Category Archives: Postbellum Politics

Boston Uncommon

There weren’t too many surprises in state elections held on November 6, 1866 – the Republican landslide continued for the most part as voters in state after northern state rejected President Johnson’s plan for rebel states to easily re-enter the … Continue reading

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“arrested development”

150 years ago a Boston journal reacted to Andrew Johnson’s Swing Around the Circle with a 6,000 word attack on the president and his policies. Here are the first three paragraphs from The Atlantic Monthly, VOL. XVIII.—NOVEMBER, 1866.—NO. CIX: THE … Continue reading

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People (Congress) #1

From The New-York Times November 3, 1866: The President and the People. That the dominant sentiment of the country differs at this time more widely than ever from the position of the President, is proven beyond dispute by the result … Continue reading

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no more rebels to fight

So far I haven’t noticed a letter from General William T. Sherman endorsing President Andrew Johnson’s reconstruction policy being published just before the 1866 elections in New York for its bombshell affect, but according to reports the general openly supported … Continue reading

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October surprise?

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in October 1866: Gen. Sherman Endorses the President. The Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune, speaks of this distinguished General: “I am informed that General Sherman has made a second surrender to … Continue reading

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winter wheat

I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and … Continue reading

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straw gazing

Back in 1866 Henry J. Raymond was a U.S. Congressman from New York and publisher of The New-York Times. Mr. Raymond was a moderate Republican, who generally favored President Andrew Johnson’s reconstruction policy of readmitting Southern states to the Union … Continue reading

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at Independence Hall

In late August 1866 President Andrew Johnson and entourage embarked on a two and a half week “Swing Around the Circle” tour to try to influence the 1866 midterm elections in favor of more conservative, Democrat candidates opposed to Radical … Continue reading

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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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