...The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, over centuries many wonders as to whether Johnson dissevered to be impeached, or if it was unconstitutional by Congress. But most can agree that his impeachment was highly motivated by political purposes. Johnson was charge with 11 articles of impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors” (Black). Johnson was accuse of violating the Tenure of Office Act. Tenure of Office Act was passed in 1867, “the bill that prohibited the president from removing officials appointed by and with the advice of the senate without senatorial approval” by History.com. The goal of the Tenure of Office Act was for senate to approve the removal of any government official whose appointment had required senate’s consent. During...
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...First and foremost Andrew Johnson was the first president to get impeached and Bill Clinton was the second. These presidents had a lot of accusations made upon them during their time in office. This whole impeachment started when they tried to bribe others and have had misconduct. The major thing that made them even more considerably suspicious was them trying to cover up evidence that was already there and twice as strong as before. Andrew Johnson was the 17th president and the vice president when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. He had the U.S. of House Representatives vote eleven articles of impeachment against him with nine of them being the removal of Johnson by secretary of war Edwin M. Stanton. The accusations made upon him where reference to illegally removing the secretary of war from office and violating several congressional reconstruction acts. The House also accused him of inflammatory and scandalous harangue against congress members whom he called traitors. Johnson was not obligated to attend none of the proceedings. President Johnson found...
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...President Andrew Johnson Although Andrew Johnson was from the Democratic Party, in 1864, Lincoln chose Johnson as his running mate under the National Union Party banner. When Lincoln died April 15, 1865, Johnson became president. He did not have a Vice President. Johnson now had the job of trying to heal the country after the Civil War left the country in ruins. President Andrew Johnson lifted himself out of extreme poverty to become President of the United States. He was a man with little education who climbed the political ladder and held many different high offices. As a strict constitutionalist, Johnson believed in limiting the powers of the federal government. President Johnson was one of the most bellicose Presidents who “fought” Congress, critics, and many others. President Andrew Johnson faced numerous problems post-Civil War Era including reconstructing the Southern states to combine peacefully with the Union, his battles with Congress, and his career ending impeachment. Following Lincoln’s tragic assassination, President Andrew Johnson took on the accountability of making Reconstruction a reality. Andrew Johnson wanted to use Lincoln’s ideas of reconstruction but in a modified form. Since Congress would be in recess for eight more months Johnson decided to go ahead with his plan. Johnson was initially left to devise a Reconstruction policy without legislative intervention, as Congress was not due to meet again until December 1865. Radical Republicans told the...
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...Lincoln’s vice president, Andrew Johnson. He was forced into a leading position during one of the nation’s most difficult times, the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, and received a lot of attention, mostly negative. Many suspected him of being very biased towards the South and this ultimately lead to a lot of conflict between Johnson and Congress. The Republicans of Congress at the time, mostly the Radicals, wanted to remove Johnson from office as soon as possible for a number of reasons. First, his plan for reconstruction after the Civil War was much too lenient towards the South. Johnson’s “laid back” plan gave many opportunities for Southern states to move around the rules because none of his terms were even requirements. States chose not to follow his...
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...Identify and describe two examples of the U.S. Authority Expansion between the beginning of the U.S. Civil War and the end of the Civil War Era? (1) The twelve years following the Civil War carried consequences for the nation’s future. Reconstruction helped set the pattern for future race relations and defined the federal government’s role in promoting equality. This section describes President Lincoln’s and Johnson’s plan to readmit the confederate states to the Union as well as the more stringent Congressional plan; it also describes the power struggle between President Andrew Johnson and congress, including the vote over the president’s impeachment. This section also identifies the groups that ruled the southern state governments from 1866-1877 and explains why Reconstruction ended in 1877. (2) Immediately following the war, all-white Southern legislatures passed black code which denied blacks the right purchase or rent land. These efforts to force former slaves to work on plantations led Congressional Republicans to seize control of Reconstruction from President Andrew Johnson, deny representatives from the former Confederate states their Congressional seats, and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and draft the 14th Amendment, extending citizenship rights to African Americans and guaranteeing equal protection of the laws. In 1870, the 15th Amendment gave voting rights to black men. The freedmen, in alliance with carpetbaggers and southern white Republicans known as scalawags...
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...The Success and Failures of Reconstruction In the aftermath of the Civil War an arduous task of reconstruction lay ahead for the United States. Subsequently, the North and the South faced the many changes that were instituted. Mainly, it was the friction between the North and the South that prohibited success. Furthermore, Andrew Johnson's presidency evoked havoc on the then vulnerable country. Despite all, the addition of amendments resulted in some progress to the era; yet, states showed oppositions and formed groups and acts to disregard the amendments. In all, the Reconstruction era was deemed partly successful and partial failure; yet it did nullify slavery, granted voting rights to all males and ended segregation. After Abraham Lincoln's...
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...Reconstruction • Lincoln dies - Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat, becomes president Johnson the Politician • Johnson owned a few slaves and defended slavery and "states' rights" • But he was a small time farmer who did not own slaves early in his life. • He got elected by protecting the rights of non-slaveholding yeoman farmers • He proposed the Homestead Act • But he cared more about the Union than he did about slavery, so when the South seceded, he was the only Southern senator to remain loyal to the Union • That is why the republicans chose him to be Lincoln’s vice-presidential candidate in the 1864 election, so that border states with large slave-holding populations would vote for the Republican candidate • But when Lincoln died, Johnson implemented his own Reconstruction Plan during the first 8 months of his term as president. (It was based on Lincoln’s “Ten Percent Plan”) Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan • Handed out thousands of pardons to Confederate soldiers and politicians • Enforced Lincoln’s plan to admit states if they ratified the 13th Amendment • Took back the land promised to the slaves of Edisto Island, South Carolina (“40 Acres and a Mule”) • But, Johnson's plan left rebuilding the South in the hands of the same people who controlled the Southern governments during slavery • “States Rights” , to Johnson, meant not just letting the South rebuild what the Union army destroyed...
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...Johnson’s plan were more advanced than Lincoln’s and omitted the Confederates who owned taxable property in excess of $20,000 from the pardon. (Presidential Reconstruction, apstudynotes.org) These prosperous Southerners were the ones Johnson thought led the South into separation. Yet, these Confederates were able to petition him for individual pardons. Before the year was over, Johnson, who seemed to savor authority over the aristocrats who pled for his approval, had issued 13,000 pardons. (Presidential Reconstruction, apstudynotes.org) On December 6, 1865, Johnson broadcasted that the Southern states had met his requirements for Reconstruction and that in his belief the Union had become reestablished. (Presidential Reconstruction,...
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...slaves got revenge. When the masters were forced to tell their slaves that they were free, some slaves were suspicious but later they celebrated. Emancipated slaves took on journeys to test their freedom, find lost family, look for jobs, etc. The Freedmen's Bureau Know: Freedmen's Bureau, General Oliver O. Howard 3. Assess the effectiveness of the Freedmen's Bureau. It taught ~ 200,000 blacks how to read and many former slaves had a passion for learning. All generations wanted to learn. But it was less effective in other areas. The bureau was authorized to settle former slaves on 40 acre tracts but it was rare for blacks to actually get land. Labor contracts… Johnson: The Tailor President Know: Andrew Johnson 4. Explain the strengths and weaknesses of Andrew Johnson. Strengths: A misfit. A southerner who...
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...common ground between Northerners, who had suffered great loss in their victory, and the proud but beaten Southerners. Although General Robert E. Lee had surrendered southern forces and the government of the Confederacy crumbled, there were southern sympathizers who still refused to back down. They would not accept the war won victory of the North. Among these was a Maryland native and famed actor, John Wilkes Booth, who developed plans during the war to kidnap Lincoln and his advisors and hold them as bargaining chips. The end of the war did not quash Booth’s plans, in fact, it only strengthened and modified them. He blamed Lincoln for all that had befallen the south and conspired with a group of friends to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward and General Ulysses S. Grant on April 14, 1865. His cohorts did not complete their end of the plan, but on that night, Booth entered Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theater and shot the 16th President in the head and changed the course of history. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth was not successful in protecting the South after the Civil War as Booth predicted; but instead, enraged Northern representatives in Congress, installed a new president who was unable to negotiate Lincoln’s envisioned moderate “restoration” of the South, and evoked a punitive “reconstruction” that would produce ill will between both sides for decades to come. Lincoln offered moderate terms...
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...President Andrew Johnson did not exile, imprison, or execute any Confederate leaders with the end of the Civil War. Instead, there was political conflict between parties with different factions of individuals wanting very different things (Boyer, page 470). In fact, there was only a small group lead by Senator Charles Sumner and Congressman Thaddeus Stevens who supported black suffrage. Even before the Civil War, there was conflict about Lincoln’s Plan for reconstruction. Lincoln wanted to incorporate ex-Confederate members while other Republicans “envisioned a slower readmission process that would bar even more ex-Confederates from political life” (Boyer, page 471). The Presidential reconstruction plan consisted of granting pardons to disqualified...
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...performance in the office, such as what policies they created and how they dealt with national debates. It took some thought, but the top four worst presidencies in United States history would have to be William Harrison, Andrew Johnson, Herbert Hoover, and John Adams. William Harrison was a nice fellow. However, his presidency only lasted 31 days. After being sworn into office as the ninth President of the United States, he gave the longest inauguration address in history...
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...During both the civil war and civil war reconstruction time periods, there were many changes going on in the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation, as well as legislation such as the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, was causing a new awakening of democracy; while the renouncing of secession by the South marked a definite triumph for Nationalism. As well, the government was involved in altercations of its own. During reconstruction, the legislative and executive branches eventually came to blows over the use of power. The nation was being altered by forces which caused, and later repaired, a broken Union. The first of these "forces", was the expansion of democracy. As early as 1862, Lincoln was taking a major step in that direction. On September 22, Lincoln announced the freeing of all slaves in areas not in Union control. Although the proclamation did not free all slaves everywhere, it was the action that would push Congress to pass the thirteenth amendment in 1865. The amendment, ratified later in 1865, stated that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude . . . shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." It seemed democracy had triumphed by giving freedom to slaves, but the amendment was not complete. It only stopped slavery, and made no provisions for citizenship; therefore, blacks were still not considered United States citizens. The fourteenth amendment was the democratic expansion ...
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...Despite supporting emancipation during Lincoln’s presidency, Johnson was a difficult person to work with and actually held racist views. To begin, Johnson was “unable and unwilling to compromise,” which lead to the tension between him and the Radical Republicans in Congress along with his close impeachment (5). His cold demeanor provided a stark contrast to Lincoln’s political and social actions. Adding to the difficulties was his support and leniency for prior Confederates. He also provided government positions for those who were convicted of treason against the United States. As a result, many of the policies of southern governments followed those of the pre-Civil War, such as the black codes. The South, after Johnson’s policies, created a difficult environment for the blacks that mimicked a life before emancipation. Even after the Radical Republicans openly disagreed with Johnson’s plan and proposed popular new legislature, Johnson vetoed them. By not compromising with others and disproving equality acts, Johnson was nearly impeached and was not able to successfully reconstruct the...
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...the US. The 14th amendment states that states must provide equal protection to all people. The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (for example, slavery). The Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, enacted April 9, 1866, is a federal law in the United States that was mainly intended to protect the civil rights of African-Americans, in the wake of the American Civil War. The Act was enacted by Congress in 1865 but it was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson. The Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which created the Freedmen's Bureau, was initiated by President Abraham Lincoln and was intended to last for one year after the end of the Civil War. Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th President of the United States (1865–1869). As Vice President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following his assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American Civil War. The Black Codes were laws in the United States after the Civil War with the effect of limiting the basic human rights and civil liberties of blacks. Even though the U.S. constitution originally discriminated against blacks (as "other people"[1]) and both Northern and Southern states had passed discriminatory...
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