Act. Also, serious allegations have been made that she used her position as Secretary of State to solicit donations to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments, notably from Middle Eastern Arab nations, and that she helped to secure lucrative business deals for her brother by helping to obtain US permanent residency status for individuals who would otherwise have been ineligible to receive green cards.
When Grant's Secretary of War came to him and told Grant that questions were being asked about the propriety of certain government contracts that the War Department had let, Grant asked him if the allegations of wrong doing were true. When the Secretary gave Grant a Clintonesque it depends on what the meaning of true is answer, Grant made him write out his letter of resignation on the spot. Eric Holder could appoint an independent special counsel who would have the power, which Congress lacks, to compel Hillary Clinton to turn over her private server. This would be the first step in determining whether the allegations of wrong doing are true. But Barack Obama has no interest in determining the truth, so his Justice department will ignore this scandal just as it has ignored all the previous ones.
Grant believed in negotiating through strength. When the Civil War ended he ordered Sheridan to march his army to the Texas-Mexico border as a way of letting the French know that their incursion into Mexico was unwelcome. Rather than face a potential conflict with the world's best equipped, trained and experienced fighting force, the French withdrew their army from Mexico. As President, Grant negotiated favorable settlements of Civil War related claims and boundary fishing rights disputes with Great Britain. Grant believed in negotiation but not in the kind of one sided negotiations that Barack Obama seems to believe in. Obama seems to believe that Iran's word that it will act in good faith is all we require, and in return for their empty promises we should relax the rigorous sanctions which have played a major role in weakening their economy and hampering their efforts to manufacture nuclear weapons. Grant would never have accepted the sleeves out of someone's vest in trade for major concessions, but Obama seems more than willing to do just that. The end result will be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East as the Sunni Arab states import Pakistani nuclear technology and possibly even weapons in an effort to counter the coming advent of Iranian nuclear weaponry.
The 15th Amendment to the Constitution, prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan and the passage of comprehensive Civil Rights enforcement legislation are also a part of Grant's presidential legacy. Had the Supreme Court not declared the legislation unconstitutional in 1883 the Civil Rights acts passed during Lyndon Johnson's administration would have been unnecessary. Grant did more for African Americans than any president between Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman. When Barack Obama was elected, the vast majority of Americans hoped that his presidency would help to reduce racial discord; instead by his actions, Obama has helped to inflame racial tensions, and sadly, by every economic indicator, America's blacks are worse off today than when Obama took office.
Ulysses S. Grant was a better general than he was a president. But by comparison to Barack Obama, his performance in the White House was stellar. Grant made mistakes, but he learned from his mistakes. Obama has not learned from his mistakes, perhaps because he is too arrogant to even recognize that he has made them, and so he continues to make them, and the American people continue to suffer as a result of his actions.
Al Kaltman is a political science professor who teaches a leadership studies course at George Washington University. He is the author of Cigars, Whiskey and Winning: Leadership Lessons from General Ulysses S. Grant.
