"Let us have peace"
About this Quote
A battle-hardened general closing his acceptance of the 1868 Republican nomination with the words "Let us have peace" captured a nation exhausted by civil war and convulsed by Reconstruction. The timing mattered. Three years after Appomattox, the Union was legally restored but socially fractured: white supremacist violence terrorized the South, Andrew Johnson had resisted congressional Reconstruction, and questions about citizenship and voting rights for the formerly enslaved remained unsettled. The line promised not merely an end to fighting, but a reordering of public life under law.
Grant had won the war through relentless campaigns, yet his most enduring political appeal lay in restraint and inclusion. The phrase is both imperative and communal: "let us" invites a collective choice, while "peace" signals stability, not surrender of principle. That distinction shaped his presidency. He backed the Fifteenth Amendment, signed the Enforcement Acts, and used federal authority to suppress the Ku Klux Klan, arguing that peace required protection of citizens as well as reconciliation between sections. He offered generous terms to defeated Confederates at Appomattox, but rejected any peace that abandoned Black rights. In this way, peace meant the fruits of victory secured and extended, not papered over.
The words became a campaign slogan and are carved into his tomb, but their simplicity hides a hard lesson. Peace is not the absence of conflict alone; it is the presence of justice, credibility, and order. Grant sought it at home through constitutional remedies and, imperfectly, with his so-called Peace Policy toward Native nations, revealing the limits and contradictions of his era. Even critics of his scandal-shadowed administration concede the steadiness of his Reconstruction commitments.
The enduring power of the phrase lies in its blend of humility and resolve. A nation must choose peace, and then build it. For Grant, that meant reconciliation without forgetting, and unity anchored in rights enforced by the state.
Grant had won the war through relentless campaigns, yet his most enduring political appeal lay in restraint and inclusion. The phrase is both imperative and communal: "let us" invites a collective choice, while "peace" signals stability, not surrender of principle. That distinction shaped his presidency. He backed the Fifteenth Amendment, signed the Enforcement Acts, and used federal authority to suppress the Ku Klux Klan, arguing that peace required protection of citizens as well as reconciliation between sections. He offered generous terms to defeated Confederates at Appomattox, but rejected any peace that abandoned Black rights. In this way, peace meant the fruits of victory secured and extended, not papered over.
The words became a campaign slogan and are carved into his tomb, but their simplicity hides a hard lesson. Peace is not the absence of conflict alone; it is the presence of justice, credibility, and order. Grant sought it at home through constitutional remedies and, imperfectly, with his so-called Peace Policy toward Native nations, revealing the limits and contradictions of his era. Even critics of his scandal-shadowed administration concede the steadiness of his Reconstruction commitments.
The enduring power of the phrase lies in its blend of humility and resolve. A nation must choose peace, and then build it. For Grant, that meant reconciliation without forgetting, and unity anchored in rights enforced by the state.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
|---|---|
| Source | Ulysses S. Grant — reported dying words "Let us have peace." Biographical entry (d. 1885). |
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