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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Grant was a slave owner.

“Grant was the last US president to have personally owned another human being. Though his father was an abolitionist, Grant married a woman from a slave-owning family and personally directed the labor of enslaved workers at their plantation in Missouri. In[b] 1859, two years before the civil war, he emancipated William Jones, a slave aged around 35 whom he had personally owned.[/b]
During the war, his wife, Julia, traveled with a woman named Jules who was still enslaved, a decision that prompted public condemnation. The Grant family did not free Jules after President Abraham Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation. Instead, according to the White House Historical Association, Jules ran away.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/20/san-francisco-statues-ulysses-s-grant-junipero-serra-francis-scott-key
[/quote]Yes, and that slave was gifted to him, and per your post, Grant let him go. The other slaves were owned by his wife and her family.   [/quote]

Do you even HEAR yourself? [/quote]
Grant was given one slave, whom he freed.  If he had refused the "gift," the person would certainly have remained enslaved.  Grant was not legally able to free his wife's slaves, because his father-in-law retained ownership of them (precisely so that Grant could not free them).  Grant used federal troops and federal resources to fight the KKK and others in the South (by force and using the law) who tried to prevent former slaves from voting.

Grant was not perfect.  (His record on Native Americans is also awful.)  But the point is that we didn't erect statues to Grant *because* he owned slaves, but because he defeated the slaveowners.  [/quote]

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