Ulysses S. Grant

An effective civil rights executive, Grant signed a bill to create the United States Department of Justice and worked with Radical Republicans to protect African Americans. In 1871, he created the first Civil Service Commission. Grant was re-elected in the 1872 presidential election, but was inundated by executive scandals during his second term. His response to the Panic of 1873 was ineffective in halting the Long Depression, which contributed to the Democrats winning the House majority in 1874.

Grant's Native American policy was to assimilate Indians into Anglo-American culture. In his foreign policy, the Alabama Claims against Britain were peacefully resolved, but the Senate rejected his proposal to annex Santo Domingo. During the disputed 1876 presidential election, he facilitated the approval by Congress of a compromise. Leaving office in 1877, Grant undertook a world tour, becoming the first president to circumnavigate the world.

In 1880, he was unsuccessful in obtaining the Republican nomination for a third term. In 1885, dying of throat cancer, Grant wrote his memoirs, which were posthumously published and became a major critical and financial success. At his death, he was the most popular American and was memorialized as a symbol of national unity.

Due to the pseudohistorical and negationist mythology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy spread by Confederate sympathizers around the turn of the 20th century, historical assessments and rankings of Grant's presidency suffered considerably before they began recovering in the 21st century.