> All very true, but Grant did repay his creditors and had sold other
> possessions to do so, if he
> saw Jones as simply another possession, why draw the line there.
Because as slave property, Jones was unique among his possessions. If he
manumitted him, Jones was immeditely beyond the grasp of Grant's creditors
but it
cost Grant nothing to do so. The rest of his possessions he was going to
lose anyway.
Most of his debts were eventually paid, true enough. But recall that even
after having been president, he was so broke that Samuel Clements had to
publish Grant's memoirs at Clements' own expense and basically did so as a
tribute
to Grant without profiting much from it himself. </HTML>