Who is your favorite 19th century Republican president sans Lincoln?

It would be too easy if I left Lincoln in the poll.

than Southern Democrats made him out to be. Lee has been made into a kind of saint, while Grant's reputation has been trashed.

And a realiztion of what a truly important figure he was...

Grant is one of my favorite historical figures...

His memoirs are a great read.

When he died he was extremely popular. When he left the Presidency he was the most popular person in the world. He had both Union and Confederate pallbearers.

His Presidency was more successful than was remembered especially in stopping Union Army genocide against Native Americans and moving against the KKK.

Ironically he died from throat cancer which developed because his well wishers started sending him boxes and boxes of cigars after reading that their favorite general like to smoke them. In his last few months he could not speak and finished writing his autobiography which was published by Mark Twain and is considered the most successful Presidential autobiography to date. His personal financial decisions were terrible and while he was a good judge of soldiers a terrible judge of business partners. He finished the autobiography and died the next day. The book provided a retirement income for his wife after he had lost all of his money in bad busineess decisions, which is where he was when he rejoined the army at the begining of the war.

I'm pretty sure his policies reflected 19th century values.

Oh wait, he lost :rofl:

:patriot:

I'd have to say Grant was head and shoulders above the rest of the field. At least he was an honourable man and appears to have tried to do the right thing. But, I have to say my favorite 19th century Dem, Grover Cleveland, was much better ;-)

about the corruption, that is. Credit Mobilier was only one of the Grant scandals.

Actually, I'm not that fond of any of the 19th century Rep. presidents after Lincoln. Maybe Arthur, but he was an accident.

He did quite a bit of good...and a reasonable argument can be mde that he was the first "civil rights" President...

His excessive loyalty allowed scandals to be initiated...but once he learned of them he tooks steps to end them...and is the resaon he is considered a middling President rather than good or great...but he was far from the worst...and was very popular durinig both of his terms...

But Ulysses Grant is the best on the list. Rutherford Hayes, Bill McKinley and Chet Arthur were career politicians; read "crooks."

Grant may have been a great general in the civil war, but that wasn't what happened when he became president.

Grant made a lot of problems for himself by picking a bunch of his war buddies for his cabinet, many of whom turned out to be totally corrupt.

There's a saying, great leaders surround themselves with great people, and Grant clearly didn't do that, he did just the opposite.

It was a time of powerful railroads and near trusts. Government was corrupt, period. Under Grant, for the very first time, money that was allocated by Congress to make life easier for native Americans actually got to the native Americans. Prior to Grant, it was ALWAYS, repeat ALWAYS, stolen by the white man. In 1872, for the first time ever and the last time in nearly a century, African-Americans were allowed to vote. Grant sent national guard units to ensure it.

Grant made some mistakes as President, and for that matter, as a General too. There's a terrific biography of Grant out there by Jean Edward Smith; I strongly recommend it. The truth is that for the half-century or so after Grant's death, history was mostly written by white supremacists, and white supremacists loathed Grant. He was arguably the best President of the period between the end of the civil war and the end of the 19th century. One has to remember, though; it was a bad period.

Which gives one pause...

from website: "International Brotherhood Days," http://www.brotherhooddays.com/HEROES.html#President U.S. GRANT:

President U.S. GRANT:
As Commanding General of the Union Army, Grant was appalled by the slaughter at Sand Creek. He said the actions of Colonel Chivington were nothing less than murder. In October of 1868 however, General Grant was quoted by the New York Times, "....the settlers and emigrants must be protected, even if the extermination of every Indian tribe is necessary to procure such a result." 42).

Violating the separation of state and government President Grant issued an executive order in 1870, that gave franchise to various religious denominations on the reservations. The intent of this executive order was to destroy Native spiritual belief and further hurry along the process of "whipping the Indian out of the man." Some denominations went so far in making church services mandatory, rations were denied those that did not attend services, or were with-held from those that continued to practice their traditional beliefs. In some cases, when denial of rations to a reluctant "convert" did not work, rations were also denied to the relations, and family of the reluctant "convert" in an effort to prod the person along the path of Christianity. It was in effect, convert or starve, an American version of feeding the "Martyrs" to the lions.

After the Panic of 1873, President Grant was looking for a way to divert citizen's attention from the economic crisis gripping the country and the growing scandals that plagued his administration. President Grant ordered George Armstrong Custer to scout the Black Hills in search of gold, in direct violation of the treaty of 1868. One provision of the Treaty of 1868 stipulated that the government of The United States was responsible for keeping white settlers out of the Black Hills area. When thousands of miners invaded the Black Hills President Grant again violated the treaty and ordered the Army to do nothing. It was his hope that hostility would break out. It did, thus giving the U.S. government the justification to make war upon the Lakota people. 23).

In the brutal winter of 1876, President Grant ordered all Lakota People to move to the various agencies by January 31, 1876. The order stated that all Lakota that did not move to the agencies by this date would be considered "hostiles." Deep snow and temperatures that reached 45 degrees below zero prevented some of the messengers from even reaching the far flung winter encampments before the deadline passed. Those that received the order ignored it as foolishness and refused to place the lives of their elderly and young at risk and instead sent word that they would comply when the weather broke. Regardless, after the deadline passed, President Grant ordered the military campaign that ended the freedom of the Lakota People as well as led up to the demise of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and approximately one-third of his command at the place the Lakota called, Greasy Grass.

As President, Grant advocated and encouraged the slaughter of the buffalo. Between the years 1870-1875 the buffalo were reduced in number from more than 15 million to less than 1 million. 44). From 1874 through 1875 between ten to twenty tons of buffalo bones a day were shipped East on the Santa Fe Railroad alone. 55).

After his gross violation of the Treaty of 1868 Grant sent military negotiators to force the Lakota to "sell" the Black Hills to the United States. These very negotiators would write in 1876 of the sins that they were compelled to commit: "....Our country must forever bear the disgrace and suffer the retribution of its wrongdoing. Our children's children will tell the sad story in hushed tones, and wonder how their fathers dare so trample on justice and trifle with God." 31).

What is this all about?

Oh for the days of no automobiles and no oil, no electrical appliance, plenty of outhouses, and Jim Crow laws. Those were the days!

I also wouldn't be bothered with a poll that asks "who was the worst Democratic president in the nineteenth century?"
After all, neither of today's political parties have much resemblance to their counterparts in the 19th century. During some parts of that century, the Republicans were a much more liberal party than the Democrats were.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. "

-- Abraham Lincoln

Even thought his political career was born out of political patronage, once he became president he worked to establish our modern civil service system that did away with a lot of that political patronage.

...an enormous public outcry after the senseless murder of James Garfield. There's a fine book out there about the whole affair. It's called Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of James A. Garfield, by Kenneth Ackerman. Chet Arthur wasn't great and wasn't horrible as President. He was overmatched, I think.

If one closely studies American history, the only thing which had ever created real change was public outrage. It was a public movement that brought about patronage reform. It was a public movement that created child-labor laws and OSHA. It was a public movement that gave us social security. Really, it was public shock over the shocking murder of Abraham Lincoln and horrifying beating of Secretary of State William Seward that "healed" the nation after the civil war.

But the mere fact that patronage is what got his political career started yet when he got to be president he signed off on reform is to his credit. And of course, by your standard, maybe FDR wasn't that great either. Perhaps we should credit public outrage rather than FDR himself.

...came to him and assured him they controlled a million votes and wanted some kind of social safety net, he was smart enough to listen. I generally do not credit FDR with social security, and whenever a right-winger comes along to blame him for it, I educate them.

FDR was a brilliant judge of people. He had an uncanny knack for finding capable people and putting them in the best position to utilize their skills. He was also a good manager; whatever his personal beliefs, when he found something that worked, he stayed with it, and when he found something that didn't work, he discarded it. And that, along with the fact that he guided the nation through extremely difficult times, is why he deserves credit as one of the nation's finest Presidents.

and the subject of rewritten history by modern Birfoons.

never

The Republican Party of that day cannot be blamed for today's party. And if you are going to hold them to that standard, then by reverse logic you need to blame today's Democrats for Jim Crow.