GRANT
GRANT
appointed Grant secretary ad interim. Grant
protested against this action, but retained the
position until the senate had refused to confirm
the suspension, Jan. 14, 1868, when Grant in-
formed the President that lie could not hold the
office in opposition to the will of congress and
General Thomas was appointed in his place.
The Republican national convention of 1868 on
its first ballot unanimously nominated General
Grant for the presidency and in his letter of ac-
ceptance he made use of the famous words, " Let
us have peace." In the general election in
November, 1868, the electors on his ticket received of the popular vote 3,01,^,071 to 2,709,615
for the Democratic electors and on the meeting
of the electoral college in 1869 he received 214
votes to 80 for Horatio Seymour, three states,
Mississippi, Texas and Virginia, not voting. He
was inaugurated the eighteenth President of the
United States, March 4, 1869. He called to his
aid as executive advisors Elihu B. Wasliburn of
Illinois as secretary of state, and on his resigna-
tion the same year to accept the mission to
France, Hamilton Fish of New York; George S.
Boutwell of Massachusetts as secretary of the
treasury; John A. Rawlins of Illinois as secretary
of war, and on liis death, Sept. 9, 1869, William
W. Belknap of Iowa; Jacob D. Cox of Ohio as
secretary of the interior, and on his resignation
in December, 1870, Columbus Delano of Ohio;
Adolph E. Borie of Pennsylvania as Secretary of
the navy, and on his resignation, Jime 23, 1869,
George M. Robeson of New Jersey; John A. J.
Creswell of Maryland as postmaster-general; and
Ebenezer R. Hoar of Massachusetts as attorney
general, and on his resignation, June 23, 1870,
Amos T. Akerman of Georgia, and on his resigna-
tion, Dec. 14, 1871, George H. Williams of Oregon.
He advocated in his inaugural address the speedy
return to specie payment, and congress passed
the act on March 18, 1869, which was a pledge to
pay the debts of the United States in coin unless
the obligation expressly stipulated to the con-
trary, and in accordance with his views as ex-
pressed in his annual message t-o congress a bill
was passed and approved July 14, 1870. authorizing the funding of the public debt at a lower rate
of interest, through the issue of §200,000,000 of
bonds at five per cent, .§300.000.000 at four and a
half per cent, and SI. 000, 000.000 at four per cent.
His Indian policy was sliaped to the end of civil-
izing the savages with a view to their ultimate
citizenship, and his policy while not always suc-
cessful introduced humanity and justice to take
the place of brute force. He favored the annexa-
tion of Santo Domingo and recommended the
adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the con-
stitution of the United States He also advanced
the principles of civil sei-vice reform in the cixil
administration, appointing a commission which
recommended competitive examinations, and it
was put in operation June 1, 1872, but failed to
be effective at the time on account of opposition
from congress. On May 4, 1872, lie issued a proc-
lamation ordering all unlawful armed bands to
disperse in the states in which conflicts between
the vv-hite and colored races were rife, and said
that he would " not hesitate to exhaust the
powers vested in the executive, whenever and
THE whiie: ri"";'
wherever it shall become necessary to do so for
the purpose of securing to all citizens of the
United States the peaceful enjoyment of the
rights guaranteed to them by the constitution
and the laws. " As the proclamation was disi-e-
garded he issued a fiu-ther warning October 12,
and on the 17th suspended the writ of habeas
corpus in parts of North and South Carolina, and
after a few vigorous prosecutions of offenders the
outrages ceased. The famous treaty of Washing-
ton, made May 8, 1871, by a high joint commis-
sion, by its termsreferred the claims of the United
States against Great Britain growing out of the
operations of the Confederate cruiser Alabama, to
a court of arbitration held in Geneva, Switzerland,
and in September, 1872, awarded to the United
States S15.500,000, which was paid in full. This
was largely the result of the policy of President
Grant and his secretary of state, and was the
beginning of a friendship between the two English
speaking nations of the globe that suggested
arbitration as an acceptable substitute for war in
the settlement of disputes between equally intel-
ligent nations. President Grant's first adminis-
tration left him some enemies' in the Republican
party, who classed his actions as imperial and his
measures as arbitrarj' This disaffection resulted
in the calling of a national convention at Cincin-
nati, Ohio, in 1872, under the name of " Liberal
Rejjublicans " and the nomination of Horace
Greeley for President. The convention claiming
to be regular met at Philadelpliia, Pa., June ">,
1872. and renominated Grant and approved of his
administration. In the election in November,
1872, he was re-elected, receiving of the popular
vote 3,597,070 to 2,843,079 for Horace Greeley, and
