Skip to main content

Why did Republicans in Congress want to impeach Andrew Johnson?

The Radical Republicans in Congress felt that Andrew Johnson, a southerner, was too easy on the south during Reconstruction. The Republicans in Congress, such as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, wanted to radically reform the south to abolish the old planter class, while Johnson's plan for Reconstruction was more lenient.


The Republicans watched as the Black Codes were instituted in states such as Mississippi; these laws prevented the free movement of former slaves and abridged some of their other civil rights. In response, the Republicans wanted to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866, but Johnson vetoed it, saying that it infringed on states' rights. In addition, in 1866, Johnson vetoed the bill to renew chartering for the Freedmen's Bureau (founded in 1865), which had provided assistance to former slaves such as finding family members, education, and the promotion of fair labor contracts between former slaves and plantation owners. Johnson also dissuaded states from passing the 14th Amendment, which gave citizenship and due process rights to African-American people.


As a result of these feuds, the Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867, which limited Johnson's power to remove cabinet members. When he removed Secretary of War Stanton, who was a member of the Radical Republicans, the House moved to have Johnson impeached. He was saved by conviction in the Senate by a single vote. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more