Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant, the general who accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender and won the Civil War for the Union, was elected president in 1868 as the nation struggled through Reconstruction.

He used federal power to enforce the new constitutional rights of Black Americans, signing enforcement acts and crushing the early Ku Klux Klan. He championed the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race. His two terms were also marred by financial scandals among his associates and the Panic of 1873, though Grant himself was not personally corrupt.

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