Tag Archives: Presidential Reconstruction

General Butler for Congress

About a week after a similar gathering in Cleveland a Soldiers and Sailors Convention met in Pittsburgh on September 25 and 26, 1866. Unlike the Cleveland meeting the Pittsburgh convention was strongly pro-Congress and anti-President Johnson. According to the September … Continue reading

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“Egotistic to the point of mental disease”

Way back in April 1866 and probably at least in part responding to President Johnson’s February 19th veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau bill and his belligerent attitude in a Washington’s Birthday message, a The Atlantic Monthly, VOL. XVII.—APRIL, 1866—NO. 102 … Continue reading

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one nationality

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in September 1866: The Second Campaign for the Union. The noblest soldiers in the army of the Union, assembled in convention at Cleveland on Monday, the 17th, inst., for the purpose of giving … Continue reading

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straggling home

150 years ago today President Andrew Johnson’s Swing Around the Circle tour concluded. According to the September 16, 1866 issue of the The New-York Times crowds in York Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Washington were mostly supportive with no reported heckling. From … Continue reading

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cornerstone ceremonies

150 years ago today Andrew Johnson’s “Swing Around the Circle” made it to Chicago for the ostensible purpose of the tour – to participate in the ceremonies laying the cornerstone of the Stephen A. Douglas monument. The actual laying of … Continue reading

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short stop

On September 1, 1866 President Andrew Johnson’s swing around the circle tour stopped at a small town in the Finger Lakes region of New York. It was just a six minute stop as the train slowly progressed across the Empire … Continue reading

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train trip

150 years ago today President Andrew Johnson and a group of federal dignitaries began what would become known as the Swing Around the Circle, an eighteen day or so speaking tour in which President Johnson took his case to audiences … Continue reading

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brotherly love again?

On August 14-17 a National Union Convention was held in Philadelphia. Although a new mega-party of Democrats and moderate Republicans was not achieved, it was hoped that the convention would stir up public support for President Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction policy … Continue reading

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“wholesale slaughter”

On July 30, 1866 a riot broke out in New Orleans. Louisiana Governor James Madison Wells had called for a convention to “enfranchise blacks, prohibit ‘rebels’ from voting, and establish a new state government.” Opponents, including members of the city … Continue reading

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restoration and readmission

On July 18, 1866 Tennessee became the third United state (and first ex-Confederate state) to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On July 24, 1866 both houses of the United States Congress began accepting representatives from Tennessee. … Continue reading

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