During Ulysses S. Grant's two terms as president of the United States (1869–1877) there were several executive branch investigations, prosecutions, and reforms carried-out by President Grant, Congress, and several members of his cabinet, in the wake of several revelations of fraudulent activities within the administration. Grant's cabinet fluctuated between talented individuals or reformers and those involved with political patronage or party corruption. Some notable reforming cabinet members were persons who had outstanding abilities and made many positive contributions to the administration. These reformers resisted the Republican Party's demands for patronage to select efficient civil servants. Although Grant traditionally is known for his administration scandals, more credit has been given to him for his appointment of reformers.
It was with the encouragement of these reformers that Grant established the first Civil Service Commission, and ended the moiety system. Many in his cabinet including his Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and his Secretary of Interior Jacob D. Cox implemented Civil Service reform in their respective departments. Historian H.W. Brands has noted that the Grant Administration thwarted the 1869 Gold Ring in addition to the successful prosecution the Whiskey Ring in 1876. The Grant administration took place during Reconstruction and a boom and bust economy following the Civil War that fueled financial corruption in Government offices.
Several of Grant's cabinet members supported and implemented Civil Service reform in their respected federal departments. President Grant signed a bill into law that allowed the Postal Department to prosecute pornography through the mail, a law that is still in effect today. Grant appointed several leading reformers including Hamilton Fish, Benjamin Bristow, and Edwards Pierrepont. During his first administration Grant prosecuted and shut down the Ku Klux Klan under the Enforcement Acts he signed into law in 1870 and 1871. None the less, Grant's stubborn personality, was often in conflict, with those reformers, whom he believed were insubordinate to his administration. On several occasions, Grant dismissed cabinet reformers without notice or explanation.
Reforming cabinet members
Grant's cabinet fluctuated between talented individuals or reformers and those involved with political patronage or party corruption. Some notable reforming cabinet members were persons who had outstanding abilities and made many positive contributions to the administration. These reformers resisted the GOP demands for patronage to select efficient civil servants.Nevins 1957, p. 367. Grant's most successful appointment, Hamilton Fish, after the confirmation on March 17, 1869, went immediately to work and collected, classified, indexed, and bound seven hundred volumes of correspondence. He established a new indexing system that simplified retrieving information by clerks. Fish also created a rule that applicants for the consulate had to take an official written examination to receive an appointment; previously, applicants were given positions on a patronage system solely on the recommendations of Congressmen and Senators. This raised the tone and efficiency of the consular service, and if a Congressman or Senator objected, Fish could show them that the applicant did not pass the written test. According to Fish's biographer and historian Amos Elwood Corning in 1919, Fish was known as "a gentleman of wide experience, in whom the capacities of the organizer were happily united with a well-balanced judgment and broad culture".
Another reforming cabinet member was United States Secretary of Treasury George S. Boutwell who was confirmed by the Senate on March 12, 1869. His first actions were to dismiss S.M. Clark, the chief of U.S. Bureau and Engraving, and to set up a system of securing the plates that the paper money was printed on to prevent counterfeiting. Boutwell set up a system to monitor the manufacturing of money to ensure nothing would be stolen. Boutwell prevented collusion in the printing of money by preparing sets of plates for a single printing, with the red seal being imprinted in the Treasury Bureau. Boutwell persuaded Grant to have the Commissioner of Internal Revenue Alfred Pleasanton removed for misconduct over approving a $60,000 tax refund. In addition to these measures, Boutwell established a uniform mode of accounting at custom houses and ports. Boutwell along with Attorney General, Amos T. Akerman, were two of Grant's strongest cabinet members who advocated racial justice for African Americans.Boutwell 2008, pp. 120–123.
During Amos T. Akerman's tenure as Attorney General of the United States from 1870 to 1871, thousands of indictments were brought against Klansmen to enforce the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and the Force Acts of 1870 and 1871. Born in the North, Akerman moved to Georgia after college and owned slaves; he fought for the Confederacy and became a Scalawag during Reconstruction, speaking out for blacks' civil rights. As U.S. Attorney General, he became the first ex-Confederate to reach the cabinet. Akerman was unafraid of the Klan and committed to protecting the lives and civil rights of blacks. To bolster Akerman's investigation, Grant sent in Secret Service agents from the Justice Department to infiltrate the Klan and to gather evidence for prosecution. The investigations revealed that many whites participated in Klan activities. With this evidence, Grant issued a Presidential proclamation to disarm and remove the Klan's notorious white robe and hood disguises. When the Klan ignored the proclamation, Grant sent Federal troops to nine South Carolina counties to put down the violent activities of the Klan. Grant teamed Akerman up with another reformer in 1870 – the first Solicitor General and native Kentuckian Benjamin Bristow – and the duo went on to prosecute thousands of Klan members and brought a brief quiet period of two years in the turbulent Reconstruction era.
As perhaps Grant's most popular cabinet reformer, Benjamin H. Bristow was appointed Secretary of Treasury in June 1874. Bristow had served ably as Solicitor General of the United States from 1870 to 1872, prosecuting many Ku Klux Klan's men who violated African American voting rights. When Bristow assumed office he immediately made an aggressive attack on corruption in the department. Bristow discovered that the Treasury was not receiving the full amount of tax revenue from whiskey distillers and manufacturers from several Western cities, primarily St. Louis, Missouri. Bristow discovered in 1874 that the Government alone was being defrauded by $1.2 million. On May 13, 1875, armed with enough information, Bristow struck hard at the ring, seized the distilleries, and made hundreds of arrests; the Whiskey Ring ceased to exist. Although Grant and Bristow were not on friendly terms, Bristow sincerely desired to save Grant's reputation from scandal. At the end of the Whiskey Ring prosecutions in 1876, there were 230 indictments, 110 convictions, and $3 million in tax revenues returned to the Treasury Department.PoliticalCorruption.netRhodes 1912, pp. 182–185.
In 1875, Grant paired up Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow with U.S. Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont, a Yale graduate. The appointment was popularly accepted by the public as Bristow and Pierrepont successfully prosecuted members of the Whiskey Ring. Before becoming U.S. Attorney General, Pierrepont was part of a reforming group known as the "Committee of Seventy" and was successful at shutting down William M. Tweed's corrupt contracting Ring while he was a New York U.S. Attorney in 1870. Although Grant's reputation was vastly improved, Pierrepont had shown indifference in 1875 to the plight of freedmen by circumventing Federal intervention when White racists terrorized Mississippi's African American citizens over a fraudulent Democratic election. Every cabinet appointment made by Grant came with a political cost.
When Grant was in a bind to find a replacement for Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who abruptly resigned in 1876 amidst scandal, he turned to his good friend Alphonso Taft from Cincinnati. Taft, who accepted, served ably as Secretary of War until being transferred to the Attorney General position. As Secretary of War, Taft reduced military expenditures and made it so that no traderpost-ships would be given to any person except on the recommendation of the officers at the post. Grant then appointed Taft as U.S. Attorney General. Taft was a wise scholar and jurist educated at Yale University, and the Attorney General position suited him the best. During the controversial Presidential Election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden, Attorney General Taft and House Representative J. Proctor Knott had many meetings to decide the outcome of the controversial election. The result of the Taft-Knott negotiations, the Electoral Commission Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by Grant on January 29, 1877; it created a 15-member bipartisan committee to elect the next President. Hayes won the Presidency by one electoral vote two days before the March 4, 1877, Inauguration. Alphonso Taft was the father of future president William H. Taft.Leonard 1920.
In 1875, the U.S. Department of the Interior was in serious disrepair with corruption and incompetence. The result was that United States Secretary of Interior Columbus Delano, reportedly having taken bribes to secure fraudulent land grants, was forced to resign from office on October 15, 1875. On October 19, 1875, in a personal effort of reform, Grant appointed Zachariah Chandler to the position and was confirmed by the Senate in December 1875. Chandler immediately went to work on reforming the Interior Department by dismissing all the important clerks in the Patent Office. Chandler had discovered that fictitious clerks were earning money and that other clerks were earning money without performing services. Chandler simplified the patent application procedure and as a result, reduced costs. Chandler, under Grant's orders, fired all corrupt clerks at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Chandler also banned the practice of Native American agents, known as "Indian Attorneys" who were being paid $8.00 a day plus expenses for supposedly representing their tribes in Washington.
Postmaster General John A. J. Creswell proved to be one of the ablest organizers ever to head the Post Office. He cut costs while greatly expanding the number of mail routes, postal clerks, and letter carriers. He introduced the penny postcard and worked with Fish to revise postal treaties. A Radical, he used the vast patronage of the post office to support Grant's coalition. He asked for the total abolition of the franking privilege since it reduced the revenue receipts by five percent. The franking privilege allowed members of Congress to send mail at the government's expense.Nevins 1957, p. 139.
Grant appointment, U.S. Postmaster Marshall Jewell, often called meetings with his clerks giving them new instructions on reform. Jewell was noted to have said to his clerks, "We are cleaning up the department by degrees, and we are getting it found on business principles."Chicago Daily Tribune (Feb 18, 1883), Marshall Jewell Postmaster Jewell aided and stood by Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow shut down and prosecute the notorious Whiskey Ring; a tax evasion scheme by whiskey distillers that depleted the U.S. Treasury millions of dollars.New England Historic Genealogical Society, p. 127
Grant's appointments of Bristow, Pierrepont, and Jewell on his cabinet, temporarily appeased reformers.
Thwarted gold ring (1869)