White preachers and politicians of the 1820s urged freed blacks to move to West Africa, supposedly for their own good. Six years later, the foreign-born population had more than doubled, with most of the immigrants hailing from Ireland and Germany. The resulting backlash took the form of a new political party, officially the American Party, better known by its nickname, the Know-Nothings. And the message was posted even as the country was passing laws designed to exclude large numbers of unwanted immigrants. In 2011, Grant joined Trump in fanning the flames of birtherism, the made-up notion that Obama was hiding a foreign birthplace.

Source: Washington Post July 15, 2019 23:42 UTC