Grant married into a pro-slavery and slave holding family from Missouri. He knew, only too well, how difficult the transition of culture and agro-economic change would be for the southern states after the Civil War.
During and after the conflict, the General and soon to be President, attempted to assuage politician’s and citizen’s concerns regarding re-uniting.
This exercise was difficult, in the extreme. The southern mentality and aristocratic caste system, didn’t lend itself to the physical, labor and reward, philosophy that northern work ethic dictated.
The war-torn confederate states were inundated with northern and foreign speculators in southern commodities, that could be purchased at a deep discount and shipped north or to Europe at astronomical profits. These imported traders and marketing profiteers angered the southern citizenry to the point of violence in many circumstances.
In addition, the freedmen and women of color represented a continuing reminder of a by-gone era and a life style that would never be known again.
Bummer
“The people who had been in rebellion must necessarily come back into the Union, and be incorporated as an integral part of the nation. Naturally the nearer they were placed to equality with the people who had rebelled, the more reconciled they would feel with their old antagonists, and the better citizens they would be from the beginning. They surely would not make good citizens if they felt that they had a yoke around their necks.”
“I appreciate the fact, and am proud of it, that the attentions I am receiving are intended more for our country than for me personally.”
“Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace.”
Ulysses S. Grant
