Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xxv General Grant elected President--Re-elected to the Senate in 1869--Conference with Grant--I write the Fifteenth Amendment--Its passage by Congress--Grant's Inaugural recommendation on negro suffrage. In 1868 General Grant was elected President of the United States. His popularity as a soldier and fairminded man secured for him an overwhelming majority, including three-fourths of all the States. The Chicago Convention which nominated him declared for equal suffrage in the South, without regard to race or color, indorsed the legislation of Congress, and severely condemned the administration of Andrew "Johnson. President Grant's Administration, by the platform on which he was elected, the public press, and the orators of the campaign, was committed to the protection of the emancipated slaves, either by granting to them suffrage, or the exercise by Congress of all measures, however coercive, to secure equality before the law. The Nevada Legislature which elected me my own successor in 1869 was chosen at the time of the election of President Grant, and I returned to Washington the week before Congress met, about November 25, 1868, after President Grant's election. Many bills were pending providing for colored suffrage and protection for emancipated slaves by various devices; such as amendments to the Constitution securing equal suffrage, amendments to the Freedmen's Bureau bill and the Civil Rights bill. I read over all the various propositions for suffrage and for direct legislation protecting the negroes, and recognized the fact that the general tone of all the propositions for the protection of the negro was in harmony with the sentiment of the campaign resulting in General Grant's overwhelming victory. I called on General...