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On Jan. 6, 2021, the U.S. Capitol was attacked by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters seeking to prevent certification of Joe Biden's victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. One of the many news reports that followed in the aftermath of that event noted the existence of far-right talk of a coming civil war among the Capitol rioters, who had been motivated by false claims propagated by Trump that the election had been stolen and rigged. In that climate, social media users began circulating a purported quotation from Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War, and 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. According to that quotation, Grant once predicted that if we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, that war would not be waged between regional factions, but between patriotism and intelligence on one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other: This statement is recorded as having been uttered by Grant. The occasion was a speech gave at the Annual Reunion of the Army of the Tennessee in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 29, 1875. As Grant approached his last full year in the White House, and the coming of the nation's centennial celebration, he spoke of the importance of ensuring an educated citizenry and maintaining the separation of church and state in order to protect the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution — and to head off a conflict with the forces of superstition, ambition, and ignorance:
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