Rioters in California just tore down a statue of former President Ulysses S. Grant despite the fact that he led the Union in defeating the confederacy in the Civil War.

History.com gives the following report about the role Grant played in taking the confederacy down:

Ulysses Grant (1822-1885) commanded the victorious Union army during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and served as the 18th U.S. president from 1869 to 1877. An Ohio native, Grant graduated from West Point and fought in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). During the Civil War, Grant, an aggressive and determined leader, was given command of all the U.S. armies. After the war he became a national hero, and the Republicans nominated him for president in 1868. A primary focus of Grant’s administration was Reconstruction, and he worked to reconcile the North and South while also attempting to protect the civil rights of newly freed black slaves.

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On Saturday morning, Politico reporter Marc Caputo tweeted out a disturbing video showing the statue of Grant being taken down by protesters. “Lost Cause meet Crazy Cause: using Juneteenth to tear down of [sic] the San Fran. statue of Ulysses S. Grant —who won the Civil War that led to emancipation, long before had freed the 1 slave he had been given & who was later eulogized by Frederick Douglass,” he captioned the video.

Aside from beating the confederacy, Grant repeatedly targeted the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded by Democrat Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. In fact, the KKK spent years terrorizing blacks and Republicans in the South throughout the post-Civil War years. History.com explained:

Most prominent in counties where the races were relatively balanced, the KKK engaged in terrorist raids against African Americans and white Republicans at night, employing intimidation, destruction of property, assault, and murder to achieve its aims and influence upcoming elections. In a few Southern states, Republicans organized militia units to break up the Klan. In 1871, passage of the Ku Klux Act led to nine South Carolina counties being placed under martial law and thousands of arrests. In 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Ku Klux Act unconstitutional, but by that time Reconstruction had ended, and much of the KKK had faded away.

Congress ended up passing bills that gave Grant permission to use military force to protect the rights of blacks. “The Third Force Act, also known as the KKK or the Civil Rights Act of 1871, empowered President Ulysses S. Grant to use the armed forces to combat those who conspired to deny equal protection of the laws and, if necessary, to suspend habeas corpus to enforce the act,” Politico reported. “Grant signed the legislation on this day in 1871. After the act’s passage, the president for the first time had the power to suppress state disorders on his own initiative and suspend the right of habeas corpus. Grant did not hesitate to use this authority.”

“Shortly after Congress approved the law, nine counties in South Carolina, where KKK terrorism was rampant, were placed under martial law and thousands of persons were arrested,” Politico added.

The fact that leftist rioters chose to take down Grant’s statue despite all of his accomplishments shows that this really isn’t about history at all. Instead, it’s about erasing anything from America’s past, and about causing as much chaos as possible.

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