The Boss System

The Boss system, prevalent in the United States' crowded cities, consisted of a political "boss" figure, often an Irishman, who took advantage of the weak city planning and disorganized political structure. He would provide or procure housing, jobs, or other commodities to poor immigrants and city dwellers in return for their political support. Politicians would allow job positions to be overfilled and the payrolls to be padded in order to accommodate the maximum number of workers; the boss would then instruct these workers exactly how to vote in order to secure the politicians' success. The system was a cycle of corruption.

One way the Boss would make money was to ask the mayor to give him advance notice before the city councils made a decision, such as building a trolley line. In this example, the Boss would buy up all the land along the planned trolley line, and then sell it back to the city at incredibly inflated prices when it announced its building plans a few weeks later. Thus the Boss would make an immense profit, which he would share with whomever gave him the intelligence in the first place. The low-class workers and immigrants who saw this going on didn't protest, because the Boss was helping them with all the tasks that the city neglected.

Those who benefited from this system, namely the Boss, the politicians, and the low class workers, thought it was great! The opposition came from middle class taxpayers, whose tax dollars were going to pay inefficient workers and to fill the Boss's pockets.

Comparing, Contrasting, and Judging the Industrial Titans of the 19th Century

The "Wealth and Power" documentary we watched in class today describing both the positive and negative attributes and actions of some of the wealthiest businessmen in 19th century America begs the question, should Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller be considered triumphant innovators and leaders of industry worthy of great admiration, or should they be remembered as thieving scoundrels who greedily hoarded so much of the country's capital and power? To synthesize the worksheet we filled out on this topic, I thought I would give my opinion on each of these four wealthy men, choose the one I think most deserves the title of "Captain of Industry" and the one who most deserves to be shunned as a "Robber Baron," and then open up the discussion for everyone else to add their own perspective. 

I would say that the most important criterion for me in making this decision for each of the four tycoons is how hard they worked for their money. The documentary noted that each man worked his way up the business ladder and continually put effort into their businesses, and I suppose it should be obvious that they didn't get that rich without a substantial amount of work, so I don't think any of them didn't work hard enough. However, I concluded that Carnegie was the hardest worker because he single-handedly managed his entire company, controlling the minute details and acting simultaneously as the owner and director of operations. Considering the sheer size of Carnegie Steel, this is an incredibly impressive feat. Carnegie was also self-educated, reflecting good motivation and an internal drive to work for his success. 

Where each of them came from is another interesting detail. Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and Rockefeller all grew up poor, making Morgan the only one who was born with a slight advantage in wealth. Carnegie's family emigrated to the US from Scotland--He was the only one born outside of the US. More brownie points to him!! 

All of the men benefited from good timing and lucky opportunities, and they all stand out because of their ability to recognize and take advantage of available opportunities and current circumstances. Vanderbilt saw a need for efficient transportation, so he created the Staten Island Ferry... and then when that threatened to become obsolete, he found the newest, even more lucrative method of transportation: railroads! Carnegie also recognized a need for most efficiently produced steel, so he made it happen and struck it rich! JP Morgan saw the need for a leader in the world of investing, and he rose (and his nose) rose to the occasion. Rockefeller realized everyone was starting to build oil drills, but saw a void in the business of oil refinery, so he essentially obtained a monopoly in the industry! 

Perhaps the most obvious factor in each businessman's "goodness" is his contribution to charity. Vanderbilt was described in the documentary as having "little interest in charity." Boo. Rockefeller was a great benefactor in many different areas of philanthropy, as was Carnegie, who believed in giving away most of his money to charity before he died (how nice!). JP Morgan is listed on biography.com as a philanthropist, but no other details are given and it wasn't much mentioned in the video, leading me to believe that giving away millions was not one of his main hobbies. 

It's also worthwhile to mention each man's best traits emphasized in the documentary. Vanderbilt acknowledged the fact that good, reliable ferry and railroad services kept the customers coming back, so he sought to be the most efficient and reliable service available. Carnegie recognized the working-class struggle and became an advocate of worker rights. JP Morgan knew that the best way to get investors to trust him was to give them a reason to do so, so he made sure to ALWAYS make his investors a profit, proving himself as the most reliable, trustworthy financier out there. Rockefeller was highlighted for his extensive philanthropy.

Finally, I'll list each man's biggest shortcoming: Vanderbilt was extremely competitive and didn't always play fair when trying to prevent other companies from taking his business. Carnegie had a huge worker riot at his plant at Homestead, proving him to be somewhat of a hypocrite after he wrote all those books about worker rights. Morgan came off as vain and insanely power-hungry, and honestly just seemed like a downright unlikeable guy. Rockefeller was accused of creating artificial shortages to boost his profits, and also stood by the belief that his money was God-given and that he was rich because he deserved it--quite an entitled attitude if you ask me. 

Overall, I would say Andrew Carnegie deserves the title of "Nicest Captain of Industry," with Rockefeller in close second. J.P. Morgan definitely seems like the most manipulative, duplicitous character in the bunch, so I'd say he's the "Worst Robber Baron." Vanderbilt falls somewhere in the middle. 

What do you guys think?

Expanding Vocab!

Cornelius Vanderbilt was notoriously hard on his son, William Vanderbilt (who was mentioned in today's documentary, doubled his father's fortune etc).  I found an interesting article that mention the elder Vanderbilt's favorite insults toward William was to call him a "blockhead" and a "blatherskite."

Kudos to who can drop "blatherskite" in class tomorrow.  First, figure out what it means!

Good hunting for knowledge!

Pope believes science and religion can peacefully coexist

The relatively new Pope Francis I after revealing the statue of the former Pope Benedict XVI, accepts that he believes in evolution, and that science and religion can peacefully coexist without dangerous consequences.  As he says, "The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it,” Francis explained. ”Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve."  

This idea that the Catholic Church is becoming much more modern and finally coming to odds with scientific discoveries/theories that have been developed over recent years.  This makes the Catholic Church a much more relevant church because now the Church itself doesn't have as many wholes in the story that it says is the basis of its belief system.  This statement as the most powerful man in Catholic religion, shows how disputes and the conflict between science and religion is and can come to a close.

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/28/pope_francis_believes_in_evolution_and_big_bang_theory_god_is_not_a_magician_with_a_magic_wand/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

The Election of 1876

Early in the "Sinews of Democracy" chapter, it was mentioned that Rutherford B. Hayes "survived the closest election in American history," so I thought it would be worthwhile to dig in a little bit and find out some of the details of this election.

Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio was the Republican nominee in the 1876 presidential election, running with William A. Wheeler of New York. Their Democratic opponents were New York's Samuel J. Tilden and his running-mate Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana. This election was, and remains to this day, one of the most controversial, disputed elections in US history. Initially, Tilden was said to have won with 4,284,020 popular votes to Hayes' 4,036,572. However, Tilden had 184 votes in the electoral college, one vote short of the majority required to win the presidency. Hayes had 165 electoral votes, twenty votes away from the majority victory. Twenty electoral votes remained in dispute, and it was these crucial twenty votes that would decide the election. All but one of these votes were from the three Southern states who still had electoral boards controlled by the Republican Party: Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina...until the state elections, in which Democrats won with the help of substantial violence, voter intimidation, and fraud. Thus, neither party had full, fair control of each of the states, and both claimed the votes for themselves. Republicans in all three states ended up with victory for Hayes because of the Democrats' fraudulent tactics in the state elections. Here we see a direct application of the governmental corruption detailed in both "Robber Barons and Rebels" and "Sinews of Democracy." In Oregon, two of the three electors voted for Hayes, but the Democratic governor claimed that the third Republican electors was ineligible and replaced him with a Democrat, attempting to give the third vote to Tilden. This act was deemed fraudulent, and the vote was ultimately awarded to Hayes, giving him a one-vote majority in the electoral college. The decision was publicly and governmentally disputed for months, until Congress passes a law creating an Electoral Commission consisting of five House Representatives, five Congressmen, and five Supreme Court judges to come to an agreement on the disputed Southern votes. This group again held a Republican majority by just one member, which proved to be the deciding factor, although it took the Commission from the January 31st to March 2nd, two days before inauguration, to come to a conclusion. Hayes ended up being sworn in on March 4th, finally bringing an end to the great dispute. What a trip!

Corruption in the late 1800's

As we went over a section of reading from A People’s History of the United States, I thought that the amount of corruption that took place during this time was very interesting. I decided to look into it and found some more research about how the corruption of the US government in the 1870s and 1880s began.
After the Civil War, new technology and industrialization led to a massive growth of business. Companies had an easy time growing, however the government struggled to find a way to deal with it. The government did not have the leadership or business experience to control the rising businesses. Although it soon became apparent that the government would need to step in, they really did not have any idea where to start. This led to the government deciding to have a “hands-off” policy, which basically means they decided to do nothing. The government's “leave-to-do” policy ended up giving way to much power to businesses, leading to corruption. Without government regulations, powerful business men were able to do things like sit on the board of several companies at a time, which gained them a significant amount of power. People also felt free to bribe whoever they wanted and scandals like the Credit Mobilier Scandal were created. With an absent of government regulation in businesses, companies had very little preventing them from doing whatever they wanted.

The history of General George Armstrong Custer

While we were watching the video, I found General Custer to be a really interesting figure, a General who was incompetent, yet somehow managed to get fairly high up in the ranks of the Military. So, I decided to research a little of his back story.

Early Life
George Armstrong Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio, but spent most of his childhood growing up in Monroe, Michigan. Straight out of High School, he went to West Point. There he graduated as the last in his class, and had received 726 demerits there. He was nearly court-martialed for not stopping two of his Cadets from fighting, but was saved because of the need for officers in the Civil War.

Civil War
Despite being so inept, he managed to do fairly well as an officer in the Civil War. He fought in the First Battle of Bull Run as a Second Lieutenant. Although his cavalry had extra high casualties, he became distinguished for his brave and fearless charges during the Virginia and Gettysburg campaigns. At one point he was suspended from military service because he reportedly abandoned a war campaign. His influential friend General Sheridan managed to get him his position back however. His finest moment was when he managed to break Stuart's charge with his own charge from behind. He was also part of the force that threatened the French in Mexico after the war was over.

Beginnings of the Indian Wars
Custer was one of the most famous generals in the West, and he was one of the first ones to fight the Lakota Indians. He actually almost didn't go on the campaign where he died, because some of his comments infuriated Ulysses S. Grant. He removed Custer from command, but popular opinion force him to put him back on to his post.

Week 10 Day 3

Today in class we began the "Last Stand at Little Bighorn" documentary. The makers of this documentary feel that it gives a more fair account of what truly occurred, as it offers the perspectives of both white Americans and Native Americans.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, which is also commonly referred to as "Custer's Last Stand," took place on June 25 and 26 of the year 1876, but we began many years before the battle itself.
In the middle of the 19th century, Manifest Destiny was growing at an exponential rate, and thousands of whites were moving westward. In 1862, the Homestead Act encouraged people to buy land in western territories. Companies had to buy acres of land just to send a strip of railroad through them, an they were desperately pushing for people to buy the extra land so that they could avoid bankruptcy during the Panic of 1873. They used propaganda to make the west look as appealing as possible and portrayed it as a wonderland of resources and beauty just waiting for settlers. This, however, was not true as the West was already inhabited by the Native Americans. The Native American tribes of western America were nomadic people who followed the buffalo, who provided them with many essential resources like food and clothing. The Native Americans did not stay in one place permanently, but this did not mean they would not come back. The whites interpreted the vacancy of the land, regardless of how temporary it was, and an invitation to scoop it up and make it their own. Despite any treaties that had been made, the Native Americans were seen as an obstacle to the United States's progress, and in accordance with the "white eyes" vision, white people continued to move westward and do whatever it took to get rid of the Native Americans.
General Armstrong Custer was last in his class at West Point. At the age of 23, he became a general of the Civil War. He was a very effective commander and achieved a good reputation. He was also known for selling stock in Colorado silver mines and making a business deal with Good Enough Horseshoe Company to sell horseshoes to the cavalry that did not actually meet the expected standard of good enough. Custer was dispatched to serve in the American Indian Wars.
In the Laramie Treaty, the Lakota tribe was ceded a large amount of land and was guaranteed ownership of the Black Hills, a smaller mountain range from South Dakota to Wyoming that was central to the cultivation of Lakota lives and culture. But, as expected, this treaty would not truly be fulfilled, especially when there was gold discovered in the heart of the Black Hills.
General William Tecumseh Sherman, who succeeded Grant as Commanding General of the Army, urged the Native American tribes to learn the white man's ways, for he felt it was the only way they could continue to survive in the changing world. This idea became a horrifying reality for the Native Americans with the rise of the reservation system.
 Natives had to learn how to become an agricultural people, if they could not, they would starve, and if they tried to leave the reservations, they would be killed. The reservation system was a tool for the U.S. government to take advantage of the Native Americans. Too often reservations would be established on the least fertile land (probably land that the government couldn't sell to those moving westward), and this caused the Native Americans to be constantly dependent on the government. This dependency and adoption of white ways demonstrates how the Native Americans were being held by the government almost exactly where they wanted them, but, of course, the United States still wanted more.

And in case you were wondering, we ended the video at 33:12.

Week 10 Day 3 Recap, Civil War Test, & a Random Question

Today in class, we started a documentary about Custer’s Last Stand at Little Bighorn.  This documentary is online if you didn’t get all of the answers and to finish this weekend. So far, what we learned is that the Native American tribes and the whites were having conflicts because of the whites' expansionist ideas. The Laramie Treaty was signed with the Lakota tribe. This treaty gave the Lakota a large amount of territory that included the sacred Black Hills and agreed that the whites would not go there for the time being. However, General Sherman warned the natives that this peace was only temporary and urged them to learn the white man's ways. Then the Panic of 1873 occurred and caused railroad companies trying to avoid bankruptcy to want more people to move west. They demanded that all Native Americans be removed. Custer had a plan to march three separate columns into Montana and attack the natives, but he didn't realize that there were thousands of them gathered there. Custer was ordered to scout out the tribes and wait, but he didn't, and he and all of his men died.

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Since the Civil War test is tomorrow, here is a link to some practice quizzes to help you prepare. They’re pretty straightforward, but they can help you figure out what to review before you take the full practice test:

http://college.cengage.com/history/us/bailey/american_pageant/11e/students/ace/

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This is off-topic, but I’ve been wondering how things would have turned out had Lincoln not been assassinated. Personally, I think the rise of hate groups like the KKK would have been prevented, since Lincoln’s sympathy towards the South might have appeased the southerners. I also think Lincoln’s policies could have helped lessen segregation and the ensuing struggle for black rights. This means black equality might have been truly accepted many years before it actually was. Lincoln was a stronger president than Johnson, so the radical Republicans who controlled Congress and the Senate would not have had as much power. More moderate views would have had more of an impact, and the future of both blacks and whites may have been affected.

What do you guys think?

Civil War test important events

In this blog post, I'm going to highlight events that I thought was important in the Civil War section, and give a brief synopsis on the topic. 

Chapter 20

Kansas-Nebraska Act and Bleeding Kansas

When Senator Steven A. Douglas promised to bring Kansas and Nebraska in to the states, he promised the South that it would become slave state after popular sovereignty. However, northerners and southerners alike visited the polls, and no one knew who was really in charge. It led to a lot of violence between factions from people like John Brown.

Division of the Democrats

As the Republicans were becoming more unified in the North, Democrats split dramatically between Northern and Southern Democrats in the years leading up to the Civil War, effectively destroying the party.

Dred Scott decision

When slave Dred Scott challenged the legitimacy of him being owned, it reached the Supreme Court, who said that the Federal Government could not control slavery in any territories.

Harper Ferry Raid

Radical Republican John Brown was tired of all attempts to compromise, and with a small band of men, attacked Harper Ferry. His end goal was to free the slaves, but he was captured and put on trial before he got close to that far. The raid further split the North and South.

Chapter 21

Fort Sumter

When Federal Fort Sumter was put under siege in the South, Lincoln had to do something to save them. So, when he sent supplies to the fort, and the Southerners fired on the ships, the blame of firing the first shots in the war was on the south.

Confederate ships in Britain

The North discovered that the British were building rams for the South in one of their shipyards. So, they demanded the building be stopped or else they would declare war. Great Britain stepped down, thus ending the threat of British help for the Confederate.

Chapter 22

Seven Days' Battles

In one of McClellan's advances towards Richmond, he was turned back by Lee and Stonewall Jackson just outside of Richmond. In this battle they managed to eat them off an finish McClellan's advance into Virginia.

Antietam

After McClellan's failed advance towards Richmond, Lee chased him all the way back to Maryland. McClellan's soldiers luckily found a copy Lee's battle plans. The two Armies met at Antietam, where the Federal troops managed to turn away the Confederate soldiers.

Emancipation Proclamation

After Antietam, Lincoln declared slaves in all of the Confederate states to be free. Although this didn't free anyone, it did make the war clearly about slavery, driving Britain and France away from the war.

Gettysburg

In 1863, Lee attempted to break the stalemate with one last strike. He first won Chancellorsville. He then drove his troops towards the entrenched Federal Army at Gettysburg, but in an extremely bloody three days, he was driven back to Virginia.

Vicksburg

As Grant was making his way down the Mississippi river to take control of western trade routes, he ran into the impenetrable, fortified Vicksburg. He brought his troops on a long circle around, and then laid siege them. He took the fort and had total control over the West.

Sherman's march to the sea

After most of the Confederate military was beaten, the Federal Army had to destroy the morale of the Southern people. Sherman and his troops marched from Chattanooga to Savannah without any supply lines, and burning everything in his path.

Assassination of Lincoln

Immediately after the war, President Lincoln was assassinated by pro-Southern John Wilkes Booth. It created a divide between North and South, and left Andrew Johnson in charge of the Executive branch.

Chapter 23

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

President Johnson was a democrat, where as Congress was controlled heavily by Radical Republicans. He tried to stop a lot of the legislation Congress passed, and when he broke one of the laws they used to curb his power, they impeached him. However, he remained in office because the vote did not pass in the House of Representatives

Black Codes

Right after the war in the South, many laws were passed that were specifically targeted towards black people that were meant to keep them under their control.

Civil Rights Bill/ 14th Amendment

After the outrage in the North over the Black Codes and the States denying blacks the right to vote in the South, Congress passed the Civil Rights Bill and 14th Amendment. They were used to give equal rights to black people, but it did not stop Jim Crow segregation.

Week 10 Day 2

We had a shorter day today due to the assemblies, but we got to finish our notes from "The End of Slavery: Beginning of Jim Crow Segregation".

We started out learning about the economic, political and social setting of the country enabled the Jim Crow Segregation to come about. The Southern economy was entirely dependent on the cheap labor that had previously been provided by slaves. The Civil War had devastated the South and their economy had to be rebuilt. Landowners needed to find a substitute to make up for the abolition of slavery. They used sharecropping to recreate the conditions of slavery as they were prior to the war. The convict-release system also arose, in which local police departments would rent out their arrested prisoners for labor. There was an overall lack of opportunity for black and poor whites in the South.
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 declared that public accommodations like public schools, public transportation and even restaurants had to be of free and equal access to all people. In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, people essentially came to the courts and demanded to know why they couldn't be prejudiced against certain people. In accordance with the 14th Amendment, the courts ruled that it was only possible to protect people from discrimination by states and not individual people. In the famous case Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896), Plessy, a partially black man who really appear white, bought a first class train ticket to sit in the white section of the train. Someone who had recognized Plessy and knew of his descent notified an authority that there was a black man sitting in the white section and Plessy was kicked off of the train. Plessy brought his case to the Supreme Court, who ruled that separating blacks and whites was acceptable as long as they were receiving equal accommodations. However, these accommodations were not always of equal quality; for example, white people may get a porcelain water fountain while black people have to use a hose coming out of a hole in the wall. The 15th Amendment said that states cannot prevent anyone from voting, but there were still issues like literacy tests, poll taxes and terror preventing certain people from voting.
Lynchings had become frequent events, and they were very public events as the authorities rarely intervened. Usually, people who had committed sex crimes were the main targets. This was almost always a black man who had been involved with a white woman, but never a white man who had been involved with a black woman, as there were no rape laws protecting them. Lynchings were meant to send a message to everyone, letting them know that this is what would happen to them if they were to step out of line. Sometimes, when people broke into jails to take prisoners, they would fail to get the right man, but carry on with the lynching anyway. This made sure to keep everyone in constant fear of defying what was though to be acceptable. There was pervasive ideology of white supremacy present in society, however, white really meant white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or WASPs. If you did not fit into this category, you were a victim of segregation, which is when one group denies activities, rights, or access to another group and, in effect, makes them second class citizens. This often leads to the realization of stereotypes. For example, there was a stereotype that black people are dumb, and, because they weren't allowed to receive adequate educations, they were often less intelligent than educated white men. White people were trying to isolate and dominant the groups they thought to be inferior, and if the country was to continue evolving, it would need to change its mentality.
It was difficult for the black population to fight back against these conditions due to fear of white men and an overall lack of resources to do so. However, a few notable blacks did try to develop plans to improve the state of the country for their people. Booker T. Washington was a southerner who believed in a plan of accommodation. He though black people should focus on self-improvement by educating themselves in vocational fields so that they can gain economic independence which would ultimately lead to equality. He put his plan in action when he helped to found the Tuskegee College for African-Americans. A northerner, W. E. B. DuBois, thought that black Americans could only defeat segregation by gaining political power. He felt full education was necessary to do this, and politics should be lead by the "talented tenth," or those making up the most skilled and intelligent 10% of the population. He was the first black graduate of Harvard, and later founded the NAACP, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

History of Presidential Impeachment

As we recently learned about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, it made me curious about other presidential impeachments and the situations surrounding them.

President Andrew Johnson
Southerner and democrat Andrew Johnson had taken over after the assassination of President Lincoln. Radical Republicans were advocates for reconstruction of the south, and equal rights for the black southerners. They had a huge majority in Congress. When Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 in response to the black codes, Johnson vetoed it, saying that it was an invasion of State's Rights and it "would cause discord among races". The Radical Republicans overrode this veto, however, and interpreted the vetoing as an act of aggression, and were outraged. He continued to oppose Radical Republican legislature, including the fourteenth amendment, and he attempted to veto Military Reconstruction Act, Command of the Army Act, and Tenure of Office Act, but each of these vetoes were overridden. When Johnson attempted to impeach Stanton, Congress was outraged, as it went against the Tenure of Office Act, and they used it as grounds for impeachment. The trial in the Senate began  March 5, 1868. He was one vote from the two thirds needed to impeach him, but the last voter, Edmund Ross voted against him leaving office. So, he stayed in office, but played more as a puppet for Congress for the rest of his term. He actually returned to politics as a Senator five years after.

President Richard Nixon
On June 17, 1972, five burglars were caught breaking into Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate apartment complex. The investigation led to suspicions that the break-in had been organized by newly-elected Richard Nixon. However, the White House staff denied all of these rumors. This opened the floodgates to a lot of people coming out and exposing issues that Nixon had covered up, including a secret bombing campaign against neutral Cambodia in the Vietnam war, and illegal wiretapping of politicians both in his party and in the Democratic party. It also exposed a number of dirty tricks used in the election by Nixon, He had done things such as wiretapping opposing candidates, forging letters that seemed to be written by enemies of his, and most importantly, the breaking into the Watergate building. When Nixon attempted to fire a governmental official who was picked to specifically help in the investigation of the scandal, the calls for impeachment began. In interviews with the media, he tried to keep his innocence, saying "I am not a crook". While the impeachment processes were underway, and new evidence had come to light, Nixon decided to resign. Although he wasn't impeached, the impeachment vote was about to begin. He was succeeded by Gerald Ford, who pardoned him of all crimes as president.

Bill Clinton
Clinton's administration had been followed by controversy ever since he had been elected. It started when many of Clinton's subordinates were abruptly fired and replaced by friends from his home state. Another came when after one of Clinton's men, Vince Foster, was found dead, having apparently committed suicide, and Clinton refused to let investigators into Foster's office, only letting them in after his aides had gone through the office. He had allegedly removed papers about an ongoing investigation of Whitewater Development Corporation, which was created by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and some associates. It led to the investigations of Clinton being led by Republican Kenneth Starr. For four years, he led what were known as the Starr investigations, which included many more scandals. This included a sexual assualt case in Arkansas, and more famous the Lewinsky affair.

During this investigation, Clinton began having an affair with young White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Criticisms came after she had gotten help from Clinton's associates to get a high-up job in New York. During the investigation, Clinton, under oath, denied that he had had sexual relations with Lewinsky. For months, he and his cabinet continued to deny the affair. Eventually, Starr was able to contain a DNA match, and proved that the allegations were true. Lewinsky came before the court and denied that she had been told to be quiet, but described what had happened. Clinton admitted to the court, and apologized to the public on live TV that night. Starr then brought forward 11 impeachable crimes, and there were calls for Clinton to resign. Despite Democrats in Congress pushing hard to stop the impeachment of President, the Republicans managed to get their small majority (218 votes) that they needed to get him removed from office. Clinton was technically the first president to be impeached and removed from office.

Source: http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/impeachments/

Week 10 Day 2 Recap

Today, we finished the Reconstruction notes. We talked about the rise of Jim Crow segregation and its effect on economics, politics, and social structure.

• Economics: The southern economy was based on agriculture and therefore on cheap labor. Before the Civil War, the slaves had acted as this labor; now, this workforce became more dependent on sharecropping. Sharecropping was a system where white plantations would be divided up and free blacks or poor whites would work on the farm and give part of their yield to the white plantation owners. This led to crop-lien, or a credit system where sharecroppers would get their supplies and food on credit from local merchants. Southern prisons came up with a system called convict – lease, where prisons would rent out their prisoners to work and collect the money for themselves. This was basically slavery all over again. All of this understandably led to lack of opportunities for blacks, and though they were technically free, they were still oppressed and looked down on by whites.
• Politics: 
• The Civil Rights Act of 1875: This law was a landmark for racial equality. It said discrimination and racism were not allowed in any public accommodation. This was supposed to ensure that everyone would be treated equally under the law.
• Civil Rights Cases of 1883 and the 14^th Amendment: Many people didn’t like the Civil Rights Act and claimed they should be allowed to do whatever they wanted and that the government should not be able to stop them. One key argument these people used was that the 14^th Amendment only talked about the states, not the people. This, they said, meant individual people could do what they wanted. This went to the Supreme Court, who ruled that the Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional and that people should be able to do whatever they want and act however they want.
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): This famous case involved a partially black man named Homer Plessy who sat in the white area of a train. He was kicked off and sued the train owner, Ferguson. The Supreme Court ruled that as long as black and white facilities are equal, it is okay if they’re separate. This essentially put segregation into law. It also presented many problems – the term “equal” is very subjective and can be interpreted in many different ways.

•  Social: White supremacists used terror to keep people in line. They used lynching, an extralegal activity, to enforce social laws and take the law into their own hands. This instilled in people the concept of segregation and got many whites to believe that blacks are second-class and don’t deserve fairer treatment.
• The Black Response: There are two famous blacks who tried to stop the subjugation of their race: Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. Washington believed that the easiest place for blacks to gain power was economically. As a southerner, he knew the dangers of standing up to white supremacists and thought blacks should build an economic base of power before challenging the political base. DuBois believed that blacks could only defeat segregation by gaining political power. As a northerner, DuBois did not fully understand how dangerous this could be.

Week 10 Day 1

The Civil War has ended and now a pressing question has arisen: how do we bring the South back into the Union? The opinions of many major politicians of this time can be roughly categorized into on of two options: reconstruction and restoration.
Lincoln, who had called himself a "Unionist" rather than a Republican,  had developed a rather lenient plan in 1864. Lincoln felt that, because secession from the Union was illegal, the Southern states had actually never separated from the Union, and that the Civil War was more about squashing the rebellion of a few particularly influential Southerners. So, Lincoln believed that the Southerners were still citizens of the United States and maintained all of their rights. His plan was to allow each Confederate state to reorganize themselves into Union states as soon as 10% of the population had sworn its loyalty to the Union, a number that may seem generous but in reality was a large portion of voters. Lincoln clearly wanted to restore the Union into a better version of what it had been prior to the war.
Lincoln was up mainly against the Radical Republicans. These men believed that, although secession is illegal, the Southern states did leave. They felt that now the Confederate states were nothing more than conquered territory. The Radical Republicans wanted to reconstruct the the South and how it fit into the Union. They proposed the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864 which called for a lengthy military occupation of the South, punishment of Confederate leaders, and the taking of Southern land. Many of these actions had already been done by generals of the Civil War, and Lincoln tried tirelessly to stop them in order to prevent a precedence from being set. The Wade-Davis Bill was passed in Congress, which was filled with a majority of Radical Republicans, however Lincoln vetoed the bill.
When Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, Vice President Andrew Johnson replaced him. Johnson was a Southern Democrat in a government filled with Radical Republicans. The dynamic of the restoration had been changed entirely, and it was now up to Johnson to create and carry out a plan to gracefully repair the Union. Johnson decided to continue Lincoln's 10% plan, however he made it significantly more difficult for individuals to receive a pardon. Many of the most powerful ex-slave-owners were regarded as non-citizens without enfranchisement until they were personally pardoned by Johnson.
The Radical Republicans did not feel that this was a sufficient punishment for the South. They were able to overpower Johnson in Congress and enacted their military reconstruction program in 1868. This program sent military troops into the South, which was divided into five military districts, to proved Freedmen with citizenship and the right to vote. They were also to disband white terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. This program did not end completely until 1870, when all Southern states were readmitted into the Union.
The 14th Amendment of 1868 defined citizenship in order to guarantee citizenship to all of the former slaves. It also said that states cannot take away rights without due process of law and that everyone is entitled to equal protection from law. This amendment made sure that these rights cannot be withheld from any particular group, especially Freedmen.
Between the 13th and 14th Amendments, there was no legal way to continue slavery and the denying of rights and citizenship to black people as it had been before the war, but Southerners were able to find ways around these predicaments. The practice of sharecropping and tenant farming became increasingly popular. In these systems, farmers would rent land from landowners and work on their farms. They would pay the landowners with crops, but could never seem to be prosperous enough to meet the rent. The farmers would have to continue working on the land, always trying to pay off their debts to the landowners, and could really never stop working on the farms. Tenant farming was essentially slavery with a different name. Southerners would also come up with creative ways to prevent Freedmen and poor and uneducated whites from voting. They would make them take rigged literacy tests, pay polling taxes, or use the Grandfather Clause (if your grandfather was unable to vote, you were also unable to vote), and terror to keep these groups from participating in voting. The 15th Amendment was passed preventing federal and state governments from taking away the right to vote, but this could not solve the other problems. When this Amendment was added, South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana were the only states not readmitted to the Union, and it was decided that if the states chose to ratify the 15th Amendment, they would be readmitted to the Union. Huge parts of the Southern population were being underrepresented, and power was still in the hands of rich white men.
The Radical Republicans did not agree with the state of the country and blamed many of its problems on Johnson. They passed acts such as the Tenure of Office Act, which took away Johnson's power to remove any officials that Lincoln had appointed, and the Command of the Army Act, which made Johnson go through the Commander of Army (U. S. Grant) for all military orders. Both of these Acts were unconstitutional, but when Johnson violated them, the Radical Republicans used them as a means for impeachment. Johnson was immediately impeached, but was not permanently removed from his position.
In the 1870s, the people were becoming exhausted. Reconstruction had been expensive, requiring incredible amounts of time, money and energy. The Panic of 1873 occurred as prices declined due to the federal government stopping redemption of greenbacks, the currency used during the Civil War, for gold. This financial panic was a great distraction for the North who needed to be actively participating in the reconstruction efforts. The North neglected to continue their efforts and expected the South to fix what they had perceived to be the South's problems.
When the Compromise of 1877 took place, South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana were still under military occupation. In the Election of 1876, so much fraud occurred that each of these states had submitted two election results, one for the Democratic party and one for the Republican party. It was decided that if the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, won the election, the military would be removed from the states. This became a reality when Hayes was announced President at the last minute.
The questions the country now faced: Have our goals actually been achieved? Are we really able to protect and enforce the rights of slaves?

Week 10 Day 1 Recap

Today in class we took more notes on the Reconstruction. Here are some important things we discussed:

• Lincoln’s Views and Plans for Reconstruction: Lincoln had very lenient ideas about reconstruction. He came up with the 10% Plan, which basically said that a Confederate state needed to have 10% of its voters declare their loyalty to the Union. After that, the state could reorganize a government and apply for readmission into the Union. Other parts of Lincoln’s plans included being sympathetic towards the Confederacy, taking the South’s war debt, and giving money to the South.

• Wade-Davis Bill (1864): This bill was the polar opposite of Lincoln’s ideas. Proposed by the radical Republicans, this bill wanted 50% of voters to take an “iron-clad” oath declaring their loyalty towards the Union in order for a state to reenter the Union. Additionally, these voters would have to prove they did not aid the Confederacy in any way during the war. As you can probably tell, this would have been very hard to prove. Lincoln didn’t agree with these harsh ideas, so he pocket-vetoed it. Essentially, this meant Congress adjourned, Lincoln did nothing, and the bill used up its time and its proponents were forced to start all over again.

• Lincoln’s Assassination (1865): This caused the North to go from being possibly sympathetic to looking for revenge. This hurt the South, which was now at the mercy of angry northerners.

•  President Johnson: After Lincoln died, Andrew Johnson came into office. He was in favor of “restoring” the South, rather than “reconstructing” it. Johnson wanted to follow Lincoln’s 10% Plan, but he wanted to be much harsher with Confederate leaders, stripping them of citizenship and voting rights and saying they would have to be personally pardoned by him. This was harsher than Lincoln’s plan, but not harsh enough for the radical Republicans, who wanted to “reconstruct” the South.

•  Military Reconstruction: This was one of the harsher elements of reconstruction. It came about because after several southern states had been readmitted, their leaders came to Congress expecting to be part of the Union’s government. However, the radical Republicans refused to seat them and called in the military to reoccupy the South. This built up more resentment among the southerners and proved how Johnson was powerless against the override power of Congress. (As Mr. Stewart said, at this point Congress was a huge branch and the executive and legislative branches were twigs….)

• Impeachment: Johnson was the first president to be impeached. The radical Republicans didn’t like him because he was getting in their way, so they passed two acts: the Tenure of Office Act, which said Johnson couldn’t remove any officials appointed by Lincoln; and the Command of the Army Act, which said any order from the president must be approved by the commander of the army (Grant). Johnson broke these obviously unconstitutional laws and was impeached. It is important to note that just because a president is impeached does not mean he is removed from office; Johnson was impeached but survived removal by 1 vote.

• 15^th Amendment (1870): This amendment gave former slaves the right to vote, saying voting can’t be denied by race, color, or previous condition of servitude. This seems fine on the surface, but the South found many loopholes and used them to prevent poor whites and blacks from voting. These included poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather voting qualifications, and property qualifications. Southern hate groups like the Red Shirts and the White League harassed and lynched blacks and whites who were supportive of blacks. The Force Acts and the KKK Act were passed to try and stop this, but northerners were prejudiced, too, and would not be willing to spend endless money and time trying to help southern blacks.

• The Panic of 1873: This panic resulted from the government saying people would no longer be able to exchange their paper money (greenbacks) for gold. Overnight, greenbacks became almost worthless and the economy came to a halt. People stopped caring about reconstruction, and all the work for reconstruction was reversed.

• The Compromise of 1877: At this point, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida were the final three states that hadn’t been admitted into the Union. These states made a deal that they would vote for the Republican candidate (Rutherford B. Hayes) if he would withdraw the military troops from the South. After the election, Hayes withdrew the troops and the southern governments were now all back in the hands of former southerners. This ended reconstruction.