The country was now to undergo
another period of military domination, longer lived than those others,
as the Civil War was greater than them--a period from which it has even
yet not fully recovered.
In 1868, the Republican party nominated unanimously for President the
general who had pushed the war to a successful finish, and who had
received Lee's surrender, Ulysses Simpson Grant, and he was elected by
an overwhelming majority. For the first time in the history of the
country, a man had been elected President without regard to his
qualifications for the office, for even Jackson had had many years'
experience in public affairs. Of such qualifications, Grant had very
few. He was egotistical, a poor judge of men, without experience in
statesmanship, and unwilling to submit to guidance. As a result, his
administration was marked by inefficiency and extravagance, and ended in
a swirl of scandal.
Born in Ohio in 1822, and graduated at West Point, he had served through
the war with Mexico, resigned from the army, remained in obscurity for
six years, during which he made an unsuccessful attempt to support
himself in civil life, and entered the army again at the outbreak of the
Civil War. From the first he was successful more than any other of the
Union generals, not so much because of military genius as from a certain
tenacity of purpose with which he fairly wore out the enemy.
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