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30 Cards in this Set
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Dartmouth College vs. Woodward – 1818 Argued – 1819 Decided
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In 1815 Story delivered the decisions for the court in two important cases. Terrett v. Taylor and Town of Pawlett v. Clark. Without even mentioning the Contract Clause, Story in effect brought to corporate charters w/i the protection of Article I Section 10. These two cases set the stage for one of the great corporate and contract cases of the Marshall Court, Dartmouth College.
In 1796, Wheelock received a charter to create Dartmouth College in the New Hampshire colony, with the primary goal of christianizing Indians. after the Revolution, the new state of New Hampshire reaffirmed the charter. Under the charter, Wheelock had the power to appoint his own successor, unless his choice was “disapproved by the board of Trustees.” During the Revolution, Wheelock appointed his son (successor), John, who became increasingly arbitrary and almost dictatorial in his role as president. In 1815, the Board of Trustees removes Wheelock, who promptly turned to the state legislature for help. By this time the college had become the bastion of both the Congregational Church and the Federalist Party. At the time, the Church was the established state-sanctioned church in New Hampshire. Thus, proponents of the separation of church and state, as well as Jeffersonian Republicans, rallied on support of Wheelock, who as a Presbyterian probably agreed with his allies on church-state matters, but probably disagreed with them on political issues. Nevertheless, this bizarre coalition suited Wheelock and his Jeffersonian allies. In 1816, the legislature annulled the charter, renamed the institution Dartmouth University, and place it under state control. The old trustees, however, refused to accept this and continued to operate their old institution as Dartmouth College. In 1817, the old college had 95 students, while the new one 14. Meanwhile, the old trustees sued William Woodward, the college's former secretary-treasurer, who had gone over to the new university, taking with him the college's records and seal. The state court found for the new trustees, holding the school to be a public corporation and therefore subject to regulation. On appeal, college hired its most famous alumnus, Webster, whose 4 hour argument was so eloquent that it brought Marshall to tears. The argument was extremely persuasive and intellectually sound. The Court heard the case at the end of its 1818 term, but decided in 1819, when it held for the old trustees. Marshall audacious opinion supported a vested rights interpretation of the Contract Clause, but it was poorly reasoned. Story's concurring opinion is more important, in that he not only supported vested rights and sanctity of contract, but also informed the state how and under what conditions they could regulate corporations – namely, by reversing the right at the time a corporate charter was issued. At this time, most states did not have general incorporation laws, but issued special charters tailored to the needs of individual enterprises. Many states would have refused to issue any more charters of any kind in Marshall's opinion had been taken literally, and that would have created a serious obstacle to economic development. Story in effect said to the states that one you make a promise, you must keep that promise, but if you believe that in the future you may need to change some terms, you will be able to do so if you take the simple precaution of preserving that power as part of the terms of the grant. The states quickly adopted this device, and in response to the growing need for corporate charters, they also adopted the notion of general, generic charters, all of which had a safety device embedded in them. This brought about a legal paradigm. Legislatures wanted to encourage economic growth. The corporation soon discovered that a little lobby could eliminate undesired features in the charters. Once having secured the legislative grant, they could use Marshall's rhetoric and Story's reasoning to protect them from further legislative interference. Both the excess and the achievements of American industry trace, at least in part, to the contract protection Marshall and Story wrought in Dartmouth College. |
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Veto of the Maysville Road Bill – 1830
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“Internal Improvements,” a variation on the Federalist-Republican debate over the limits of the national government's power, constituted one of the major political issues in the first half of the nineteenth century. Those who favored a strong national government committed to assisting the economic development of the nation argued on behalf of the national government spending money to develop roads, canals, and railroads that would facilitate the flow of interstate commerce. Opponents claimed these items were a sole responsibility of the states and that federal founds should not be spent on them. In practice, both sides often tailored their own arguments to political exigencies, with opponents supporting expenditures in their own areas, and proponents voting against improvements in districts controlled by the other party (whichever that party might be). In 1830, Congress appropriated money to buy stock in a road from Maysville, Kentucky, to Henry Clay's hometown Lexington. Twenty miles long, the road lay entirely within Kentucky, but its advocates claimed it made up part of the National Road through the Cumberland Gap. Jackson, too much popular support, promptly vetoed the bill. The road affected only a few people directly, so a veto would not cause widespread protest. In fact, it received universal approval. New York and Pennsylvania, were wealthy enough to finance their own projects, saw no reason why other states should benefit from federal largesse, while the South applauded Jackson's denial of the national government's authority in this area. In his veto, the president maintained that government should be as economical as possible, and such expenditures blocked rapid retirement of the national debt. Jackson had signed other bills supporting local projects, and despite the constitutional arguments made in his veto, which received wide popular approval, his action was a much as a slap at Clay as a statement of high principle.
Jackson belief, which many people shared, was that states and localities, not the federal government, had the responsibility for the construction of roads and canals. The national government, although it had to be strong w/i its proper sphere of activities, was nevertheless a government of limited power. Jefferson's views thus became cardinal tenet of Jacksonians democracy. Jackson could justify his contradictory policies by appeal to constitutional philosophy; in practice he continued to do the politically expedient or what reflected his prejudices and passions. |
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“Dual Federalism”
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Concept that derives from the view that the Constitution was a “compact” made by the sovereign states and the people of those states for the limited purpose of giving the new national government a range of explicitly enumerated powers. The states otherwise retained all the authority of sovereign polities. The states were co‐equals with the national government because in their own “spheres” of authority—in exercise of their “reserved” powers—they were as fully supreme as the national government was in its sphere. Many, in the founding period and now, consider the Tenth Amendment an expression of this view; others deny that it should be viewed as derogatory of federal supremacy, especially in light of the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868.
Even constitutional nationalists such as Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall were willing to acknowledge rhetorically the concept of states' sovereignty in their own spheres. But they never accepted that a state's consent might be withdrawn nor interposition of state authority or outright secession permitted. Southern proslavery interests had a powerful stake in dual federalism, and the decisions of the Taney Court fulfilled their expectations on most counts. Despite the outcome of the Civil War and adoption of the postwar amendments, the Court continued to rely on doctrines based on dual federalism as instruments for invalidating federal regulatory legislation, as in the child labor case Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), in which the Court sustained the inviolability of the states' reserved powers. According to this theory, there are certain limits placed on the federal government. These limits are: 1. National government rules by rules only. 2. National government has a limited set of constitutional purposes. 2. Each governmental unit—state and federal—is sovereign within its sphere of operations. 4. Relationship between nation and states is best summed up as tension rather than cooperation. |
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General Incorporation Law – 1810s
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The corporation provided an efficient structure for organizing and financing their ventures, It facilitated raising funds from a larger pool of investors, an especially attractive feature for those engaged in banking and insurance. The firm could continue in business despite the death or withdrawal of individual members, and under the law, they enjoyed the majority of the rights and privileges of real persons. The Dartmouth College case, extended the Contract Clause protection to corporations. However, early charters did not give equal voting rights to each share of stock. Eventually, the corporate charter assumed the characteristics and powers that have remained common to this day. One vote for each share became the norm. Limited Liability, which restricted the obligation of investors to the amount of capital they paid in, was not universal; the 1814 charter of Mystic Manufacturing Company of Connecticut held stockholders responsible in their private capacity for corporate debts. But eventually, limited liability, the greatest attraction of corporations, became a standard feature. Standardization of the means of doing corporate business led to the great change in securing charters. State legislatures, besieged with hundreds of requests for charters, began passing “general incorporation” acts that made it possible to secure a charter from an administrative officer by filing an application and paying a fee. New York passed the first general incorporation law in 1811, and some states soon followed suit. However, many important industrial states, such as Pennsylvania and Illinois, did not adopt such laws until the Civil War.
Many legislatures annually passed hundreds of special acts to create companies. These special incorporation acts not only made the creation of a business more costly that under general incorporation acts, but also set the stage for corruption of the legislative process. Even after the advent of general incorporation acts, many entrepreneurs continued to press legislatures for special charters with additional benefits of privileges. Before Civil War, special charters remained the rule, even in those states with general incorporation laws. But in the 1840s, public alarm led many states to pass constitutional provisions severely limiting legislative power to grant special charters. As corporations undertook ever more varied operations, the law sought to adapt. In the 18th century had reflected the reality of corporations created for a single purpose, either quasi-public or charitable in nature. Charters had been strictly constructed, and any venture beyond the specific purpose allowed were declared ultra vires, beyond authorization, and could subject the company to forfeiture of its charter. Courts correspondingly expanded their interpretation of the powers granted in the charters. Lawyers, also, began drafting more expansively worded provisions that imposed few restrictions on the firm's activities. |
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Dawes Allocation Act – 1887
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Native Americans have been pushed constantly off their lands ever since European settlers had landed in Virginia in 1607. By the time of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia in 1831, the notion that the tribes could exercise any sovereignty comparable to that of the US no longer made any sense. Marshall redefined them as “domestic dependent nations,” “in a state of pupilage.” For practical purpose, their members would be under the dominion of the US.
Prior to the Civil War the policy had been to resettle most of the eastern tribes in the Great Plains, which most people thought unsuitable to cultivate. Starting in 1871, Congress declared that the government would no longed negotiate treaties, but would instead enter into agreements. Cherokee Tobacco case (1871) Supreme held, that general congressional acts would apply to the tribes unless Congress explicitly excluded them. In essence, congressional policy to disregard treaties with the tribes now received a judicial imprimatur. The legal status of the Indians, members of “domestic dependent nations,” resembled that of slaves before the war, in that they were neither citizens nor aliens, but simply subjects. The Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to Native Americans born on reservations. The resulting breakdown in tribal society led to growing crime and disorder, and to demands for reform, which culminated in the Dawes Act of 1887. The Court made congressional action necessary after ruling in Ex Parte Crow Dog (1883) that the US had no jurisdiction under existing law over crimes committed by Indians against each other, and in Elk v. Wilkins That Indians who voluntarily left their tribes did not become citizens of the US. Congress extended federal criminal jurisdiction over the reservations for major crimes such as murder, arson and rape (1885). In 1887 passed the Dawes Act, which supposedly looked toward assimilating the Indians into the larger society. It alloted tribal land w/i the reservation on an individual basis. By marking individuals into property owners, Congress hoped to make Indian society more like that of white man. To encourage assimilation, the act also subjected those Indians who accepted the allotments to the laws of the state or territory in which they resided. In addition, Indians who took the allotments or who voluntarily left their tribes became citizens of the US; those who refused the allotment or stayed in their tribes remained excluded from citizenship. Most Native Americans fought against losing their cultural heritage. Those who left the reservations found themselves objects of racism, treated as badly as other people of color. Those who stayed on the reservations proved just as dismal, subject to on the one hand to poverty and sickness and on the other to arbitrary and often corrupt rule of the Bureau of Indian Affairs |
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Minor vs. Happersett
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Women had long been disfavored by the law. Earlier in the century, the legislature had established judicial procedures for divorce and had given married women some control over their property, but women still had few legal rights. Despite the revolutionary era battle cry of “No taxation w/o representation” women property owners had to pay taxes w/o the suffrage. The campaign for the vote begun at Seneca Falls, NY, in 1848; but would not achieve success until 1920, and the 19th amendment.
After the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, one group of suffrage militants, known as New Departure, attempted to use the Reconstruction provisions to secure the vote. In October 1869, a husband and wife team of Missouri suffragists, Francis and Virginia Minor, began offering an interpretation of the Constitution to prove that women already had the right to vote. They argued that popular sovereignty preceded and supported constitutional authority, and that the federal government had been created to protect individual rights. The Reconstruction amendments merely nationalized all rights, including the right to vote, and applied them to all persons, including former slaves and women. Virginia Minor attempted to vote, and when refused, she took her case to the court, as had been her plan all along. She claimed the right to vote as one of the privileges and immunities enjoyed by all citizens under the 14th Amendment. Chief Justice Waite, speaking unanimously in Minor v. Happersett (1875), declared that women had always been citizens, but he denied that the right to vote constituted an essential privilege of citizenship. The power to award the suffrage belonged to the states, and the only restrain placed on that power had been that states could not use race to deny the vote. But all sorts of groups lacked the vote, Waite concluded, and if women were to get the ballot it would have to come through the states. The constitution stood silent in the issue. Some opportunities for women did open in the latter part of the 19th century, as more colleges accepted women students, although formal training was exclusively a male prerogative. |
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The Wilmot Proviso – 1846 ( 2nd 1847 and 3rd 1848)
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In the early part of the Mexican-American War, Representative Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat, offered an amendment to a military appropriations bill that “as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the US... neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted.” The familiar language had been part of the Northwest Ordinance, but now it exploited as a bombshell, setting off a political and constitutional crisis. Within a short time, every free-state legislature but one had directed its congressional delegation to support the Wilmot Proviso. Northern Democrats rallied to it. The Proviso allowed Northern Democrats to support the war, while avoiding the accusation in the next election that they had helped expand slavery. The Proviso, however, split the party. Southern interests killed it in the Senate, but the damage had already been done. For the first time the anti-slavery movement had a focal point that attracted militant abolitionists, mainstream politicians, and a wide cross section of the Northern population.
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Commonwealth vs. Aves – Massachusetts, 1836
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Starting with the Gradual Emancipation Act (1780) the Northern acknowledge the importance and power of Somerset as precedent(English case, before American Revolution, Chief Justice Mansfield, ruled that no person could be forcibly held as a slave in England because there was no positive law to create the status of slavery. Somerset went free). For example, Pennsylvania statute allowed masters to keep theirs slaves in that states for up to 6 months before the would be free. In New York 9 months. But where there were no such laws, the rule throughout the nation was that if a slave lived in a free jurisdiction, the slave became free forever. The South as well as the North accepted the Somerset rule.
In Commonwealth v. Aves (Massachusetts, 1836) a habeas corpus action was initiated by members of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. Women in this society did everything but appear in court. They gathered the evidence, hired the attorney, and helped him to prepare his argumenst. The case involved a 6-year-old slave girl name Med who was accompanying her mistress, Mrs. Slater, who was visiting her father, Aves, in Boston. Med was not a runaway. Lawyers of Med behalf argued that the Massachusetts constitution, which held that “all men are born free and equal,” prohibited slavery in the state, even for sojourners. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw had little trouble agreeing w/ the abolitionist attorneys. “If a slave is brought voluntarily and unnecessarily w/i the limits of this State, he becomes free ... because by operation of our laws, there is no authority on the part of the master, either to restrain the slave of his liberty, whilst here, or forcibly to take him into custody” to remove him from the state. He cited Somerset, and the history of slavery in Massachusetts. The conclusion was clear: Slaves brought to Massachusetts”become free;” the ruling would not apply to fugitive slaves, whose status was controlled by the US Constitution The complication was Med's age. Mrs. Slater's attorney argued that she should be allowed to return to Louisiana, where her mother was also a slave of the Slaters. Shaw rejected this motion. When Med turned 8 she could be sold under Louisiana law. Thus, Med was given to an abolitionist women, who renamed her Maria Somerset, in honor of the chief instigator of the case, Maria Chapman, and the English precedent that aided her freedom. Following Aves, virtually every Northern state adopted the rule that slaves became free the moment they entered a nonslave jurisdiction, unless their status was preserved by the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution. A number of slave states, meanwhile, began to back away from their earlier decisions supporting freedom for slaves who had lived in free states. In Scott v. Emerson (1852) led to the most famous US Supreme Court case, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the Missouri court rejected nearly three decades of state precedents, declaring that it would no longer recognize freedom gained by living in a free state. |
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South Carolina Exposition – 1828
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The “Tariff of Abominations” of 1828 (record high rates) forced Calhoun (Jackson's vice president) to bolster his political base in South Carolina by joining with those who opposed the tariff. Many in South Carolina protested that they were being forced to pay high prices for imported goods to benefit Northern manufacturers. They also resented what they saw as growing power of the national government at expense of the states. Calhoun secretly wrote the “South Carolina Exposition and Protest,” which denounced the alleged economic exploitation of the South by measures such as a protective tariff, and asserted the rights of individual states to interpose themselves between their citizens and unjust, unconstitutional federal laws. Issued as a pamphlet by the South Carolina Legislature in December 1828, the Exposition, however, should not be seen as a radical call to disolve the Union, a position already being advocated by some Southerners. Nullification of congressional statutes was not equivalent to secession; rather, it provided a device to protect the rights of the minority against imposition by the majority. Calhoun suggested that a state convention should notify the national government of its objections, after which Congress could either repeal the law or submit a constitutional amendment. If the amendment passed, the states would have accepted it; if not, Congress would have to abandon the plan. Calhoun was seeking to preserve the Union, but the heart of his argument provided the philosophical wedge soon to be employed by the states' rights advocates in their call for secession. Calhoun argued that the Union was “a compact of states,” with ultimate sovereignty remaining in the hands of individual states, and not with the national government.
Since Calhoun recognized Congress' authority to establish tariffs, he attacked the 1828 tariffs on the constitutional grounds that this power had been granted for revenue purposes only, and not to provide protection for manufacturers. |
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“Squatter Sovereignty” – Popular Sovereignty – 1854
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The idea of free labor was becoming a powerful ideology in the North, it was accepted by nearly all strata of Northern society. Free labor, however, needed free land in which expand and prosper, and its advocates believed that free and slave labor could not exist side by side.
In 1854 ( 4 years after the Compromise of 1850), Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the slavery prohibition of the Missouri Compromise as it applied to the territories west of Missouri. Thus the ban on slavery was originally part of the Missouri Compromise no longer applied to the territories that make up present-day Kansas, Nebraska, and all or part of the Dakotas, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming. Congress did not actually establish slavery in these territories. Rather, it adopted the concept of “popular sovereignty” (squatter Sovereignty according to New England) articulated by Senator Douglas of Illinois. A Democratic presidential hopeful who would defeat Lincoln in the US Senate race in 1858, Douglas believed that the settlers of a territory should decide for themselves whether to adopt slavery. Under popular sovereignty, settlers who wanted they could bring their slaves into the territory. Northern opponents of popular sovereignty argued that the presence of slaves would drive out free labor. Hostility to this partial repeal of the Missouri Compromise led to the formation of the Republican Party in the North. By 1856 popular sovereignty had degenerated into a mini-civil war in Kansas, known as “Bleeding Kansas,” as southerners and northerners battled over the status of slavery in the territory. (Dred Scott v. Sandford) Popular Sovereignty: The issue of slavery would be left to the settlers, acting through their territorial legislatures. The constitutionality of the plan was questionable, however, invested the people of a territory with sovereign powers that had never before been allowed. The ambiguity of the proposal won some support from both the North and the South. If enough free labor advocates settled a region, they could exclude slavery; conversely, if a majority of the population approved of slavery, they could enact the positive laws that were necessary to protect and preserve it. (March). |
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The Homestead Act – 1862
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The War marked a major shift in governmental power away from the states and to the federal government; facilitated by the Republican party's commitment to strong national programs. The need to move large numbers of men and vast amounts of material, as well as the secession of the eleven Southern states (who opposed expenditures for internal improvement) led Congress to appropriate millions of dollars to build up the North's transportation network. In May 1862, Lincoln, acting under statute, took official possession of the railroads in order to guarantee that the war transportation received highest priority. It secured the needed coordination and cooperation. Moreover, with the South absent, the long delayed plans for a transcontinental railroad finally moved forward. The Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864 chartered two companies to connect the Pacific states to the terminus in Omaha, Nebraska, and provided them with extensive land grants and loans to finance the venture. Similarly, in 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act and the Morrill Act, both of which Democrats had long opposed. The Homestead Act gave free land to settlers who successfully established farms in the West, while the Morrill Act provided for land grant colleges throughout the nation, to be founded by federal lands given to the states. Both programs illustrate how the war brought about a revolution in programs, policies, and constitutional theories, reversing those of Jefferson and Jackson, and in a sense reviving the nationalism of Hamilton and Federalists.
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The Battle of Antietam – September 17, 1862
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Lincoln had already decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, and was only waiting for a significant Union military victory to do so. On September 22, 1862, after the Battle of Antietam, in which US troops repelled an invasion of Maryland by General Robert Lee, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, in which he warned that slavery would be abolished in any state in rebellion on January 1st 1863. The Proclamation did not apply to the border states, nor to those parts of the Confederacy occupied by Union troops.
The Battle It was fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek as part of the Maryland Campaign was the first major battle in the Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with about 23,000 casualties. On September 16, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan confronted Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Sharpsburg, Maryland. At dawn September 17, Hooker’s corps mounted a powerful assault on Lee’s left flank that began the single bloodiest day in American military history. Attacks and counterattacks swept across Miller’s cornfield and fighting swirled around the Dunker Church. Union assaults against the Sunken Road eventually pierced the Confederate center, but the Federal advantage was not followed up. Late in the day, Burnside’s corps finally got into action, crossing the stone bridge over Antietam Creek and rolling up the Confederate right. At a crucial moment, A.P. Hill’s division arrived from Harpers Ferry and counterattacked, driving back Burnside and saving the day. Although outnumbered two-to-one, Lee committed his entire force, while McClellan sent in less than three-quarters of his army, enabling Lee to fight the Federals to a standstill. During the night, both armies consolidated their lines. In spite of crippling casualties, Lee continued to skirmish with McClellan throughout the 18th, while removing his wounded south of the river. McClellan did not renew the assaults. After dark, Lee ordered the battered Army of Northern Virginia to withdraw across the Potomac into the Shenandoah valley. |
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The Prize Cases – 1863
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Lincoln's blockade of Southern ports received a full hearing before the Supreme Court. From the beginning Lincoln had denied the power of any state to leave the Union, Confederate states had rebelled and had to be put down. The Constitution did not deal extensively with revolts. Article I (calling the Militia), opponents claimed could not be used against the states, or that if the clause was applicable to the states, it could only be implemented by Congress. If Lincoln accepted, he would become powerless if Congress was not in session. Critics also said that Lincoln could no act as Commander-in-Chief, under war powers because those powers referred to foreign enemies. If Lincoln had accepted he would have had to admit the legitimacy of the Confederacy as a foreign nation, or given up the argument that rebellious states remained in the Union. He rejected both.
The Prize Cases, dealt with a dozen different suits involving ships seized under the proclamation blockading southern ports. Attorney for the shipowners argued that if war existed, only Congress could invoke the war powers, and Congress had not confirmed the blockade until 7-13-1861. If not war but rebellion existed, then neither Congress nor the president had the power of blockade. Meaning, that necessity created no constitutional powers; to allow the president to claim them arbitrarily would make him a dictator. In response, the counsel for the government argued that the Constitution provided for defense not only against foreign invaders but against internal enemies as well. This war was not theory, it was fact. Rebels had attacked forces of the US, and the president had the necessary power to repel the attack and put down the rebellion. The Court's decision supported the administration, but by a bare 5 – 4 vote. Justice Grier agreed with the government that one never declared a civil war, but one still had to recognize its existence. The president's obligation to support the laws that empower him, and not the Congress or the Court, to recognize and act on the threat of domestic insurrection, and this meant he could decide the appropriate measures. Grier termed the rebellion a political rather than justiciable issue: the seizure of enemy property proceeded not from the rules of the law, but from the principles of public policy. So long as the Confederate states remained in rebellion, their citizens, technically enemies of the US, could have their property seized. Although the administration took comfort from the decision the closeness of the vote as well as the cogency of Justice Nelson's dissenting opinion proved disturbing. |
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The Civil Rights Act of 1866
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Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the act represented so dramatically the shift in constitutional perceptions. Until then, the protection of individual rights had been considered a function of the states. Civil rights included the whole gamut of a person's legal responsibilities, rights, and remedies, such as the ability to sue or be sued, engage in trade, own property. In general they touched on all the various activities in which free persons engaged; until 1866, the states, while not obligated to enact positive laws guaranteeing these rights, had been expected to avoid imposing restrains on them. Equality of rights was not a fully developed concept at the time. All states had some restrictions on particular groups that were seen at the time as being incompetent to participate in the political process. Included women, minors, mentally impaired, and convicted felons. Several restrictions also applied to adult males who were aliens, members of racial minorities. Blacks were not allowed to testify against whites in some Northern states. Pre-war constitutional theory held that no federal remedy existed to interfere with the way the states treated such groups. After the war, however, Northern sentiment demanded that some action be taken to protect the freedmen, since former slave states could not be trusted to treat them fairly. This in turn, required involving the national government in areas previously beyond its accepted scope of power. Questions of citizenship, legal rights, duties and remedies, and the role of federal agencies moved to the top of the nation's constitutional agenda.
North and South, recognized that the end of slavery required a readjustment of the status of black persons. The failure of presidential Reconstruction, under both Lincoln and Johnson, to provide for civil rights, as well as the obstructionist tactics by the South, led Congress to assume the task. Few members argued for perfect equality between races; most sought instead legal protection to permit blacks to live freely and to enjoy the minimal rights that would give meaning to their newly achieved freedom. Initially, Northerners assumed the 13th would be sufficient, for they believed that no middle ground existed between slavery and freedom. The experience of the year following the Appomattox had shown the fallacy of their reasoning. Black Codes and the discriminatory use of state law enforcement had made freedom for blacks, inexistent. Where the law failed to repress blacks, white terrorists, like the KKK, stepped in, often with the aid of law enforcement officers. During the Reconstruction more that 12,000 blacks, and much smaller number of whites, would be murdered by white terrorists. The 1866 Civil Rights Act attempted to establish national standards and protection for the freedmen. First, it made all persons (“excluding Indians not taxed”) citizens of the US, thus directly overruling the Dred Scott decision. All citizens, regardless of color, possessed certain rights, including the rights “to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property,” and to enjoy the “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens.” President Johnson immediately vetoed the bill. Congress easily overrode him. Nonetheless, enough doubts persisted in the minds of many congressmen, even the Radical Republicans, that Congress decided to incorporate the gist of the Civil Rights Act into a new constitutional amendment that would make explicit the power of Congress to legislate on behalf of African Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave rise to the 14th Amendment. |
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The Civil Rights Cases – 1875
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In the Civil Rights Act of 1875, the last of the great Reconstruction acts, Republicans in Congress tried to secure and protect by law civil equality for all Americans. Among its provisions the statute prohibited racial discrimination in access to public accommodations, made violation of the law a misdemeanor, and entitled aggrieved persons to recover $500 from offenders for each violation. The entire bill rested of Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave Congress the power to enforce the amendment's other provisions. Although there is no question that in the debates over the Fourteenth Amendment its sponsors intended just this type of legislation, the Supreme Court (Harlan dissenting) denied that Section 5 gave the Congress any affirmative power. All Congress could do, according to the Court, was respond to discriminatory measures taken by the states, an anticipation of the later “state action” doctrine; Congress itself could not set independent rules. The decision vitiated the power of the Fourteenth Amendment in the area of civil rights for several generations and made it possible for the states to sanction a variety of discriminatory measures.
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Fletcher V. Peck
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Fletcher Vs. Peck
It was the case regarding the sale of the Yazoo Land (area of Western Georgia) fraud of the state legislature to private speculators. Some members of the Georgia Legislature took bribes and sold land for cheap to speculators. Speculators then sold part of the property for a high value to the plaintiffs. Plaintiff/buyer didn’t know about the fraud…innocent guy who paid good money Voters found out about his and kicked out the legislatures The newly seated Legislatures now nullified the initial sale and resold it at 10 cents at acre. All of a sudden they go to federal court for the issue that Georgia can’t nullify the sale to the buyer just because the legislature got bribed Judge Marshall said 3 things 1. Georgia was in contempt to sell the land to the first buyer and the fact that the legislature took a bribe does not give the state the right to null contract 2. If Georgia is allowed to cancel the deal, innocent 3rd parties are gonna get screwed…in this case the second buyer 3. Georgia is a party of the sale to the first buyer and a party to the contract. That is the end of the negotiating process. A state is no different than people with contracts. *Held that state law was unconstitutional that rescinded the sale to the initial buyer When a deal has been made, a right has become vested with a contract, in case of the third buyer **John Peck had purchased land that had previously been sold under the 1795 act. Peck sold this land to Robert Fletcher and in 1803, Fletcher brought suit against Peck, claiming that he did not have clear title to the land when he sold it. The case reached the Supreme Court, which in a unanimous decision ruled that the state legislature's repeal of the law was unconstitutional. The opinion, written by John Marshall, argued that the sale was a binding contract, which according to Article I, Section 10, Clause I (the Contract Clause) of the Constitution cannot be invalidated, even if illegally secured. Today the ruling further protects property rights against popular pressures, and is the earliest case of the Court asserting its right to invalidate state laws conflicting with the Constitution. |
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Proprietors of Charles river bridge vs. proprietors of warren bridge (heard under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney)
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Facts- Charles river bridge was given by the Massachusetts legislature. It was Had to pay Harvard 200 bucks a year because Harvard had a Fairy on the river
- Massachusetts gives a charter to the Warren bridge company to build a bridge….n 1785, the Charles River Bridge Company had been granted a charter to construct a bridge over the Charles River connecting Boston and Charlestown. Charles River Co sues to try to get an injunction to prevent the building of the bridge…It is shot down and Warren Bridge co is built and becomes free and everyone uses that and Charles’ River Bridge goes broke…Charles Bridge Company argued that if he has to deal with competition then his bridge is worth nothing - Charles’ River Bridge had a vested right to make money After the charter had been granted, the Charles River Bridge Company filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in an effort to stop the erection of the second bridge. The endeavor failed, and the case was taken to the United States Supreme Court. The case was argued before the Court in 1831, where the plaintiffs argued that it was unconstitutional for the Massachusetts legislature to charter the Warren Bridge, because creating a competing bridge violated the contract clause in Article I, Section 10, which states, "No State shall pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts". - The Warren Bridge Company wins * 1. The state is a sovereign entity and granting power…unless the state specifically promises not to charter a new bridge it can build as many as it wants 2. You do not imply exclusivity unless it is implied 3. The indirect value of the Charles’ River Bridge did not outweight the public’s benefits. This was in regards to the fact of “the necessities of the time”, that it was not practical to have only 1 bridge because the population and economy were so rapidly growing in that area at the time. Technological innovation was more important than one company’s benefits. |
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Judicial Nationalism
Power of the Supreme Court of US to invalidate a state law ie:fletcher V peck |
1. Federal power takes priority so long as it is in a broad reading of the enumerated power and necessary and proper clause (ex: Mcculloch V. Maryland and Gibbons V. Ogden)
2. If its within the broad view of enumerated powers, the only limits are political and the court is not going to second guess whether congress’s idea is a good idea or not 3. Restrictions on state power (don’t issue money, don’t impair obligations arising out of contract) are read broadly as well - Marshall and his justices believed in natural law (vested property rights) -Article 10 4. Where the federal government cant go, the states remain sovereign (Baron V. Baltimore…Bill of Rights not binding on states) 5. States could act in certain areas that are included in the enumerated cluase in section 8 if congress hadn’t IE: the bankruptcy era and Sturges V. Crowninshield 6. The federal courts under article 3 are the arbitters of the constitution and have the last word on what is federal law 7. The constitution alone is above ordinary politics; the ideology of constitutionalism |
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The Panic of 1837
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Early 1830s was a time a graet prosperity, with the economic and technological expansion of railroads and construction.
Millions of acres of public lands were sold by the government, mostly to speculators. Their hope was to purchase well-located parcels that would increase in value as the railroads and canals brought settlers and traffic into their areas. Most state governments, as well as many individuals, preferred to hoard specie (gold and silver) and to discharge debts with paper bank notes. Jackson became alarmed by the growing influx of state bank notes being used to pay for public land purchases and, in 1836 shortly before leaving office, issued the Specie Circular. This order commanded the Treasury to no longer accept paper notes as payment for such sales. He also and also refused to renew the charter of Second Bank of the United States, resulting in the withdrawal of government funds from that bank -Westerners were dismayed by this action, and a major bank crisis awaited the incoming administration of Martin Van Buren, in early 1837. Banks restricted credit and called in loans. Depositors rushed to their local institutions and attempted to withdraw their funds. - Unemployment soon touched every part of the nation and food riots occurred in a number of large cities. Construction companies were unable to meet their obligations, sparking the failure of railroad and canal projects, and the ruin of thousands of land speculators. -What is even worse is that Martin Van Buren hated government intervention of the economy, but that especially led his loss for reelection in 1840. -Eventually the panic ended by 1843, According to economist and historian Murray Rothbard, between 1839 and 1843, real consumption increased by 21 percent and real gross national product increased by 16 percent, |
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Cherokee Nation V. Georgia
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Georgia has passed a law that says we have all these Cherokees here…they are people within our state and they are subject to our state law and they have to register their titles and pay taxes
*What the US and President Jackson wanted in reality was to assimilate the Indians or push them off the their own land -Cherokees said “hey we have the right to this land to ourselves and govern ourselves as long as we stay peaceful” - Indians Sued, got a lawyer name William Wirt and filed a suit in federal court filing an injunction -Case comes up and Marshal does something bad: Cherokees lose 1. The threshold issue the court must address is standing…does the court have jurisdiction to hear the case? You cannot assume jurisdiction 2. The question is whether or not the court has jurisdiction to hear the status of a person is called “jurisdiction of a person” 3. The Cherokee tribe is not a real state. They are located within the United States 4. Cherokees look for the United States for want 5. The constitution itself states that it has to regulate commerce with Indian Tribes (not a foreign state) -The argument on the other side is that people that are not citizens of that state must be considered member of the foreign state More Specifically: In June 1830, a delegation of Cherokee led by Chief John Ross selected William Wirt, attorney general in the Monroe and Adams administrations, on the urging of Senators Daniel Webster and Theodore Frelinghuysen to defend Cherokee rights before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Cherokee nation asked for an injunction, claiming that Georgia's state legislation had created laws which, "go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society". Wirt argued that "the Cherokee Nation [was] a foreign nation in the sense of our constitution and law" and was not subject to Georgia's jurisdiction. Wirt asked the Supreme Court to null and void all Georgia laws extended over Cherokee lands on the grounds that they violated the U.S. Constitution, United States-Cherokee treaties, and United States intercourse laws. The injunction was denied, on the grounds that the Cherokee people, not being a state, and claiming to be independent of the United States, were a "denominated domestic dependent nation", over which the Supreme Court had no original jurisdiction. Although the Court determined that it did not have original jurisdiction in this case, the Court held open the possibility that it yet might rule in favor of the Cherokee on an appeal from a lower court. The 1832 Supreme Court decision Worcester v. Georgia later ruled that Georgia could not impose its laws upon Cherokee tribal lands. |
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New York Married Women’s Property Act
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Before married women's property acts were passed, upon marriage a woman lost any right to control property that was hers prior to the marriage, nor did she have rights to acquire any property during marriage. A married woman could not make contracts, keep or control her own wages or any rents, transfer property, sell property or bring any lawsuit.
Before 1848, a few laws were passed in some states in the U.S. giving women some limited property rights, but the 1848 law was more comprehensive. It was amended to include even more rights in 1860; later, married women's rights to control property were extended still more. In the early years of the United States, following British law, women's property was under control of their husbands, with states gradually giving women limited property rights. By 1900 every state had given married women substantial control over their property. -Property rights include the legal rights to acquire, own, sell and transfer property, collect and keep rents, keep one's wages, make contracts and bring lawsuits. -These were new laws and rules that were made against coverture… Coverture: -By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law, and the legal existence of the women is suspended in the marriage -If the husband and wife were one flesh, the husband had the right to use all of her property and to dispose of it without her consent by the mid-19th century the second idea developed; women operated in a separate sphere - The market economy is on the cut throat side, and not where women should be - Women’s place was domestic and the women was the moral center of the family - “The civil law as well as nature herself has always recognized the wide differences of the spheres of men and women.” - Women’s place was at home, as a wife and a mom - Coverture provided idealogical reasoning to hold women away from office and the Market - Coverture meant that women were not independent The text of the 1848 New York Statute known as the Married Women's Property Act, as amended in 1849, reads in full: An act for the more effectual protection of the property of married women: §1. The real property of any female who may hereafter marry, and which she shall own at the time of marriage, and the rents, issues, and profits thereof, shall not be subject to the sole disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts, and shall continue her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female. §2. The real and personal property, and the rents, issues, and profits thereof, of any female now married, shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband; but shall be her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female, except so far as the same may be liable for the debts of her husband heretofore contracted. §3. Any married female may take by inheritance, or by gift, grant, devise, or bequest, from any person other than her husband, and hold to her sole and separate use, and convey and devise real and personal property, and any interest or estate therein, and the rents, issues, and profits thereof, in the same manner and with like effect as if she were unmarried, and the same shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband nor be liable for his debts |
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The Gag Rule
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- During the 1800s, the question of Slavery became the central question of American life and and gradually cripple the political process. It became the impeding issue between the northerners and the southerners. Just as the country could not deal politically with the moral questions raised by slavery, the nation’s courts were unable to resolve constitutional problems in a manner acceptable to both the North and South….
Further, starting in the 1790s, opponents of slavery took advantage of the FIRST AMENDMENT right to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” These oponents of slavery asked Congress to implement the protection of free blacks, but their wants fell on deaf ears, but only one thing came out of their requests, which was the Fugitive slave law of 1793. Fugitive Slave Law in 1793- any escaped slave, when caught, to be taken back to his or her owner….and whoever protected these slaves or helped their escape was fined and given prison time. Abilitonists became a stronghold of a force in the 1830s, and in 1837-1838 they sent about 410,000 petitions to Congress for the emancipation of slavery. -The Gag Rule was the southern response, 1836 The Gag Rule was the southern response, 1836 - Henry L. Pinckney of South Carolina proposed the gag rule. This provided that all petitions relating to slavery “shall without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table and that no further action whatever shall be taken thereon.” -This rule passed by all of the south, but had a strong opposition still. - The gag rule was renewed in each house session up until 1840, where it became a standing rule - *Slavery not only oppressed blacks, but it threatened the political liberty of all free people, since supporters of the institution refused to allow opponents of slavery to speak. In the end, the gag rule was hurtful for slave-owners, not helpful. - Also led to Adams’ censure of his speech, because he started to bring in all the petitions because he believed it to be his duty. Congressed censured him. Then came the censure of Giddens, who was part of the representatives in congress. |
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Masachussetts Personal Liberty Act
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The laws were designed to protect free blacks, freedmen, and fugitive slaves by effectively nullifying the Fugitive Slave Law without actually invoking the controversial doctrine of nullification. This was done through provisions such as forbidding the use of state jails to imprison alleged fugitives, to prevent state officials from enforcing the strict law, and compelling slave bounty hunters to furnish corroborative proof that his captive was a fugitive, as well as according the accused the rights to trial by jury and appeal. Laws in some states made it easier to extradite a runaway if slave status were confirmed.
In Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), the U.S. Supreme Court determined that personal liberty laws were unconstitutional. The court held that the laws interfered with the Fugitive Slave Act and that while states were not compelled to enforce the federal law, they could not override it with other enactments. |
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Prigg V. Pennsylvania
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In Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), the U.S. Supreme Court determined that personal liberty laws were unconstitutional. The court held that the laws interfered with the Fugitive Slave Act and that while states were not compelled to enforce the federal law, they could not override it with other enactments.
Under Pennsylvania’s personal liberty law, anyone claiming a fugitive slave was REQUIRED to obtain a certificate of removal from a state magistrate or judge. In 1837, Edward Prigg and 3 other Marylanders brought Margaret Morgan, her husband, Jerry, and their children before a York County justice of the peace to obtain such a certificate. The Judge refused to grant it because of doubts about the status of these blacks, given that Jerry had lived in Pennsylvania. Margaret’s parents had been slaves, but she had always lived as a free person, was listed as such in the 1830 census in Maryland, and had never been claimed as a slave by anyone. When the Justice of the peace refused to issue the certificate, Prigg and his cohorts removed Margaret and her children without proper authorization. - They were indicted for illegally moving the slaves, and Margaret and her children were never heard from after that. Initially Maryland did not want to extradite the kidnappers even though the governor acknowledged that they had violated Pennsylvania law. Eventually Prigg’s conviction was invalidated In Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), the U.S. Supreme Court determined that personal liberty laws were unconstitutional. The court held that the laws interfered with the Fugitive Slave Act and that while states were not compelled to enforce the federal law, they could not override it with other enactments. |
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Ableman V. Booth
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Case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that state courts cannot issue rulings that contradict the decisions of federal courts.
For example, it is illegal for state officials to interfere with the work of U.S. Marshals acting under federal laws. The Ableman decision emphasized the American dual form of government and the independence of state and federal courts from one another FUGITIVE SLAVE CASE CASE BACKground: The Booth case began in March of 1854, when a mob, purportedly led by Sherman Booth, an antislavery newspaper editor, rescued a fugitive slave, Joshua Glover, from a jail in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A few days later, federal authorities arrested booth for violating the fugitive slave act/law, but Booth secured a writ of habeas corpus from Justice Abram D. Smith of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Justice Smith declared the 1850 fugitive slave law to be unconstitutional, and released Booth. US Marshal Stephen RV Ableman then appealed to the full Wisconsin Supreme Court, which In re Booth upheld the writ. - In July, the federal grand jury indicted Booth under the 1850 law. After the indicment, the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to issue another writ of habeas corpus to free Booth, asserting that it could not interfere with a case before the federal courts. In January 1855, Booth was convicted under the 1850 law, and sentenced to thirty days in jail and a 1000 fine. At this point, however, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a second writ of habeas corups, in IN re Booth, and Rycraft (Wisconsin 1855), and at the end of January freed Booth and a codefendant, John Rycraft, from federal custody. -In Ohio, the governor threatened to use the state militia to remove abolitionists from federal custody after they were arrested for helping fugitive slaves escape in what is known as the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. But by 1 vote, the Ohio Supreme Court refused to interfere with the case, and the US attorney worked out a compromise that let the rescuers out of jail. - The case of Sherman Boothe, which came out of Wisconsin, raised greater tensions, led to one of the most important challenges to federal law in our constitutional history, and forced the Court to confront the doctrine of state sovereignty. This case, 1859, rejected the arguments, asserted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, that states could overrule the federal courts in the implementation of federal law. Thus the strongly abolitionist court in Wisconsin forced Chief Justice Taney to take a strongly nationalist position, not merely on slavery, but on the power of the federal courts to overrule actions of the states. |
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Ex Parte Merryman
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Shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, militia units from Massachusetts were attacked by pro-secession mobs in Baltimore. At the same time, the Maryland legislature took steps to vote on whether to join the Confederacy. If this had occurred, Washington D.C. would have been surrounded by hostile states, and the destruction of the union would have been complete. Thus, on April 27, 1861, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland, which allowed the military to arrest civilians suspected of pro-Confederate activities or even pro-Confederate sympathies.
The Constitutional authority for this suspension was unclear. Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 2, of the Constitution declares: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or actual invasion the public safety may require it.” Clearly, a rebellion was in progress, and clearly the public safety was endangered. But did the prez have the authority to suspend the writ, or did it require congressional action? The power to suspend the writ is in Article I of the Constitution, which deals with the legislative branch. But the constitution does not indicate which branch could suspend the writ. At the time, Congress was not in session, so President Lincoln acted. Eventually, Congress would ratify Lincoln’s action. On may 27, military authorities in Baltimore arrested John Merryman, a prominent Baltimore socialite, who was tying to train recruits for the Confederacy. Merryman, lodged in Fort McHenry, had access to his lawyer, who applied to Chief Justice Taney for a writ of habeas corpus. Taney issued the writ, probably expecting that it would not be obeyed. He then wrote the opinion below in his capacityas curcuit justice of the District of Maryland. This opinion was an open challenge to the president who, Taney believed was conducting an illegal war. Although Taney’s opinion received wide circulation in the South, his brethren on the Supreme Court refused to go along, in part cuz they understood the political realities of a nation at war, and also because Taney’s assertions regarding the supposed widespread suspension of Habeas corpus were factually inaccurate. Lincoln wisely ignored the writ and opinion. By this time, taney had little respect or credibility. Many Northerners believed that his opinion in Dred Scot V. Sanford had helped bring about the war, and in his Merryman opinion, Northerners saw him as a virtual Traitor, trying to prevent the president from preserving the Union and the Constitution. In terms of national jurisdiction, the limited number of federal crimes occasioned few appeals for habeas; state habeas was the important writ, especially in criminal trials. Taney did, however focus attention on whether congress or the president had the power, granted in the constitution, of suspending habeas during the rebellion. |
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Clement Vallandigham
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Vallandigham had a famous case called Ex parte Vallandigham (1864). He was an antiwar democrat, and had been arrested for violating an order banning pro-Confederate expressions of sympathy. After the trial and conviction, Lincoln changed the military court’s sentence of confinement for the duration of the war to banishment to the South. Vallandigham subsequently ran the blockade to Canada and then slipped back into Ohio; from there he appealed to the supreme court to void the military court’s proceedings, on the grounds that had been unlawfully arrested. The judge advocate general informed the court that it could inhibit neither the Congress nor the president in prosecuting the war. The brief opinion by Justice Wayne did not reach the merits of Vallandigham’s appeal, but it declared that justification for relief though a writ of certiorari could be found neither in common nor statue law.
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Lincoln’s 10% Plan
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Not until 1863 did the administration put forward a plan to guide the conquered states back into the Union. Lincoln’s 10 percent plan, as it came to be called, has entered historical legend as the thwarted effort of a great and compassionate president to bind up the nation’s wounds.
The plan itself, announced through proclamation, offered a pardon to any rebel (with the exception of high-ranking Confederate civilian and military officers) who took an oath of future loyalty to the United States. Whenever the number of “loyal” persons who were eligible to vote equaled 10 percent of the qualified voters of 1860, they would establish a state government that would operate under the protection of federal troops. Lincoln did not demand the abolition of slavery, although he strongly suggested it, and he made no mention of black suffrage. Under these terms, “loyal” governments were organized in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana in 1864 and 1865, and these states convened constitutional conventions that repealed the secession ordinances, abolished slavery, and created new state governments. (The plan failed badly. The loyal governments had practically no popular support and survived only with the backing of the US army. Although they abolished slavery, the all-white governments did nothing to grant blacks any form of equality or make them citizens.) |
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The Black Codes
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Every one of the southern states enacted Black Codes, which greatly resembled the prewar slave codes. If blacks could no longer be bound to the soil as slaves, severe vagrancy and labor provisions created a peonage system that had the same effect. Other laws criminalized acts committed by blacks that were not criminal when committed by whites. Several states imposed racial segregation in schools and public facilities and ringed blakcs with a variety of restraints on their conduct. Technically, blacks were still not free. The Northerners didn’t like this because so many of them died for the abolition of slavery, and Black Codes basically reinstated slavery in a de facto manner.
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The Tenure of office Act
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In order to prevent President Johnson from discharging government officers sympathetic to congressional Reconstruction, Congress then passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867. Under its terms, a president could not discharge any officer whose appointment had been confirmed by the Senate without the chamber’s approval. If Congress were in recess, the president could suspend-but not dismiss- an officer and then report and seek approval of the suspension after Congress reconvened.
The Tenure of Office Act permitted the President to suspend an officer while the Senate was not in session at that time, Congress sat during a relatively small portion of the year. If, when the Senate reconvened, it declined to ratify the removal, the President would be required to reinstate the official.[1] In August 1867, President Andrew Johnson suspended Secretary of War Edwin Stanton pending the next session of the Senate. However, when the Senate convened on January 3, 1868, it refused to ratify the removal by a vote of 35-16. Notwithstanding the vote, President Johnson attempted to appoint a new Secretary of War. Proceedings began within days, leading to Johnson's impeachment, the first ever of a United States President. After a three-month trial, Johnson avoided removal from office by the Senate by a single vote. Stanton resigned in May 1868 |
