Grant, Ulysses S

1052 – “As the United States is the freest of all nations, so, too, its people sympathize with all people struggling for liberty and self-government; but while so sympathizing it is due to our honor that we should abstain from enforcing our views upon unwilling nations and from taking an interested part, without invitation, in the quarrels between different nations or between governments and their subjects. Our course should always be in conformity with strict justice and law, international and local.”

-Ulysses S Grant, 18ht President of the United States of America

(more…)

994 – “Let us labor to add all needful guarantees for the more perfect security of free thought, free speech, and free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion.”

-Ulysses S Grant, 18th President of the United States of America

(more…)

825 – “History shows that no Administration from the time of Washington to the present has been free from … mistakes. I leave comparisons to history, claiming only that I have acted in every instance from a conscientious desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law, and for the very best interests of the whole people. Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent.”

–Ulysses S Grant, 18th President of the United States of America (more…)

720 – “The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected. To this correction I stand committed, so far as Executive influence can avail.”

–Ulysses S Grant, 18th President of the United States of America

(more…)

645 – “I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit.”

–Ulysses S Grant, 18th President of the United States of America

Context: Written in a letter where Grant explains the situation regarding his issuing of General Order No. 11, which expelled all Jews from his military district. He says he issued the order when upset after being  reprimanded over reports that some people, who happened to be Jewish, were accused of crossing the Union lines, in defiance of an earlier order, to sell black market goods, specifically cotton. He says that he regrets the order, and that he did not defend it then, and would not defend it now. For full context, the full letter can be read online through the link in the source.
(more…)

Advertisement

591 – “Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences, instead of keeping large standing armies as they do in Europe.”

–Ulysses S Grant, 18th President of the United States [Attributed]
(more…)