For example, in 1869, Grant's private secretary Orville E. Babcock, rather than a State Department official, was sent to negotiate a treaty annexation with Santo Domingo.

A perplexed Secretary of Interior Jacob D. Cox reflected the cabinet's disappointment over not being consulted: "But Mr. President, has it been settled, then, that we want to Annex Santo Domingo?"

One of these men, Orville E. Babcock, was a subtle and unscrupulous enemy of reformers, having served as Grant's personal secretary for seven years while living in the White House.

Babcock, twice indicted, gained indirect control of whole departments of the government, planted suspicions of reformers in Grant's mind, plotted their downfall, and sought to replace them with men like himself.

[19] Secretary Boutwell was already keeping track of the situation and knew that the profits made in the manipulated rising gold market could ruin the nation's economy for several years.

By 1872, two congressional investigations and one by the Treasury Office under Secretary George S. Boutwell looked into allegations of a corruption ring set up at the New York Custom House under two Grant collector appointments, Moses H. Grinnell and Thomas Murphy.

On May 25, 1870, Boutwell had implemented reforms that reduced public cartage and government costs, stopped officer gratuities, and decreased port smuggling, but on July 2, 1872, U.S.

Straw bidding reached a peak under Postmaster General John Creswell, who was exonerated by an 1872 congressional investigation that was later revealed to have been tainted by a $40,000 bribe from western postal contractor Bradley Barlow.

Chandler also banned bogus agents, known as "Indian Attorneys," who had been paid $8.00 a day plus expenses for, ostensibly, providing tribes with representation in the nation's capital.

[36][37] The worst and most famous scandal to hit the Grant administration was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Treasury Secretary Benjamin H. Bristow and journalist Myron Colony.

Bristow, undaunted, kept investigating and found the ring's secrets by sending Myron Colony and other spies to gather whiskey shipping and manufacturing information.

Bristow, with the cooperation of Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont and Treasury Solicitor Bluford Wilson, launched proceedings to bring many members of the ring to trial.

Bristow, Grant unexpectedly issued an order not to give any more immunity to persons involved in the Whiskey Ring, leading to speculation that he was trying to protect Babcock.

[46] On the advice of Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, the President did not testify in open court but instead gave a deposition in front of a congressional legal representative at the White House.

[37][49][52] Grant had no time to recover after the Whiskey Ring graft trials ended, for another scandal erupted involving War Secretary William W. Belknap.

In 1870, responding to extensive lobbying by Belknap, Congress had authorized the Secretary of War, to award private trading post contracts to military forts throughout the nation.

[57] Grant's acceptance of the resignation indirectly allowed Belknap, after he was impeached by the House of Representatives for his actions, to escape conviction since he was no longer a government official.

[58] The main charge against Robeson was taking financial favors from Alexander Cattell & Co., a grain contractor, in exchange for giving the company profitable contracts from the Navy.

An 1876 Naval Affairs committee investigation found Robeson to have received such gifts as a team of horses, Washington real estate, and a $320,000 vacation cottage in Long Branch, New Jersey, from Alexander Cattell & Company.

[59][60] In a previous investigation that Charles Dana headed in 1872, Robeson had been suspected of awarding a $93,000 bonus to a building contractor in a "somewhat dangerous stretch of official authority" known as the Secor claims.

The close friendship with Daniel Ammen, Grant's longtime friend growing up in Georgetown, Ohio, helped Robeson keep his cabinet position.

Although Robeson served ably during the Virginius Affair and did authorize the construction of five new Navy ships, his financial integrity remained in question and was suspect during the Grant administration.

[38] Evidence, which we cannot produce, also suggests that Babcock was involved with the swindles by the corrupt Washington contractors' ring and with those who wanted to get back at Columbus Alexander, an avid reformer and critic of the Grant Administration.

Although the practice of the U.S. president's appointing family members to executive or White House office was not legally restricted until 1967,[65] there was a potential for profiteering and widespread abuse.

With slavery no longer the clear moral issue for the American people, and absent the dynamic leadership of Abraham Lincoln taken by an assassin's bullet, the nation for a while floundered in the seas of financial and political indulgence.

In 1873, Grant's friend and publisher, Mark Twain, along with coauthor Charles Dudley Warner, in a work of fiction, called this American era of speculation and corruption the Gilded Age.

[72][73][74] Inevitably, Grant's low standards in cabinet appointments, and his readiness to cover for associates or friends involved in condemnable behavior, defied the popular notion of a government free of corruption and favoritism.

Stemming the flood of corruption that swept the nation during Grant's presidency and the Reconstruction period would have required the strength of a moral giant in the White House.

Grant, however, was committed to completing the unification of a bitterly divided country torn by Civil War, to honor Abraham Lincoln, and give full citizenship rights to African Americans and their posterity.

Examples include not allowing Benjamin Bristow to move the Tax Revenue Supervisors and relinquishing immunity in the Whiskey Ring cases, which made Grant a protector of political patronage.