Ulysses S. Grant, the top Union general in the Civil War and subsequently a two-term president, said the following in 1875 as he neared the end of his second term, and as the first centennial of the U.S. Declaration of Independence approached:
If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason’s and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other. Now in this centennial year of our national existence, I believe it a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundation of the house commenced by our patriotic forefathers one hundred years ago, at Concord and Lexington.
Pretty haunting at the moment. He made the statement in Des Moines, at a reunion of Civil War soldiers.
Have a great weekend and Martin Luther King Day on Monday.
Grant’s words amount to a description of the nature of the conflict in the Civil War.
Grant was deeply sorrowed by the fact that the Civil War, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and Reconstruction did not finally settle or resolve the underlying issue of slavery or the matter of what we now call racism. It’s only after recently reading Grant’s biography by Ron Chernow and other more recently written works about the Civil War and Reconstruction that I’ve begun to appreciate how this country has avoided dealing with these issues and just kicked them down the road pretending they’re all part of past history.
White supremacy and all that it contains of superstition, ambition, and ignorance, seems to be the single element that defines this sick infection of our body politic.
It has exposed “American exceptionalism” as nothing but an extension of an arrogant, self-satisfied, bullying, militant nationalism– merely masquerading as a generous, kind superpower.
I cringe now to hear our top leaders referring to “banana republics”, “third world”, and worse describing the poor countries, when my own country has so much to atone for in this world. We have not used our wealth, our wisdom or our power to help the world as much as we need to.
We ought to be in shame and guilt for having brought T**** into power, and allowed him to hurt so many for no reason at all.
Republicans, of course, need to show contrition if they are ever to be respected again. Their selfish greed is all played out as a platform for the people. They can’t build anything from their hate and anger.
All the rest of us, however, need to show a humble face to the nations of the world in light of what America has done with her leadership role. “Great Nation” or “Patriot” isn’t something we can call ourselves. It is something we must earn in our political lives.
Thank you, Eric, for this striking quotation.
You know, some of us had hoped that folks like Niki Haley would have seen the light to reason, facts and rationale after T****, however she has been quoted in the Hill, “rightfully called out the president for his unchecked, poisonous rhetoric
followed by: “They’ve demonstrated that they’ll ‘cancel’ anyone who gets in their way,”
So here we go same old conspiracy theory BS, the “they” its ingrained in the R party. Grant was quite the visionary, of the R party. “superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.” Hey, can’t make this stuff up.
Their problem is a set of policies that don’t appeal to most voters.
Either they have to move towards the center (in other words towards the Democrats who do it better), or find a way to stay in power that does not depend upon popular appeal.
While the statement is a good one the problem is that a lot of ignorant superstitious people don’t know that they are ignorant and superstitious, in fact I’d guess that none of them do. The dude seen in Trump riot video chasing a black police officer up the steps inside the capitol has been arrested, he’s from Des Moines. He was wearing a Qanon (a twofer Ignorant AND superstitious) tee shirt and you can bet your bottom dollar he thinks he’s a Patriot. How do we make folks like that understand the error of their ways?
“How do we make folks like that understand the error of their ways?”
Electro-shock therapy?
Well, no, I guess not.
The continued stunning inconsistency is that these folks believe they are the last line of defense for our country and its’ Constitution.
You can believe in the Constitution and its’ abilities to find the truth or you can believe Donald Trump’s election fraud claims.
One or the other
Not both
And I have repeatedly asked the believers of the Trump election hoax:
“OK, If I give you Trump did in reality win and the courts all failed to find the truth, how did the Constitution go wrong? What changes do we need to make to the Constitution to prevent this from happening again? Since you can’t blame it on liberal bias of the judiciary and the Trump SCOTUS it must be a fault in our Constitution, how do we fix it?”
Never get an answer.
Remember what George Bush said about making their own reality rather than being reality based.
That was Karl Rove: “…when we act, we create our own reality. … you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities…”
Its the only way Republicans can win elections anymore because their policies are so odious no one will vote for them.
It’s unlikely that the next “contest of our national existence” will be regional in nature, since the current political upheaval is largely between urban and exurban/rural areas all across the country. The voting maps reveal dense blue cities surrounded by sparsely populated red acreage. While one can still see in 21st Century America a certain resemblance to the Old Confederacy, there are millions of Dems in this New Confederacy, still requiring the somewhat slim white majority(?) of several of those states to rely on tried and true vote suppression techniques to maintain control. Repubs just failed to maintain control in GA, but one can be certain that Repubs in there will now alter the voting mechanisms that made it easier for ALL citizens to vote. Democracy is hostile to “conservative” interests.
If racism and KKK terror was what Grant had in mind when making these comments, it is rather indirect to use words like “ignorance and superstition”. Hatred and murder would be more appropriate. But I guess in 1875 the idea of white supremacy was still “common wisdom”, so perhaps that restrained Grant as he spoke to both Union and Confederate veterans.
Slavery and its attendant attitudes of racism are the original sin of the founding of the United States. The issue poisoned the progress and development of the country for decades, finally resulting in civil war. When Southern whites made clear they were never going to accede to political equality for blacks in the aftermath of the war, Northern whites finally gave up the struggle in the disputed election of 1876, ending Reconstruction and condoning the erection of Jim Crow. This was accompanied by manufacturing a glorification of the Lost Cause of the Noble Confederacy, a camouflaged racist attitude which is quite prevalent well into the 21st Century.
While the nation formally renounced white supremacy with the 14th and 15th Amendments of the 1860s and the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s, these acts (separated by 100 years[!]) quite obviously did not end the original sin of white supremacy. Indeed, the true underlying motivation of the Insurrectionist of Jan 6 2021 was white grievance: the anger that black votes decided the election of 2020, and that the candidate of the white citizenry din not prevail. Indeed, it was the votes of cities with large black populations that formed the very basis of Trumpolini and Giuliani’s bogus “fraud” claims. The ultimate idea of Trump that the votes of black citizens are illegitimate and thus “fraudulent”. It is an attitude that US Grant would have easily recognized.
Grant says we should work on “strengthening the foundation of the house” commenced by the framers in the face of “ignorance and superstition”. If he meant working to strengthen democratic institutions, we’ll see which party is actually open to doing that in the aftermath of Trump’s Insurrection.
It can’t be good news for:
“superstition, ambition and ignorance”
When FOX News now sits in third place behind CNN and MSNBC.
Had a laugh when CNN dusted off their old tag line, after 10 years on the shelf, as I watched last night:
“The most watched….”
Poor FOX, filled with FOMO and also afraid to go full on NewsMax and OAN crazy in its’ reporting.
Sean Hannity will soon be tending bar at Mar a Lago…
If I allow that Fox is propaganda to protect the rich from the poors…
CNN and it’s adherents on:
Superstition: Progress is eternal and on the side of Democrats!; America is a meritocracy!; We can fix Race relations without doing anything about income inequality….
Ambition: Climbing the Corporate, Bank, Gov or Edu ladder
Ignorance: Of how neoliberal, corporate, financialized economics since Reagan, embraced by Clinton, Obama and Biden, automating, outsourcing and AI-ing people out of jobs or driving them into precarious contract, gig, share and service jobs, lead to epidemic homelessness, suicide and drug addiction, the death of democracy (long before Trump), and helped drive many poor white people into the toxic embrace of racist ideologies.
There you go again…
I never realize how bad it all is until I get to a WHD post.
“We can fix Race relations without doing anything about income inequality”
“and helped drive many poor white people into the toxic embrace of racist ideologies”
President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
LBJ Did not get this revelation in 1964. He got it in his childhood, in the teens and twenties growing up in rural Texas. Out of that sentiment came the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Medicare.
After the Trump Insurrection of Jan 6, 2021, the idea that “economic anxiety” is what is “really” driving the actions of these radicalized whites is simply preposterous and tendencious. It was a violent destruction of the Capitol by largely well-off, well-to-do whites (mostly male), screaming “treason!” of all things, whites who have been obsessed with demographic changes and losing political control of the country for many years. Economics has very little to do with it.
Here is just one article, of many out there, about the radicalization of an Obama voting union guy into a Trump fanatic, having to do with the destruction of industry in his region. But for whatever reason, this issue, this destruction of good jobs for people without college degrees, cannot be discussed in most liberal circles. The only response is – they are racists, bigots, misogynists, xenophobes (inherently apparently, born and raised).
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-radicalization-of-kevin-greeson
“destruction of good jobs for people without college degrees”
Let’s assume you accept the fact that a person with a technical college degree actually has one, then yes, good high paying secure jobs for high school graduates are GONE, VAPORIZED, VANISHED.
Get over it: it simply does not work that way anymore. I have been in hundreds of manufacturing facilities across the Upper Midwest and while there are some entry level, low skill jobs, if you want security and pay, skills are required. We have great technical colleges, community colleges, and four year colleges and universities to provide the required skills at an affordable cost, and that cost should be further reduced and easier to pay for if we can overcome GOP obstruction.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”
Did not work out so well for the Soviet Union then and that you see it as the solution for us now is about as realistic as the notion that tax cuts always pay for themselves.
“LBJ Did not get this revelation in 1964. He got it in his childhood, in the teens and twenties growing up in rural Texas. Out of that sentiment came the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Medicare.”
Three generations ago. And since? Especially since Reagan? A gradual, accelerating picking of the pockets of the poor, working and middle class, by the top 20% and especially the .01%.
“A gradual, accelerating picking of the pockets of the poor, working and middle class, by the top 20% and especially the .01%”
20 Years ago I was talking to a friend who had just helped implement some new technology at a Detroit auto plant. He needed to work on the line over a weekend to get things going. In talking with the guys on the line, who would jump at every opportunity to get overtime, they were making over $100,000 per year in 1996 dollars. Good for them. Unfortunately not sustainable and that led to renegotiated contracts, often separating old line employees from newer ones. If you think we’re going back to that: get a job at the hiring hall when you are 18 and then work up a union pay scale that brought their employers to their knees, you are wrong.
What can be done?
The 20% definitely benefited from the labor of the 80%, especially since 1980. Reparations are not going to be paid. The 80% were promised a Social Security benefit: Tax the hell out of the 20% to deliver that basic benefit and improve on it.
Medicare and affordable healthcare was another promise to the 80%: Deliver on it. No “we can’t afford it” excuses.
Education is the single greatest accelerator of income earning opportunity: facilitate it.
Hmm, I think I just laid out the stated Biden agenda.
Good news, right WHD?
Well put. Back in the mid 1980s, CEOs started raking in huge compensation backages, which I don’t recall as being as much of an accepted trend, in the 1970s and mid 1980s when I started working at 3M, stuffing envelopes, or Control Data, processing claims after graduation from the University of Minnesota. At that time, the differences in wages for workers, whether management or otherwise, was not that large. At some point, both black and white workers lost living wage jobs and benefits, as it was considered better for the corporate bottom line to have other countries manufacture products and then ship them back here. I remember my black and white co- workers talking about life being harder for us than it had been for our parents. Many of us ( both black and white) came from homes, where parents were able to make a living wage. Yes, the whites had it better, which of course is unfair and wrong and would lead to righteous indignation. Then things got worse as outsourcing accelerated.
This has got to be the most elaborate “I know you are but what am I” I have ever seen. Nice work.
I am struck by how young our country is. 1875 seems so long ago; yet the other day it occurred to me, talking to my kids, that my father has lived through 1/3 of this country’s existence (he’ll shortly turn 83). I myself have seen over 20%.
It’s easy to fall into the trap that we think what has “always” been always will be. Yet we’ve recently seen how we don’t agree, as a country, on the current state of our union, or on an appropriate direction to take it forward. In the recent past, people like MLK gave their lives in pursuit of a more perfect union, to ratchet an incremental notch towards equality for all. And just last week more gave their lives – a security officer doing their job at the Capitol, as well as others (misguided, I think) trying to undo an election in pursuit of mislabeled patriotism.
It is hard to see how this will last.