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| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Collection Reference Number | GLC05975 |
| From Archive Folder | Documents Relating to the 1870s |
| Title | Ulysses S. Grant to Joseph R. Jones regarding a 'blackmailing operation' |
| Date | 5 September 1872 |
| Author | Grant, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) (1822-1885) |
| Document Type | Correspondence |
| Content Description | Jones identified by the U.S. Grant papers. Discusses a "blackmail operation" and the "soreheads and thieves who have deserted the Republican party have strengthened it by their departure." Grant refers to the reform Republicans like Greeley, Carl Schurz, Lyman Trumbull, Andrew Curtin, David Davis, Charles Francis Adams, and others, who bolted the Republican Party because of corruption. Grant observes that "[t]he few Greeley Republicans buzzed like so many mosquitoes immediately after the nominations.... [However] [t]here was to[o] much time between nominations and elections to keep it up." (Recipient identified by Grant Papers.) |
| Subjects | Republican Party Politics President Election Government and Civics Reconstruction Corruption and Scandal |
| Place written | Long Branch, New Jersey |
| Theme | The Presidency; Government & Politics; Reconstruction |
| Sub-collection | The Gilder Lehrman Collection, 1860-1945 |
| Additional Information | Notes: Jones served as Grant's minister to Belgium. The blackmail attempt involved charges that Jones sold Grant land in Illinois at an extremely low price in exchange for a position as a foreign minister. Jones defused the charges by writing letters to the newspapers, published in the New York Times on 16 September and 12 October 1872. Nominated at the Baltimore Convention, Horace Greeley ran for President against Grant in the election of 1872. An uneasy coalition of democrats and liberal Republican supported Greeley on a platform that criticized the corruption of the Grant administration and the controversies surrounding reconstruction. Greeley captured only 66 electoral votes and six states (Kentucky, Texas, Georgia, Missouri, Maryland and Pennsylvania) against Grant's 286 votes. Greeley died three weeks after the election. |
| Copyright | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |
| Module | Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945 |
| Transcript | Show/hide |