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The Election of 1868
The man who might have been expected to lead the Jewish community’s revenge upon Ulysses S. Grant was a young, self-assured lawyer named Simon Wolf.1 Born in the tiny town of Hinzweiler in Germany’s Rhenish provinces, Wolf portrayed himself as one of those immigrants who fell in love with America even before immigrating there. An American uncle had sent him a picture of George Washington and a copy of the Declaration of Independence when he was nine years old and, according to the account he published seventy years later, he was instantly smitten. “What a wonderful man George Washington must have been,” he recalled thinking, “and what a fairyland it must be, where all men are born free and equal.” By the time he himself arrived in the United States, on July 19, 1848, in the company of his grandparents, he felt himself to be “to all intents and purposes an American.”2
Wolf spent his adolescence in Uhrichsville, Ohio, a rural town chiefly remembered for being about a hundred miles equidistant from Cleveland, Columbus, and Pittsburgh. There his uncle, like so many Jewish peddlers who accumulated capital, had settled down and opened a general store. Wolf served as his uncle’s clerk, ran the store himself for four years, fell in love with politics, and eventually determined to study law. Like many another aspiring Midwest lawyer at that time, he read law in the offices of a local judge, took a course of lectures, and was admitted to the bar following what he recalled as a perfunctory oral examination.
Uhrichsville could not long contain a man of Wolf’s ambitions. “Dependence upon local practice here for an attorney meant starvation,” one community historian recalled.3 The rapid expansion of government during the Civil War suggested that far more plentiful opportunities—for remunerative work and for political influence—would be found in Washington, D.C. Wolf moved there in 1862, just six months before Grant issued General Orders No. 11.
Simon Wolf (illustration credit ill.17)
Building upon his intimate ties to the fraternal network of B’nai B’rith members, Wolf quickly found work in the nation’s capital advocating for Southern Jews arrested while trying to pass through military lines to find refuge in the North. On one occasion, he also successfully intervened with Abraham Lincoln to save the life of a Jewish serviceman sentenced to be shot for desertion. “Mr. President,” he recalled pleading, “what would you have done under similar circumstances? If your dying mother had summoned you to her bedside to receive her last message before her soul would be summoned to its Maker, would you have been a deserter to her who gave you birth rather than a deserter in law but not in fact to the flag to which you had sworn allegiance?” The unwavering courage, florid oratory, and passionate emotion that Wolf displayed in his successful bid to save the soldier’s life served him well in Washington. He quickly rose to become the Jewish community’s premier unofficial government lobbyist. Combining traditional behind-the-scenes defenses of his people, characteristic of the European court Jew, or shtadlan, with more modern advocacy tools, such as public speeches and frequent appearances in the press, he curried favor with those in power, interceded vigorously on Jews’ behalf, dropped names shamelessly, and, as time went on, reveled in his own self-importance. Tellingly, he entitled his autobiography The Presidents I Have Known.4
Wolf played a minor role in 1862, when General Orders No. 11 was issued. Though he later recalled that he “heartily cooperated” in the whole affair, his principal contribution as an ambitious twenty-six-year-old consisted of an able letter to the editor entitled “Defence of the Jews” that he published in the Washington Chronicle. Insisting that Jews were as devoted to the Union and to the war “as any other sect or nation,” he pointed to their manifold contributions to the war effort, condemned Grant’s order as an evil precedent, and promised that history would vindicate Jews, for, as he put it, “the dark ages have passed.”5
Wolf may momentarily have questioned that judgment when he himself was arrested during the war, on the grounds that he associated with B’nai B’rith, alleged to be a “disloyal organization” that was “helping the traitors.” The charges reveal more about the spirit of the times than about B’nai B’rith. Those responsible for domestic security during the Civil War, like their more recent counterparts, cast suspicion on legions of innocent people, immigrants in particular. Fortunately for Wolf, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton characterized the arrest as an outrage and personally intervened to free him.6
Wolf’s first years in Washington coincided with Ulysses S. Grant’s ascent to greatness. The general’s successes at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, his promotion to major general and then lieutenant general, and, finally, his acceptance of Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House transformed Grant into a national hero. His picture adorned patriotic posters, his exploits were widely reported, and many felt that he was destined, someday, to be president of the United States. In the meanwhile, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Grant moved with his family to Washington and in 1866 was elevated to a new rank, higher even than that held by George Washington back in the American Revolution. He was appointed general of the armies of the United States.7
Wolf, making his way in the city, had ample opportunity to observe Grant in his new roles. He was particularly impressed by him, he later recalled, when he watched him in action at the Grand Review (May 23–24, 1865), where Union armies marched through Washington in triumphant celebration of their victory over the Confederacy. “Grant on that day represented in his outward demeanor an absolute repose,” he recollected, perhaps seeking to explain his changing views of the man. “There was no vindictiveness in his face; the fires that lighted up his eyes were not those of grim satisfaction at being the conqueror, but rather those of a man who was pleased to know that the country was once more united and that the war, with all its horrors, had ceased.”8
It soon became clear to Wolf, as well as to others who contemplated the political landscape, that Grant “would unquestionably be the candidate of the Republican party for President of the United States.”9 This posed an unprecedented and deeply vexing dilemma for Jews. Could they vote for a man—even a national hero—who once had expelled “Jews as a class” from his war zone? If not, would this set Jews apart from the multitudes who viewed Grant as the savior of his country? Worse yet, might it raise the ugly specter of dual loyalty, suggesting that Jews cared more about “Jewish issues,” such as antisemitism, than about the welfare of the country as a whole?
Concern about “factional politics,” of course, dated all the way back to the beginning of the republic. Appeals to different voting blocs, as well as outrage at such craven appeals, characterized some of America’s earliest elections. Long before political polling became a science, pundits speculated about the voting habits of different ethnic and religious groups. In 1841, the earliest known analysis of the Jewish vote in New York reported that “most of the Portuguese Jews are Whigs; of the German Jews, about half are Whigs; of the Pollakim [Polish Jews] about one-third,” an indication that wealthier Jews had, at that time, come to support the more conservative Whig Party. Catholic voters, in 1844, faced a crisis when the Whig Party nominated the staunchly anti-Catholic Theodore Frelinghuysen as vice president on the ticket with Henry Clay (whom New York’s Catholic archbishop, John Hughes, was otherwise known to admire). James Polk won that election by a razor-thin margin. Whether the Catholic vote swayed the scales remains a matter of conjecture.10
Jews, however, had not faced this problem before in a presidential election. Antisemitic charges had marred some presidential campaigns, notably the tempestuous campaign of 1800 when local Federalists desperately tarred their opponents as “vermin of foreign countries” and “Jews.” Yet nobody imagined that the major party candidates in that election—John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—were themselves enemies of the Jewish people.11 In Grant’s case, by contrast, the candidate himself was the issue. Much of the country loved him, while a great many Jews found it hard to forgive him.
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br /> Simon Wolf alluded to this problem in a March 1868 address memorializing Isaac Leeser, the recently deceased Jewish leader and editor of The Occident. Just a few weeks had passed since Grant had publicly broken with President Andrew Johnson over the “Tenure of Office” act that Congress had passed to limit the president’s power to hire and fire cabinet members. Bowing to congressional demands, Grant had allowed Edwin Stanton to resume his position as secretary of war, leading Johnson to charge his general in chief with betrayal. The public spat fueled speculation that the Republican Party would now nominate Grant for president of the United States. Against this background, Wolf, himself a Republican of stature, recalled that Leeser “was deeply pained that his fellow citizens … bore patiently the infamous order of a celebrated general which banished free American citizens from loyal ground.” With talk of Grant’s nomination probably uppermost in his thoughts, he reminded his listeners that “nothing that transpired during the war caused more indignation or deserves more lasting execration” than General Orders No. 11.12
Isaac Mayer Wise, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, was characteristically more blunt in addressing Grant’s candidacy. “In case of his nomination to the presidency, which we hope will not take place,” he wrote just a few days prior to Wolf’s address, “we will consider it our duty to oppose him and the party nominating him.…Worse than General Grant none in this nineteenth century in civilized countries has abused and outraged the Jews.”13
Several Democratic newspapers, eager to advance their party’s humbled political fortunes, reprinted Wise’s words or took their cue from him. They understood that for the Democrats to be victorious over a national hero like Grant, they would need to undermine his commanding public image. General Orders No. 11—scarcely known to most Americans in 1868 and shocking in its language and tone—served that purpose well. As a result, even newspapers in communities with barely any Jews pointed to the order as part of their examination of the presumed candidate’s record. The Flemingsburg Democrat of Flemingsburg, Kentucky, for example, devoted two full columns in its issue of March 6, 1868, to “Gen. Grant and the Jews.” The paper reprinted verbatim his order expelling the Jews and observed that “no order issued during the late war, was less called for, or more wantonly wrong.” It assured local residents, whose knowledge of Jews largely came from the Bible, that “the Jews, as a class, are the most industrious and peaceable people we have among us.” And it contrasted the persecution of the Jews by “the brutal soldier” (Grant) with the more positive treatment accorded them by military heroes like England’s Oliver Cromwell, credited with securing the readmission of Jews into England. “History mentioned many wrongs inflicted on [Jews] in earlier times,” the paper concluded, “but none more outrageous than this of the nineteenth century.”14
The New York World, a Democratic newspaper, likewise printed re-ports on Grant’s order once his candidacy for the Republican nomination seemed assured, as did newspapers in Memphis (under the headline “Grant’s Brutality Towards the Jews”) and Savannah, all cities with significant Jewish populations. The St. Louis Dispatch, meanwhile, published what it claimed to be an additional anti-Jewish remark by Grant, from a note he sent to President Lincoln after General Orders No. 11 was revoked. “In obedience to your instructions,” it purportedly read, “the order complained of shall be recalled; but I take the liberty of saying that these people complained of are the same who crucified our Savior, and from the specimens of them here, I do not think the race has improved any since then.” In fact, no such letter has ever been found, nor was Grant corresponding directly with Lincoln at that time. While the Dispatch credited “several citizens of St. Louis” for the story, and they supposedly heard it directly from Lincoln’s lips, the story is almost certainly apocryphal. Still, the quote was memorable and the report impossible to disprove. As a consequence, the tale circulated widely.15
The impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson soon distracted the country, edging Grant’s bid for the presidency from the headlines. There were no primaries in those days (the first preceded the presidential election of 1912), so the decision would be up to the Republican convention, meeting in May. In the meanwhile, Grant wisely laid low. While others soiled their reputations through the grueling impeachment trial, which ended in acquittal, “Ulysses the Silent” kept his mouth shut and bided his time.16
By late spring, Grant’s nomination seemed inevitable. “The convention is about to assemble,” he explained to his wife, “and, from all I hear, they will nominate me; and I suppose if I am nominated, I will be elected.” War veterans, meeting in Chicago in May, all but demanded that he be selected the Republican nominee. Even old Jesse Grant spoke up in his son’s support. A note of suspense was sounded when it was suggested that Ulysses might decline the honor, but few believed that. Finally, on May 21, General John A. Logan officially placed Grant’s name in nomination. The floor of the Republican convention immediately erupted into one of the well-planned “spontaneous” demonstrations for which American political conventions are justly famed. By the time the tumult died down, the nomination was Grant’s—unanimously and on the first ballot. Subsequently, a more divided convention nominated the Speaker of the House, Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, to be his running mate.17a
Following custom, Grant made no personal appearance at the convention. He only learned of his nomination while sitting at his desk in Washington when Edwin Stanton rushed in with a telegram. When Republican leaders visited him at his Washington home on May 29, he accepted the nomination, presumably with a ritualistic display of humble resignation. His handwritten letter of acceptance, dated that same day, provided Americans with a wise and pithy statement of his maturing political views:
If elected to the office of the President of the United States, it will be my endeavor to administer all the laws in good faith, with economy, and with the view of giving peace, quiet, and protection everywhere. In times like the present it is impossible, or at least eminently improper, to lay down a policy to be adhered to, right or wrong, through an administration of four years. New political issues, not foreseen, are constantly arising; the views of the public on old ones are constantly changing, and a purely administrative officer should always be left free to execute the will of the people. I always have respected that will, and always shall.
Peace and universal prosperity, its sequence, with economy of administration, will lighten the burden of taxation, while it constantly reduces the national debt.
The concluding four words of this characteristically brief and to-the-point letter effectively captured the mood of the country and became Grant’s campaign slogan, rallying cry, and, later, the four words printed above his tomb: “Let us have peace.”18
The question, for Jews, was peace at what price? Should they insist on an explanation or an apology from Grant? Or should they join hands with Grant’s Democratic opponents and turn General Orders No. 11 into a campaign issue? Back in 1863, it was easy for angry Jews to dream of the vengeance they might wreak against their oppressor, turning the tables on him much as their biblical ancestors had done to that archetypal anti-Jewish schemer Haman, the vizier of Persia. Such dreams still came easily to Jews living in or near the old Confederacy, who hated the “Unclean, Stinking Generallissimo” with a passion.19 But now this “Haman” was a hero to many of his former soldiers and countrymen, and a candidate for the presidency of the United States. Was revenge still in order? Or might Ulysses S. Grant somehow be cleansed of the stain of antisemitism and rehabilitated?b
A pamphlet entitled General Grant and the Jews, published in New York City soon after Grant’s nomination, made the case for revenge. Its pseudonymous author, Ph. von Bort, denounced Grant for issuing General Orders No. 11 and described him as unfit for the presidency. “As a CLASS, you have stigmatized and expelled us!” it declared, as if speaking in the name of every Jew. “As a CLASS, we rise up and vote against you, like one man!” The pamphlet (“in the name of all American Jews”) concluded with a
bold and almost unprecedented statement of Jewish power—remarkable for what it reveals about American Jewry’s confident optimism in 1868, but discomforting seeing how antisemites would later turn such characterizations back against Jews and accuse them of controlling the destinies of nations. “We are numerous,” the pamphlet warned, “we are influential, we are wealthy, we are diffused over the whole continent, we are as one family; wherever our influence reaches, every Jew—no matter of what political party—every Jew, with the votes he can command, will endeavor to defeat, and with God’s blessing, will defeat you!”20
General Grant and the Jews (1868) (illustration credit ill.18)
When General Grant Expelled the Jews Page 6