Pseudo-Ulysses S. Grant? "there are three political parties in the United States: the Republican, the Democratic, and the Methodist Church."

Here's what I've found so far.  Search hits dropped off the map behind 1900, and in the low-hanging 19th- (and even early 20th-) century newspaper/magazine fruit in the University of Washington databases, too.  Significantly, perhaps, I also encountered "three political parties in the United States"/"this country"-references with "Temperance" or "Prohibition" in that third or "Methodist" slot.  (So one could see how this could have been a variation on an established trope, or vice versa.)  I would welcome any substantive additions, but the historians I've consulted do little more than cite each other, IF anything at all:

• 1837-1885:  The papers of Ulysses S. Grant, ed. John Y. Simon et al. for the Ulysses S. Grant Association, 32 vols. (Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL:  Southern Illinois University Press, 1967-2012):  I searched all 32 volumes on 1) Methodism (which returned, I think, zero hits in 32 volumes), 2) Methodist, and 3) Methodists on the assumption that one of those three words would capture a reference to a statement such as this one.  I also checked 4) the formal published index to each volume under Methodis*, but to no avail.  Not a single occurrence that could be interpreted as even an allusion to such a statement so far as I could see, not even in the editorial notes that supply tons of background information not contained in the Papers themselves.  I did not try phrase searches for either "Episcopal Church" or "M. E. Church", because Methodist should have captured all of the former, and because the printed indices (under Methodis*) were capturing them anyway, so far as I could see.  (Also the search feature didn’t work well for phrase searching, indeed was wildly unreliable for phrases composed of abbreviations like "M. E. Church".) 
• 1885-1886:  Ulysses S. Grant, Personal memoirs:  no hits on Methodis*.
• 1900 June 7:  "The canteen question" (the Anti-Canteen Bill), under "American affairs," Public Opinion 28, no. 23 (Thursday, June 7, 1900):  708, citing the New York Evening post:  "It used to be said in President Grant’s time that there were three political parties in this country—Republicans, Democrats and Methodists—these three, and the greatest of these is the Methodists."
• 1900 July-December:  "Temperance at the General Convention," under "Religious and Missionary Intelligence," Methodist magazine and review 52 (July-December 1900):  189, citing the New York Evening post:  "It used to be said in President Grant’s time that there were three political parties in this country:  Republicans, Democrats and Methodists—these three, and the greatest of these is the Methodists."
• 1927:  William Armstrong Fairburn, Prohibition:  being the last five chapters of a larger work entitled Justice and law (New York, Nation Press Print. Co., [1927]), 217, citing nothing:  "Some fifty years after General Grant made the pithy remark that 'in the United States there are three political parties, the Republican, the Democratic, and the Methodist Church,' we find the last named", etc.
• 1928:  George Coes Howell, The case of whiskey (1928), 76, citing nothing:  "is proved by [Grant’s] statement that 'In the United States there are three political parties, the Republican, the Democratic and the Methodist Church'" (italics Howell's).
• 1931:  Proceedings of the Sixth Ecumenical Methodist Conference held in Wesley Memorial Church, Atlanta, Ga., October 16-25, 1931 (London:  The Epworth Press (J. Alfred Sharp), 409, citing no one, not even Grant:  "Let it not be said with truth, as has been charged, that there are three political parties in the United States:  the Republican, the Democratic, and the Methodist Church."
• 1933:  Walter B. Posey, The Development of Methodism in the Old Southwest, 1783-1824 (Tuscaloosa, AL: Weatherford, 1933), 1, citing nothing clearly:  "130 years after Wesley’s conversion Ulysses Simpson Grant said that in the United States there were three political parties, the Republican, the Democratic, and the Methodist Church."  Closest footnote (no. 1) is to this page, which doesn't mention Grant, but I suppose the claim could have been picked out of one of the sources cited by Posey later on this same page (no. 1).
• 1934:  Review of Posey (1933), above, Journal of American history 28 (1934):  185, citing nothing, but probably Posey:  "President Grant once declared that there were three political Parties in the United States:  the Republican, the Democratic, and the Methodist Church."
• 1935:  William Best Hesseltine, Ulysses S. Grant, politician ([New York:  Dodd, Mead and Company, 1935]), 305, citing _____:  "Legend has it that he once remarked the presence of three parties in the country—Republicans, Democrats and Methodists."  This book is still listed in the bibliography to the entry on Grant in the current online edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, an entry authored by editor of the 1837-1885 Papers John Y. Simon.  So one of the citations in footnote no. 38 could be the one we're looking for:
  

  ·       Cramer, Conversations and unpublished letters, 179.  Nothing on p. 179.  Nothing of relevance when searched on Methodism, Methodist, and Methodists.
  ·       Jay Cooke to Chandler, Nov 10 1868, Chandler MSS, Library of Congress
  ·       New York Tribune, Dec 24 1868
  ·       New York Tribune, Mar 6 1869
  ·       New York Tribune, Aug 22 1870
  ·       New York Tribune, Sep 19 1872
  ·       New York Tribune, Dec 8 1875
  ·       National republican [Washington, D.C.], Mar 4 1869.
  

  o   Ed. 1

  o   Ed. 2

  ·       National republican [Washington, D.C.], Jul 20 1871.  Unavailable on the LC site.
  ·       Badeau, Grant in peace, 161.  Nothing on p. 161.  Nothing of relevance when searched on Methodism, Methodist, and Methodists.
  ·       Porter to Cabinet, Oct 15, 1870, Grant Letter Book, Library of Congress
  ·       J. N. Davis to Washburne, Nov 6 1879, Washburne MSS, Library of Congress

• 1949:  Virginius Dabney, Dry Messiah:  the Life of Bishop Cannon ([New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1949]), 38, citing no one:  "Without the Methodists and the Baptists [the nascent Anti-Saloon League] could never have made appreciable headway.  President Grant had recognized the puissance of the Methodists years before when he made his famous observation that there were 'three political parties' in the United States—The Republican Party, the Democratic Party, 'and the Methodist Church.'"
• 1969:  Thomas B. Littlewood, Horner of Illinois, (Evanston, IL:  Northwestern University Press, 1969), 117-118:  in Google Books' snippet view, a false positive.  Representative Lyons:  "'There are,' he suggested, 'three political parties in the United States—Republicans, Democrats, and the Social Workers party, which is subsidized by the Democrats.'"
• 1972/1974:  Methodist history 11/12 (1972/1974):  11.  I have been unable to locate this one (flagged by Google) in any issue dated 1972-1974, though I downloaded, examined, and searched them all, I hope effectively.
• 1975:  Richard Goldhurst, Many are the hearts:  the agony and the triumph of Ulysses S. Grant (New York:  Reader's Digest Press, 1975), 189, citing nothing:  "When a delegation of ministers called in 1872 to let Grant know they might endorse his nomination, the General said there were three political parties in America—Republicans, Democrats, and Methodists."
• 1983:  Robert H. Keller, American Protestantism and United States Indian Policy, 1869-82 (Lincoln:  University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 36-37:  an attribution to Grant without quotation marks or a citation of any kind.
• 1984 October:  Bruce David Forbes, "'And obey God, Etc': Methodism and American Indians," Methodist history 23, no. 1 (October 1984):  23 (3-24), quoting Keller (1983), above:  "'Grant himself once remarked that there were three political parties in the United States:  the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Methodists.'"
• 1993:  William Gravely, "African Methodisms and the Rise of Black Denominationalism," in Russell E. Richey, Kenneth E. Rowe, and Jean Miller Schmidt, eds., Perspectives on American Methodism:  interpretive essays (Nashville, TN:  Kingswood Books, 1993), 125 and 226, citing Keller (1983), above:
• 2000:  Richard Carwardine, "Methodists, politics, and the coming of the American Civil War," Church history 69, no. 3 (September 2000):  578 (578-609), citing Posey (1933), above:
• 2001:  Richard Carwardine, "Methodists, politics, and the coming of the American Civil War," in Nathan O. Hatch and John H. Wigger, eds., Methodism and the shaping of American culture (Nashville, TN:  Kingswood Books, 2001), 309, citing Posey (1933), above:
• 2005:  David Hempton, Methodism: empire of the spirit (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 253, citing Carwardine (2001), above:  
• 2011:  Charles Bracelen Flood, Grant's final victory:  Ulysses S. Grant's heroic last year (Cambridge, MA:  DeCapo Press, 2011), 148, citing Richard Goldhurst, Many are the hearts:  the agony and the triumph of Ulysses S. Grant (New York:  Reader's Digest Press, 1975), 189:  "When a delegation of ministers called on Grant at the White House in 1872, he told them that there were three political parties in America—Republicans, Democrats, and Methodists."
• 2013:  Nancy M. Beasley, The Underground Railroad in DeKalb County, Illinois (Jefferson, NC:  McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, 2013), 113, citing "Education 2000 Inc., Landmarks of Faith:  Methodist Camp Meetings":  "Actually, there are three political parties in the United States, Democrats, Republicans, and Methodists."
• 2014:  Mark R. Teasdale, Methodist evangelism, American salvation:  the home missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1860-1920 (Eugene, OR:  Pickwick Publications, 2014), 32, citing Cawardine, above:  "During his presidency, Ulysses S. Grant is said to have remarked that 'there were three great parties in the United States:  the Republican, the Democratic, and the Methodist Church.'"
  
• 2016:  Ronald C. White, American Ulysses:  a life of Ulysses S. Grant (New York:  Random House, 2016), 491, citing Keller (1983):  "Grant once declared there were 'three political parties in the United States:  the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Methodists.'"

With thanks to Douglas M. Strong for the diversion.