"Let us have peace," declared Ulysses S. Grant in a letter in which he accepted the Republican Party nomination for president. The Civil War (1861-65) had ended four years earlier. Outgoing president Andrew Johnson (1808-1875; see entry in volume 2) had survived a vote of impeachment (a legislative hearing charging a public official with misconduct while in office). The trial marked the first time a president had been impeached.

Johnson had initiated the policy of Reconstruction (a federally supervised rebuilding of the South) to help bring back into the Union the Southern states that had seceded (separated). But some Republicans wanted to punish the South for having left the Union and having engaged in war. Grant's remark, "Let us have peace," was intended for those who wanted to penalize the Southern states. He wanted all Americans to put the conflict behind them.

But the years...