GRANT 



GRANT 



these seizures was the Virginias Massacre 

 (which see), which created intense excitement 

 in the United States and almost led to war. 

 Grant, however, by acting with firmness and 

 promptness, won from Spain a complete apol- 

 ogy and full reparation for the outrage. 



Election of 1872. Chiefly as the result of the 

 administration's policy toward the South, a 

 considerable faction in the Republican party 

 felt that Grant's reelection would be a calam- 

 ily. This faction, led by Charles Francis 

 Adams, Carl Schurz, Charles Sumner and Hor- 

 ;ico Greeley, organized the Liberal Republican 

 party at a convention in Cincinnati in May, 

 1872. The original intention was to nominate 

 Adams for President, but the convention was 

 stampeded for Greeley, who was still un- 

 popular in the North for his act in signing 

 Jefferson Davis' bail bond. The Democrats 

 accepted Greeley as their candidate, while the 

 Republicans renominated Grant. Grant was 

 elected by a popular vote of 3,597,000 to 2,834,- 

 000 for Greeley. Grant received 286 electoral 

 votes to 63 votes for Thomas A. Hendricks, 

 B. Gratz Brown and the other candidates, 

 Greeley having died before the electoral col- 

 lege met (see GREELEY, HORACE). 



Financial. Legislation and the Panic of 1873. 

 Early in 1873 Congress passed a coinage act 

 which received little attention at the time. At 

 that time neither gold nor silver was in circu- 

 lation, the government had not resumed specie 

 payments, and the only currency was bank 

 notes and "greenbacks." This act dropped the 

 silver dollar from the list of standard coins, 

 a procedure which was denounced a few years 

 later as the "crime of 1873." When the act 

 was passed no silver dollars had been coined 

 for twenty years, and it was not until later, 

 when the free silver agitation swept the coun- 

 try (1896), that great political capital was 

 made of the act of 73. 



Another noted fiscal law of 1873 is known 

 in history as the "salary grab." The act 

 raised the salary of the President from $25,000 

 to 50,000, and increased the salaries of all 

 Federal judges and of members of Congress, 

 including the members of the Congress which 

 passed the bill. This last feature was violently 

 opposed by the public, which expressed its 

 indignation so forcibly that so much of the act 

 as related to Congressmen's salaries was re- 

 pealed. 



The "salary grab" was merely an incident 

 in a time of riotous wastefulness which could 

 have but one end. Overproduction, over- 



trading and overexpansion of credit led to 

 one failure after another among the banking 

 houses of New York, until the country was 

 seized with panic. Credit was refused, savings 

 banks suspended payment, factories shut down 

 and their owners were driven into bankruptcy, 

 and many of the railroads were forced into 

 the hands of receivers. To relieve the money 

 stringency Congress passed the so-called Infla- 

 tion Bill, providing $100,000,000 in inconvert- 

 ible paper currency. Grant vetoed the bill, a 

 courageous act for which the country owes 

 him a great debt, and largely through his 

 efforts and those of John Sherman, then Sen- 

 ator from Ohio, Congress passed an act for 

 the resumption of specie payments (see SPECIE 

 PAYMENTS, Resumption oj). 



Scandal and Corruption. For nearly half a 

 century the United States had seen more or 

 less corruption in high places, but Grant's 

 administration seems to have been fixed by 

 some evil genius as the time for the worst 

 disclosures. Unfortunately for Grant's reputa- 

 tion, both then and now, his praiseworthy ac- 

 tions were sometimes overshadowed by the 

 faults of his subordinates. One of Grant's 

 most lovable traits was a simple trust in his 

 friends; he found it impossible to think evil of 

 any man to whom he had given his friendship. 

 It was his misfortune that some of his friends 

 took an ignoble advantage of his trust. The 

 affair of the Credit Mobilier, the Whisky Ring 

 and the Star Route Frauds, although these 

 last were not exposed until the Hayes adminis- 

 tration, were but typical of the existing lax- 

 ness of morals (see CREDIT MOBILIER; STAR 

 ROUTE FRAUDS). In New York City the Tweed 

 ring was finally broken up in 1871, but in 

 1876 Grant's Secretary of War, W. W. Belknap, 

 resigned to avoid impeachment for selling con- 

 tracts for army supplies. Fraud was discov- 

 ered in the customs service and in the Indian 

 Bureau. Grant had made at least one attempt 

 to reform the government service; he had 

 secured the Civil Service Act of 1871, but two 

 years later Congress blocked further reform 

 by refusing to appropriate funds. 



Other Items of Interest. One of the most 

 noteworthy features of Grant's term was the 

 sudden rise of the "Grangers," or "Patrons of 

 Husbandry" (see GRANGE). Equally interest- 

 ing was the first appearance, in 1876, of a 

 national Prohibition party. In 1873 Congress 

 passed a law ordering the issue of the first 

 one-cent postal cards, and in 1876 admitted 

 Colorado to the Union. The year 187G also 



