Under existing conditions the negro votes the Republican ticket because he knows his friends are of that party.
Answer: President Ulysses S. Grant “Sixth Annual Message” (December 7, 1874)
Under existing conditions the negro votes the Republican ticket because he knows his friends are of that party. Many a good citizen votes the opposite, not because he agrees with the great principles of state which separate parties, but because, generally, he is opposed to negro rule. This is a most delusive cry. Treat the negro as a citizen and a voter, as he is and must remain, and soon parties will be divided, not on the color line, but on principle. Then we shall have no complaint of sectional interference.
Source and Complete Text: Ulysses S. Grant: “Sixth Annual Message,” December 7, 1874. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
Ulysses S. Grant commanded the Union armies that defeated the Confederate armies in the Civil War. He became the 18th President of the United States in 1868, winning a second term in 1872. Grant was born in Ohio on April 27, 1822.
