America's Greatest 19th Century Presidents (25 page)

President Lincoln entered a coma from which he never recovered, dying the following morning. The rest of the assassination plot failed, however, when Lewis Powell only wounded Secretary of State William Seward, who had been injured in a carriage accident and was wearing a neck brace that saved his life. George Atzerodt lost his nerve to kill the Vice President and never made the attempt.

By the time Booth made it out of Ford’s Theater, witnesses could identify him as the president’s assassin. While a manhunt for Booth was underway, Powell unraveled the conspiracy further when he showed up at Mary Surratt’s while investigators were there searching for connections to Booth. An immediate manhunt began for the conspirators, who were mostly quickly captured. Following the shooting, Booth fled on horseback to southern Maryland, eventually making his way to a farm in rural northern Virginia 12 days later, where he was tracked down and cornered in a barn. Booth refused to surrender and was eventually shot and killed. Eight others were tried and convicted, and four were hanged shortly thereafter.

With the Civil War near its end and the need for Reconstruction or reconciliation to begin, the North was without its leader. It would fall on a Southerner, Andrew Johnson, to guide the United States into the post-Civil War era.

.

Chapter 8: Lincoln’s Legacy

Lincoln’s funeral procession

Lincoln's funeral was the grandest a President has ever received in American history.  His body traveled throughout the North after lying in state in the White House and Capitol Rotunda.  Thousands greeted his body as it moved past.

Today, Lincoln is almost universally regarded as the United States' most important President.  The changes he ushered in to American government are many.  Lincoln, through effort, ability, and a great deal of luck, reunited the United States, his most important achievement.  He also ended slavery, which made it one of the last Western countries to do so.

Lincoln's less notable achievements, however, are just as momentous.  Before the Civil War, the Federal Government was far less centralized and deferential to states’ rights and powers.  Most financially expensive obligations were met by the states.  Under Lincoln's Presidency, the size of the Federal payroll expanded to include 195,000 employees.  Most importantly, Lincoln signed into law the first income tax in the history of the Federal government.  The size and scope of the Federal government has steadily increased since.  Part of this expansion was due in part to Lincoln's own prerogatives, having augmented the role of the Presidency in American government. 

A huge part of Lincoln's legacy rests in the mythic nature of his memory.  In many ways, though, myth precedes fact in the American narrative.  Known as the “Great Emancipator,” Lincoln actually didn't emancipate anyone.  His Emancipation Proclamation was issued only to Confederate States that were in a state of rebellion and not taking directives from the White House.  Even if he had issued an Emancipation Proclamation that applied to states loyal to the Union, it would have been of questionable Constitutionality, and probably challenged in court.  It was the 13
^th
Amendment that eliminated slavery, and the Constitutional Amendment process does not include the President.  Furthermore, were it not for Southern secession, slavery would have probably continued to exist throughout the Lincoln Presidency.  As he stated repeatedly throughout his political career, Lincoln never considered restricting slavery where it already existed.  Rebellion changed his opinion on that, however.

On other issues, Lincoln is misconstrued in the national narrative.  Portrayals of Lincoln as a man ahead of his times on issues of race are wholly inaccurate.  Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency and elected in part because he did not hold opinions on race that differed much from the average American's.  Lincoln never supported racial integration, and through most of his life he remained a proponent of African-American colonization, sticking to the idea of sending former slaves to Liberia.

In another sense, Lincoln's premature death solidified much of this exaggerated legacy.  In juxtaposition to his strictly racist and pro-Southern successor, Andrew Johnson, Lincoln appeared more liberal than he actually was.  Lincoln supported modest rights for blacks, namely citizenship and voting rights, but he was viewed as being too moderate and conciliatory by the Radical Republicans, who supported much bolder proposals that today are not viewed as radical at all.  President Johnson, however, opposed both citizenship and voting rights, and thought the freed slaves were best controlled by their former masters.  With this contrast, Lincoln appears much more progressive than he actually was.  Often, historical legacies are relative, and Lincoln is a perfect example of this.

Today, Lincoln is portrayed as a humble man of the people, born in a log cabin in Kentucky, who later rises to great political achievement. Naturally, this story is tailor made to fit the quintessential “American Dream” tale of rags to riches that Horatio Alger Jr. made very popular in the late 19
^th
century. But even much of this narrative is exaggerated; left out is Lincoln's shame and embarrassment about his modest origins, and the many political defeats he endured along his path to the Presidency.

Regardless, though, Lincoln is a defining part of the American historical narrative.  He is honored in numerous places, from the penny to the $5 bill to the Lincoln Memorial, and despite the Republican Party being known as Lincoln’s party, and politicians and activists of all stripes are eager to mention his name or be associated with him.  Among our Presidents, few faced higher stakes.  Lincoln's was a make-or-break Presidency.  If he had followed in the guise of his predecessor, President Buchanan, today there might still be a Confederate States of America.  No other president has been faced with the possibility of a divided nation.

Lincoln managed to avoid that fate, instead becoming one of America’s greatest legends.

Bibliography

Brinkley, Alan and Davis Dyer. 
The American Presidency: The Authoritative Reference.
  Boston:

              Houghton Miffling, 2004.

Fehrenbacher, Don E. 
Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850's.
  Stanford: Stanford University

              Press, 1962.

Oates, Stephen B. 
With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln.
  New York: Harper & Rowe

              Associates, 1994.

Schwartz, Barry. 
Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory.
  Chicago: University of

              Chicago Press, 2000.

Smith, Carter and Allen Weinstein. 
Presidents: Every Question Answered.
  New York: Hylas

              Publishing, 2004.

Ulysses S. Grant

Chapter 1: Family Lineage

The Grant Family Tree

Today Ulysses S. Grant is remembered as a Westerner from Galena, Illinois, but it was a gradual move west for Grant’s family and ancestors. Hiram Ulysses S. Grant was born at Point Pleasant, a village in Ohio, southeast of present-day Cincinnati, on April 27, 1822.  Grant was born in Ohio, but his ancestors had lived along the east coast for centuries. He was a descendant descended from Matthew Grant, the first Grant to immigrate to the United States from Plymouth England. Matthew arrived in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1630 with his first wife and then settled in Windsor, Connecticut where he became a colony surveyor, but his first wife died shortly after settling in Windsor. 

The Grant family remained in Connecticut until nearly the end of the 18
^th
century, when Grant’s grandfather, Noah Grant, pioneered West to Ohio and settled there in 1799. Ulysses would not be the first war hero in his family; Noah had served in the Revolutionary War and was at Bunker Hill, the biggest battle in the American war for independence. Noah’s son, Jesse Root Grant, married Hannah Simpson on June 24, 1821 at Point Pleasant, where their first son, Hiram Ulysses, was born the following year. 

Grant’s birthplace

Grant and his family did not remain at Point Pleasant too long. In the Fall of 1823, Jesse moved his family to Georgetown, in Brown County, Ohio, where he started a tannery and bought some farmland. The Grants had five more children, two boys and three girls.

Childhood: 1822 to 1839

Growing up on farmland, young Grant had a childhood that farmboys could easily relate to. Described as just a normal boy, “Lyss,” as his parents called him, performed a variety of chores on the farm and the 50 acres of forest his father owned.  Lyss detested the tannery trade, so instead he helped with the farming and hauling of firewood in the fall, and through the years he developed considerable skill handling horses.  By the age of 11, the boy was strong enough to hold a plough, and until the age of 17 he worked primarily with the horses--breaking up the land, furrowing, ploughing corn and potatoes, bringing in the harvested crops, and hauling all the wood used in the house and shops--all while attending school. 

Always conscientious about his personal and work habits--the ideal son, many said—Grant’s parents rarely had cause to scold or punish him, and they rarely objected to his requests to do the things he enjoyed, which included fishing, swimming in the creek, skating in the winter, or taking a horse (and sleigh, in the winter) to visit his grandparents.  

In fact, Grant proved himself so trustworthy early in life that his father sent him alone at the age of just 15 to represent his business interests on trips to Cincinnati (about 45 miles away), as well as Chillicothe (about 70 miles away), and Flat Rock, Kentucky (about 75 miles away). Grant would later note, “I did not like to work; but I did as much of it, while young, as grown men can be hired to do in these days, and attend school at the same time.”
[5]

Chapter 2: Education, 1834 to 1843

Subscription and the Three Rs

Like most boys of that place and time, Grant was educated from about the age of 5 or 6 until 14 through local “subscription” schools; schools supported by members of the community who each contributed a percentage of the teacher’s fee. Though he learned little more than the “Three Rs,”
reading
, ‘
riting
, and
‘rithmetic
, he was fortunate enough to also attend a school year at the Maysville Seminary in Kentucky from 1836-1837, and the Presbyterian Academy at Ripley, Ohio from 1838-1839. Like work, Grant performed all the necessary tasks but did not particularly relish them, admitting, “I was not studious in habit, and probably did not make progress enough to compensate for the outlay for board and tuition.”
[6]
  And though Grant was mostly a model son at home, he later wrote that he received his fair share of “the rod” at school.