The Man Who Saved the Union



I've just finished reading a really enjoyable book - 'The Man Who Saved the Union' - and no, it's not about the Scottish independence referendum.

Instead it's the story of the life and times of Ulysses S. Grant, an unassuming man whom Abraham Lincoln appointed to command of the Union army during the American Civil War (1861to 1865) who went on to defeat the Confederate rebels and become a two-term President.

What I found fascinating about the book, by HW Brands, is that it confounded my view of  American history and politics.

For example, I never realised the extent to which the Democratic Party was the big party of slavery which caused the civil war, of course, while the Republican Party was, in the main,  intent on its abolition.

Nor did I appreciate the way in which the southern states simply reintroduced all the trappings of slavery, by replacing bondage with naked discrimination, as they were readmitted back into the Union once the civil war was over.

But politics is a strange old business and the Democrat stranglehold hold on the southern states was later undermined by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (introduced by Lyndon Johnson following the assassination of John F Kennedy) as the Republicans made the wrong strategic call by wooing the racist sentiments of southern voters with their support for states' rights over federal rights.

So the southern states started to swing behind the Republicans in the political battle over implementing the Civil Rights Act which looked like good business at the time, but while the Republicans won that particular battle (and control of many southern states) they managed to lose the war and their previous supremacy in the northern states.

And that, dear readers, is why American politics are still split so badly today and why the Republicans are much weakened political force.    

I will share more of my thoughts about the book in the days ahead, but here's a very interesting observation by President Grant after he had left office and embarked on a world wide tour with his wife, Julia.

"My impression of peoples are that in the East they have a form of government and a civilization that will always repress progress and development. Syria and Asia Minor are as rich of soil as the great northwest of our own country, and are blessed with a climate far more suitable to production. The people would be industrious if they had encouragement, but they are treated as slaves, and all they produce is taken from them for the benefit of the governing classes and to maintain them in a luxurious and licentious life. Women are regarded beneath even a slave. They have not more rights than a brute. In fact, a donkey is their superior in privileges."     

And in some countries the truth is that things are still the same in over 100 years later.

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