The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting the occupation of their city by British More specifically, it is linked with the music of the late-'60s counterculture and antiwar movement.
But opposition to the war was far from An estimated 25 million Hula Hoops were sold in its first four months of production Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union since , dies in Moscow. Ioseb Dzhugashvili was born in in Georgia, then part of the old Russian empire. The son of a drunk who beat him mercilessly and a pious washerwoman mother, Stalin learned Russian, which he spoke with a He is charged with a single felony count and three misdemeanors for his stage antics at a Miami concert a few days earlier.
When Morrison first got word of the charges for lewd and On this day in , David Dunbar Buick, the founder of the Buick Motor Company, dies in relative obscurity and meager circumstances at the age of Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Colonial America. But it was Johnson's racism that presented the greatest threat to the Republic.
Johnson said, "This is a country for white man, and by God as long as I am president it will be government for the white men. Johnson pardoned Confederates and appointed numerous traitors to the Union cause to positions of power throughout the South.
The predictable result was a resurgence of white supremacy in the states of the old Confederacy. Former Confederates, holding important local positions such as sheriffs, beat black freedmen and arrested them on trumped up charges. Massacres of dozens of former slaves and some white Republicans in places such as New Orleans and Memphis brought only a shrug from Johnson.
Johnson took issue with the Congress's insistence that seceding states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a ticket back to having full representation in Congress. Johnson's idiosyncratic view was basically that secession was illegal and so it never really happened and the southern states should therefore be welcomed back unconditionally.
Consistent with his racist views, Johnson would veto bill after bill passed by the Republican Congress to help secure and protect the rights of southern slaves. One could make a strong argument that Johnson's efforts to betray the cause of the Civil War and thwart the efforts of Congress to protect a class of Americans was a "high crime" and, therefore, an impeachable offense. That would have made for an impeachment trial that turned on America's ideals.
It would have been an impeachment trial that went to the heart of the matter. But, instead, the impeachment trial would turn on a narrower question. The question of whether Johnson's firing of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, in violation of a law passed by Congress, rose to the level of an impeachable offense. Interestingly, some Republicans in Congress believed, after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, that efforts to improve the lives of the newly freed slaves would actually increase.
These Republicans in Congress, those most opposed to what they saw as the too-lenient policies of Lincoln toward reconstruction, thus saw Johnson's ascension as a hopeful sign. One of the radical Republicans of the Senate, Benjamin Wade, expressed his support: "Johnson, we have faith in you. By the gods, there will be no more trouble in running the government. There were two contending theories in post-war Washington concerning reconstruction. One theory argued that the states of the United States are indestructible by the acts of their own people and state sovereignty cannot be forfeited to the national government.
Under this theory, the only task for the Federal Government was to suppress the insurrection, replace its leaders, and provide an opportunity for free government to re-emerge. Rehabilitation of the state was a job for the state itself. The other theory of reconstruction argued that the Civil War was a struggle between two governments, and that the southern territory was conquered land, without internal borders-- much less places with a right to statehood.
Under this theory, the Federal Government might rule this territory as it pleases, admitting places as states under whatever rules it might prescribe. Andrew Johnson was a proponent of the first, more lenient theory, while the radical Republicans who would so nearly remove him from office were advocates of the second theory. The most radical of the radical Republicans, men like Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner , believed also in the full political equality of the freed slaves.
They believed that black men must be given equal rights to vote, hold office, own land, and enter into contracts, and until southern states made such promises in their laws they had no right to claim membership in the Union. Republicans also had more practical reasons to worry about Johnson's lenient reconstruction policy: the congressmen elected by white southerners were certain to be overwhelmingly Democrats, reducing if not eliminating the Republican majorities in both houses.
In the spring of , the new Congress passed over Johnson's veto a second Freedmen's Bureau bill and proposed to the states a Fourteenth Amendment to the U. The Fourteenth Amendment is best known today for its requirement that states guarantee equal protection and due process of law, but the most controversial provisions of the time concerned the conditions precedent that imposed on states for readmission to the Union. Johnson announced his opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment and campaigned for its defeat.
The Reconstruction Act of , also passed over a presidential veto, wiped out the "pretended state governments" of the ten excluded states and divided them into five military districts, each commanded by an officer of the army. To escape military rule, states were required to assent to the Fourteenth Amendment, frame a new constitution with delegates chosen without regard to color, and submit the new constitution to the Congress for examination.
Johnson's message vetoing the Reconstruction Act was angry and accusatory, calling the act "a bill of attainder against nine million people at once" and suggesting that it reduced southerners to "the most abject and degrading slavery. Representative Blaine spoke for a number of conservative Republicans when he said he "would rather have the President than the scallywags of Ben Wade.
The issue that finally turned the tide in favor of impeachment concerned Johnson's alleged violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The Tenure of Office Act, passed in over yet another presidential veto, prohibited the President from removing from office, without the concurrence of the Senate, those officials whose appointment required Senate approval.
The Act was passed primarily to preserve in office as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a holdover from the Lincoln Administration, whom the radical Republicans regarded "as their trusty outpost in the camp of the enemy. The Department of War, under Stanton, occupied and administered military zones in the states fo the former Confederacy, until such time as they established biracial governments and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.
Although in theory the Department of War was under the President, in the years following the Civil War it acted more as an independent organization enforcing the wishes of Congress agains the wishes of the president. Johnson saw the situtation as nothing short of a mutiny. The final straw appears to have been the revelation on August 5, , during an ongoing trial of Lincoln assassination conspirator John Surratt that Stanton two years earlier had deliberately withheld from Johnson a petition from five members of the military commission that convicted Mary Surratt urging that her death sentence be commuted to imprisonment.
Stanton, Johnson believed, had hood-winked him into signing the death warrant of a woman who he most likely would have spared. That day Johnson sent Secretary Stanton the following message: "Sir: Public consideration of high character constrain me to say that your resignation as Secretary of War will be accepted.
In January of the returning Senate took up the issue of Johnson's suspension of Secretary Stanton, and voted 35 to 6 not to concur in the action. On January 14, a triumphant Stanton marched to his old office in the War Building as the President considered his next move. Johnson was anxious to challenge the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act in court, but to do so he would have to replace Stanton and defy the Senate.
When Stanton notified his Capitol Hill allies of the presidential order to vacate his office, he received from Senator Sumner a one-word telegram: "Stick. Stanton's removal, therefore, was not only a political decision made to relieve the discord between the president and his cabinet, but a test of the Tenure of Office Act as well. Johnson believed the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional and wanted it to be legally tried in the courts.
It was the president, himself, however, who was brought to trial. In the end, the Senate voted to acquit President Andrew Johnson by a margin of 35 guilty to 19 not guilty - one vote short of the two-thirds needed to convict. You agree to pay a buyer's premium of up to We recommend switching to Google Chrome or Edge for the best on-site experience.
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