How did Civil War champion become a disgraced figure, and the champion of slavery become a hero?

[bigtree]

15. glad to find some readers

...I think it's a fascinating deconstruction of a man who is normally referred to as a 'failed president.' Yet, I believe Gen. Grant mirrored much of what Lincoln sought to achieve in defending the Union, as the president proclaimed at the beginning of the Civil War, ". . . to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of the National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to redress wrongs (of slavery) already long enough endured."

"In my hands," he spoke, "is the task of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the country. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland," he said, "but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time."

"It was that," Lincoln continued, "which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men."