Even General US Grant Could Act Like a Nazi Sometimes

This morning I read a very interesting article in the best religious liberty magazine in the world. To my astonishment and pain this article is about one of my heroes….

I believe that General Ulysses S. Grant was a great American and a good man who did many good things in his life. Like all good men, he also did some bad things in his life.

One time when Grant’s brain train careened crazily off the tracks was in 1862. At that time Grant was a general in the Union Army fighting against the Confederate traitors. Some cotton traders at that time were violating U.S. regulations in a way that was harming the Union Army.

In an idiotically incompetent effort to deal with this problem Grant issued the following order: “The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade . . . are hereby expelled from the department.”

WHAT?

There are a whole bunch of problems with this order. First, it is brutally antisemitic, and antisemitism, like all prejudices, is always immoral. Prejudices are also always bizarrely stupid.

Let’s think about this order to see just how bizarrely stupid it is.
First, what is the problem?
The problem is that some cotton traders are violating regulations.
Second, what is the order?
The order is to expel all Jews from the area controlled by Grant’s army.

Why is this bizarrely stupid?
Consider:
Many Jews in this area are not cotton traders at all, so why are they being punished?
Some Jews in this area, who are cotton traders, may be obeying the regulations, so why are they being punished?
Some traders who are violating the regulations are not Jews, so how come they are NOT being punished and are allowed to get away with their crimes?

I don’t know if Grant was just unusually drunk the day he issued this order, but obviously a more intelligent and useful order would have been something like: “Any cotton traders in this department who are disobeying the trading regulations shall be punished in accordance with the law.” See how this order avoids asinine prejudices AND, as a bonus, addresses the actual problem we are trying to solve?

Some Jews were expelled after Grant’s order was issued, but, fortunately, Abraham Lincoln quickly ordered the general to revoke the antisemitic proclamation and it was, therefore, revoked.

This story reminds us that even great and good people can do terrible things when they have too much power and their brains misfire. We have to make sure NO ONE has absolute power and that there are always checks and balances in place to protect the rights of the people.

By 1868 Grant admitted that his order had been wrong. During his presidency Grant went on to appoint more Jewish people to his administration than any president had before. Maybe trying to apologize for his wartime blunder….

Grant made a bad mistake and learned from it. We should learn from Grant’s mistake, so we don’t make mistakes like this now.

You can click here to read the article that inspired this blog post. https://www.libertymagazine.org/article/general-orders-no-11

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