A second term..............

Despite conspicuous blunders in his first term, notably cronyism and the misbegotten Santo Domingo treaty, Grant chalked up significant triumphs in suppressing the Klan, reducing debt, trying to clean up Indian trading posts, experimenting with civil service reform, and settling the Alabama claims peacefully.  He has appointed a prodigious number of blacks, Jews, Native Americans, and women and delivered on his promise to give the country peace and prosperity.
     Like many adversaries in Grant's past, Greeley supporters resuscitated old drinking rumors, which haunted the president even after the reality had largely vanished.  The abolitionist Anna Dickenson claimed Grant had "a greater fondness for the smoke of a cigar and the aroma of a wine glass" than for running the country.  So many New York newspapers harped on Grant's putative drinking that George Templeton Strong erupted in indignation:  "If it be true that a beastly drunkard, without a sense of decency, can successfully conduct great campaigns, can win great battles, and can raise himself from insignificance to be a lieutenant-general and President, what is the use of all this fuss about sobriety?" . . .

The morning papers yielded astounding news:  Grant had overwhelmingly won the electoral vote, and had garnered the largest popular majority of the century.

-Ron Chernow,  Grant