Ulysses S. Grant, Second Term

Abstract

Abstract During Grant’s second term, business and politics were increasingly woven together into a web of greed and corruption. Railroads entered a grand new phase of consolidation and influence. There also appeared new industrial corporations in steel, oil, rail manufacture, and wheat production. Silver emerged as a political rival to gold and the greenback. Democrats regained political parity with the Republicans. To get out the vote, state and local political machines mastered the arts of graft and patronage. Meanwhile, new political movements based on currency, agricultural, and anti-monopoly interests came forth to agitate the electoral waters. And to kick it all off, during late summer 1873 the first great industrial recession and financial crisis of the era struck, damning the remainder of Grant’s presidency to economic misery. Grant attempted to navigate these economic squalls by doggedly adhering to the same approach as in his first term. His primary concerns remained his desire to defend freedom, justice, and equality for African Americans, while reconciling with the ex-Confederate South, and to do so while adhering to the “hard money” ideology that he believed essential for American creditworthiness. This proved an impossible trilemma. Grant’s dedication to “hard money” eliminated monetary policy as a short-term solution to the depression. Other ideas for federal interventions to relieve the economy were then shot down as either too encouraging of partisan corruption or too contrary to conservative government. Grant was either unwilling or unable to form the political coalitions necessary to overcome these objections. The results were economically disastrous.