I am on page 767 of an 1,100-page biography of President
Ulysses S. Grant by Ron Chernow. The
first 600 pages follow Grant from childhood through the end of the Civil War
and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Grant remained in charge of the U.S. Army from victory in
1865 until his election as President in 1868.
In those years, Andrew Johnson was President. Johnson began his
abbreviated term in office carrying out Lincoln’s plans to give full rights of
citizenship to Black Americans, but then became sympathetic with southerners
who wanted to disenfranchise Blacks and prevent them from voting.
Grant took over and re-energized Reconstruction. Within a year of taking office, Grant became
convinced that the marauding bands of southerners called the Ku Klux Klan would
take over all of politics in the South and prevent Blacks from being full
citizens. Between 1870 and 1872, Grant
authorized the Army to eradicate the Klan in cooperation with the Justice
Department. By 1872, the Klan was effectively
wiped out across the South as an organization.
After Grant left office, white supremacy returned in the
form of Jim Crow laws and the Klan itself returned in a different form in the
20th Century. The name Ku Klux is an Anglicized form of the Greek
word for circle, Kuklos (κυκλοϲ). These
circles of hate are among the most shameful parts of American history. Grant shows that even in a time when the Klan
could draw upon tens of thousands of veterans to fill its ranks, it could be
crushed by a functioning central government.
By any measure, the Klan remains the most deadly domestic
terror organization in American history.
I will write more when I finish the book.
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