On the Third Day of Testimony in the Impeachment Trial Boredom Had Set In Among Spectators
By April 2, 1868 the Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson was in its third day of testimony. While the opening argument had been a crowd…
The Second Day of Impeachment Testimony: Did the President Conspire to Use Force to Evict Stanton?
On April 1, 1868 theĀ Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson was dominated by testimony about whether the president’s designee as acting War Secretary tried to…
The First of 41 Witnesses Testifies In the Trial of Andrew Johnson
One major difference between the 2020 impeachment trial and the 1868 version is in the use of witnesses. The Constitution calls for a trail of…
Ben Butler Gives the Opening Prosecution Argument in the Senate Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson
On March 30, 1868, the trial in the Senate of Andrew Johnson began. The opening statement for the prosecution was delivered by Congressman Ben Butler,…
The “House Managers”: Prosecuting the Johnson Impeachment
On March 5, 1868 the seven House Managers appointed to prosecute the case for removal appeared in the Senate to begin the impeachment trial of…
The Origin of the “Color Line” Authorizing Racial Discrimination Was in Slavery-Frederick Douglass 1881
Frederick Douglass wrote about the origin of the “Color Line” that separated the races and legislated inequality in 1881. The Color Line was not a…
Collection of Frederick Douglass Newspapers from Abolition to Reconstruction Now Available Online.
The Library of Congress announced today that it has made available over 500 issues of rare newspapers published by Frederick Douglas during both the pre-Civil…
New Pavilion to Victims of Lynching from 1865 to 1877 Opened in Montgomery, Ala.
The Equal Justice Initiative (EIJ) has attracted a lot of attention over the last several years for its marking of lynching sites throughout the United…
President Johnson’s Dream Team of Defense Lawyers Biggest Enemy? A Client Who Would Not Shut Up!
On March 13, 1865, the public saw the legal team defending President Johnson for the first time. The five prominent attorneys included a former Justice…
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Explains Why the 14th Amendment Is Necessary for Reconstruction 1867
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain became Governor of Maine on January 2, 1867. He had risen to prominence as a heroic Union officer at Gettysburg. In his…