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<blockquote data-quote="KahlessNestor" data-source="post: 8509937" data-attributes="member: 6801311"><p>Yeah, that gives a good sense of Grant. It's an amazing contrast, the pre-Progressive era presidency compared to the post-Progressive era, and especially Wilsonian, presidency. Grant was always reluctant to do anything, because President's weren't supposed to &quot;do&quot; anything. They weren't the party leaders they are now. They didn't set legislative agendas. Yet he did manage to do so much with Reconstruction (he was still Commander in Chief, and the south was under martial law). His is also the first administration to make the first steps toward ending the patronage system, though with the growth of the modern beaurocratic deep state evidenced in the last five years, I'm not sure this system is better. I recently watched the Daniel Day Lewis biopic Lincoln, and the way he used patronage to push passage of the Thirteenth Amendment was genius. The Tommy Lee Jones character summarized it well: &quot;The most historic piece of legislation passed in the 19th century, by the most corrupt means, by the most incorruptible man&quot; or something along those lines.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="KahlessNestor, post: 8509937, member: 6801311"] Yeah, that gives a good sense of Grant. It's an amazing contrast, the pre-Progressive era presidency compared to the post-Progressive era, and especially Wilsonian, presidency. Grant was always reluctant to do anything, because President's weren't supposed to "do" anything. They weren't the party leaders they are now. They didn't set legislative agendas. Yet he did manage to do so much with Reconstruction (he was still Commander in Chief, and the south was under martial law). His is also the first administration to make the first steps toward ending the patronage system, though with the growth of the modern beaurocratic deep state evidenced in the last five years, I'm not sure this system is better. I recently watched the Daniel Day Lewis biopic Lincoln, and the way he used patronage to push passage of the Thirteenth Amendment was genius. The Tommy Lee Jones character summarized it well: "The most historic piece of legislation passed in the 19th century, by the most corrupt means, by the most incorruptible man" or something along those lines. [/QUOTE]

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