Ulysses S. Grant, who became a future president, was one of the Union’s greatest generals in the Civil War (1861-65). As his troops invaded the South, they were followed by cotton speculators, who were attempting to buy cotton from Southern planters who had been unable to export their crops because of President Abraham Lincoln’s naval embargo.
Order sought to prevent rogue sales of cotton to North
The army sought to prevent such rogue sales, the proceeds of which they feared would aid the Confederate government, and they sought to set up a permitting system for those who agreed not to go into enemy territory.
Grant’s own father, Jesse Grant (who had agreement to get 25% of the proceeds), sought Grant’s help in obtaining such a permit for Harmen, Henry, and Simon Mack, Jewish businessmen from Cincinnati engaged in a clothing business. Grant sent them home without a permit, and, on Dec. 17, 1862, he issued General Orders No. 11. It provided that “The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, and also Department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department.” This departmental war zone included “northern Mississippi to Cairo, Illinois, and from the Mississippi River to the Tennessee River.” The order has been described as “the most sweeping anti-Jewish regulation in all American History” (Sarna, “The Redemption”).
Lincoln said order improperly targeted individuals on basis of religion
As Cesar Kaskel, one of the Jews expelled from Paducah, Kentucky, brought pressure to bear in Congress. President Lincoln, in turn, asked General Henry Halleck to order Grant to rescind the order as improperly singling out individuals for treatment on the basis of religion and ethnicity contrary to the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment and the principles that would, in 1868, be reflected in the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Grant later somewhat lamely defended the order in a letter to Simon Wolf, a lawyer and Jewish member of Congress, in 1868 that was published in newspapers. Grant claimed that he had sent the order “without any reflection, and without thinking of the Jews as a sect or race to themselves, but simply as persons who had successfully ... violated an order.” He further claimed that “I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit.”
Grant later redeemed himself among Jewish population
When Grant ran for president in 1868, Jewish leaders were divided between those who thought they should vote for him because of his commitment to equality, and those who feared how he might treat Jews if he were elected. As a two-term president, Grant redeemed himself among Jews by appointing more of them to governmental positions than any of his predecessors, by speaking out against persecution of Jews in Europe, and by supporting separation of church and state in measures similar to the proposed Blaine Amendments. In 1876, he became the first U.S. president to attend the dedication of a Jewish synagogue. Simon Wolf later claimed that “President Grant did more on behalf of American citizens of Jewish faith at home and abroad than all the Presidents of the United States prior thereto or since” (Sarna, “The Redemption”).
John R. Vile is a political science professor and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University.