 | Chagoth (3)
07/27/2005 | Columnist John J. Miller said this of Grant, Let us not insist that Grant was a great president. But he was a solidly good one, whose hard-money policies fought inflation and who kept the peace with foreign powers. Miller adds, Some claim he didn't do enough to help blacks in the South secure their rights in the 1870s but this is grossly unfair, because Grant was hobbled by a Congress and a public that didn't want to go as far as he did. Furthermore, Grant's administration may have been corrupt, but the corruption was not categorically worse than what has been found in several other administrations and it did not reach to the top of the organizational chart.
Historians who continue to rank Grant near the bottom of the presidential pile are partisan and unfair. Grant deserves better. He was good. If I were to rank all forty-two presidents from best to worst, Grant would fall somewhere between seventeen and twenty-one. He is underrated.
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 | abichara (60)
12/17/2003 |  Grant was an okay general and a bad President. As a General in the Civil War, Grant lacked the tactical brilliance of his opponent General Robert E. Lee. Grant's strength layed in his purposeful strategy of attrition. He never truly routed the South, but he wore them out. His Presidency was not at all very memorable. He appointed people who were corrupt and incompetent. While Grant himself was a moral man, the people around him caused tons of trouble for him. So much so that he couldn't really articulate his vision for the country. It was a shame because he was well respected (at least in the North). He really never got a handle on the question of Southern Reconstruction, but then again it would have been difficult under any circumstances. The corruption in his Administration lead to an economic downturn because his Treasury Secretary was tampering with gold prices in order to enrich some of his personal cronies. In terms of the Presidency, this was really one of its lowest periods. Corruption and excess dominated plus executive power was really weak; this was to be expected though. Lincoln, who precededed Grant, was one of the strongest Presidents ever; Congress decided that it needed to take its place. I don't think Grant was underrated; he was a good man but personal and historical circumstances were just not with him during his Presidency.
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