What Role Did Political Time Play In Presidential Politics After 1874?
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Weak Presidency: Johnson to McKinley: Chapter 7
To think about: What role did “political time” play in presidential politics after 1874?
A few days after the civil War ended, President Lincoln was assassinated and never had the chance to implement his Reconstruction plan. The Reconstruction Era occurred in the period of 1865 to 1877 under the reign of President Andrew Johnson who was the predecessor of President Lincoln. Congress was not scheduled to convene until December 1865, which gave Johnson eight months to pursue his own Reconstruction policies. Under his Reconstruction policies, the former Confederate states were required to join back into the Union and heal the wounds of the nation. Although slavery had been outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment, it continued in many southern states. In an effort to get around laws passed by Congress, southern states created black codes, which were discriminatory state laws which aimed to keep white supremacy in place. While the…show more content… This contradicted the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, which declared that black people could never be citizens. President Johnson, who continued to insist that restoration of the United States had already been accomplished, vetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act. However, Congress overrode his veto. Johnson was not entirely opposed to blacks having civil rights, but he believed Congress was overstepping its constitutional power to regulate such rights. The Radical Republican majority in Congress were devoted to ensuring the rights of freed slaves and were scared that Johnson would replace Lincoln’s cabinet with officials who would support his views. The Tenure of Office Act was passed as a precaution. The bill prohibited the president from removing officials from the Senate without senatorial approval and was designed to shield members of Johnson’s Cabinet like Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who had been a