A gang of clearly uneducated leftist criminals tore down a statue of Union General Ulysses S. Grant in San Francisco on Friday.

The dimwit vandals claimed that they were justified in their actions because General Grant “owned a slave,” but ignore or are unaware that while he had inherited a man named William Jones, he quickly filed a manumission document to free him.

grant inherited a slave, whom he immediately manumitted as soon as he could fill out the paperwork. he oversaw reconstruction and the extension of voting rights to Black citizens. he has as close to an acceptable record as any white politician of the 19th century ever had. https://t.co/ouCLm92SnL

— worrier cop (@Theophite) June 20, 2020

“I Ulysses S Grant of the City and County of St. Louis in the State of Missouri, for diverse good and valuable considerations me hereunto moving, do hereby emancipate and set free from Slavery my negro man William, sometimes called William Jones(Jones)of Mullatto complexion, aged about thirty-five years, and about five feet seven inches in height and being the same slave purchased by me of Frederick Dent-And I do hereby manumit, emancipate & set free said William from slavery forever.”

Grant’s wife’s father used slaves, but biographer Hamlin Garland spoke to their neighbors who said that “the use of slaves on the farm…was a source of irritation and shame to Grant. Jefferson Sapington told me that he and Grant used to work in the fields with the blacks. He said with glee, ‘Grant was helpless when it came to making slaves work,’ and Mrs. Boggs corroborated this. ‘He was no hand to manage negroes,’she said. ‘He couldn’t force them to do anything. He wouldn’t whip them. He was too gentle and good tempered and besides he was not a slavery man.’”

Unlike many others who freed slaves during this time period, Grant did not force Jones to purchase his freedom. He simply gave it to him, no strings attached.

Of course, there is also that whole… winning the Civil War for the Union thing.

Frederick Douglas once said, “To Grant more than any other man the Negro owes his enfranchisement.”

The San Francisco vandals also destroyed statues of Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner, and Roman Catholic Spanish priest and friar St. Junípero Serra.

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