The First U.S. President to Face Impeachment

Blogger: Amber Schamel

President Andrew Johnson

With all of the news talk about the potential impeachment of President Trump, I thought it would be interesting to take a look into impeachments in our history and see what other presidents have faced this same process. 

In the 45 Presidents of the United States of America, Trump is only the 4th that has been threatened with impeachment. Of those, only two were formally impeached. Today we'll be looking at the first, President Andrew Johnson.

President Johnson was in office during a very difficult time in American history. As the president to follow the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and in charge of reconstructing a country that was fractured by the Civil War, he certainly had a tough job on his hands. 

One of the main challenges, was the division in political parties and how they believed the Reconstruction should be done. President Lincoln had begun to form policies that were lenient toward Southerners, hoping that extending a gracious hand would aid reintegration. However, Radical Republicans strongly disagreed with this, and favored harsher policies toward the rebelling states and their citizens. Many of the radicals believed that the new president would lean their way, given his background, however when Johnson took office, he stayed with Lincoln's policies. The second wrench thrown into the mix, was the difference in Civil Rights views. These two issues put Congress and President Johnson at odds. Thus began a war of vetoes and acts of Congress. 

Up until the midterm elections, President Johnson had enough democratic seats in Congress to allow his vetoes to stand. However, after the elections in 1866, Republicans took the majority and were able to override his vetoes. 

Andrew Johnson Impeachment Trial

Not only did Congress override him, they also passed the Tenure of Office Act to limit the president's ability to replace members of his cabinet without congressional consent. This act was specifically designed to protect Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War appointed by Lincoln, but also a Radical Republican. Johnson had tried to get Stanton removed from the office and appointed General Grant in his stead, but Congress reinstated Stanton. Despite the insistence of Congress to keep Stanton, Johnson tried to replace him anyway, claiming he was merely suspending Stanton and appointing others as "substitutes". This action enraged congress, and led to the resolution for impeachment three days later. 

In the end, Johnson was not impeached because, during the trial, the judgement fell one vote short of the 36 votes needed to convict him. In 1887, the Tenure of Office Act was repealed, so it is probably a good thing that President Johnson wasn't impeached for violating it. It seems that the true problem was a standoff between two political parties, which isn't just grounds for impeachment.

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Two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award for historical fiction, Amber Schamel writes riveting stories that bring HIStory to life. She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior. This combination results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".  She lives near Denver, Colorado near her favorite stretch of mountain range. Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at www.AmberSchamel.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

How an Unassuming Woman Accidentally Made History

Susanna Madora Kinsey Salter

Susanna Madora Kinsey was born March 2, 1860, in Belmont County, Ohio, to descendants of Quaker colonists from England. When Susanna was twelve, her family moved to an 80-acre Kansas farm near Silver Lake. Eight years later, while attending the Kansas State Agricultural College, she met Lewis Salter, an aspiring attorney. The couple married and moved to Argonia, Kansas. In 1883, Susanna gave birth to the first baby born in Argonia. She and Lewis eventually had a total of nine children, although one died in infancy. While caring for her young children, Susanna became active in the local Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party organization. She even got the chance to meet temperance activist, Carrie Nation.

Susanna and Lewis

On April 4, 1887, Susanna was surprised to learn that she had been nominated as a candidate for mayor on the Prohibition Party ticket. Because candidates did not have to be made public before election day, she didn’t know she was a candidate until the polls opened. It turns out that several Argonia men decided to pull a prank and nominated her as a joke, hoping her loss in the election would humiliate the town’s women and discourage them from running in the future. On election day, when the Women’s Christian Temperance Union learned she was a candidate, every one of them abandoned their preferred candidate and voted for Susanna.

The prank backfired when Susanna Salter received two-thirds of the votes and was elected mayor, just weeks after Kansas women had gained the right to vote in city elections. The twenty-seven-year-old woman knew more about politics than her opponents realized. She was the daughter of the town's first mayor, and her father-in-law was Melville J. Salter, a former Kansas lieutenant governor.

Susanna’s year as mayor was uneventful, except for the precedence it set. Press from all over the country debated women in office, sparking objections to “petticoat rule” to a “wait-and-see” attitude. As compensation for her year of service, Susanna was paid one dollar. At the end of the year, she did not seek re-election.

Susanna Salter's home in Argonia, Kansas

The Salter family lived in Kansas until 1893, when Lewis raced in the Cherokee Strip land run and won a plot of land in Alva in Oklahoma Territory. Ten years later, they moved to Augusta, also in Oklahoma Territory, where Lewis practiced law and established the Headlight newspaper. After Lewis’s death in 1916, Susanna moved to Norman, Oklahoma, where her youngest child attended the University of Oklahoma. For the rest of her life, Susanna remained interested in religious and political matters, but she never sought an elected office. 

Susanna Medora Salter died in Norman, two weeks after her 101st birthday. She was buried next to her husband in Argonia. In 1933, a commemorative bronze plaque was placed in Argonia’s public square honoring her as the first woman mayor in the United States. The house she lived in during her tenure as mayor was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Although her term as mayor was uneventful, Susanna made history as the first woman mayor in the United States.

Coming in May--Julia. 

The War Between the States may have ended, but prejudice is still strong among the families journeying together on a wagon

train headed down the Santa Fe Trail.

Julia Scott is traveling to New Mexico with her father and younger brother. Her pa fought for the North in the war where her two older brothers lost their lives. Pa is looking for a fresh start in a new place, but Julia just wants him to be happy again.

Taylor Marshall, a Southerner who fought for the Confederates, is on his way to Colorado to raise horses. He’s attracted to Julia, but her father adamantly forbids them to talk to one another.

Circumstances continually throw Julia and Taylor together, and their attraction grows. Will a forbidden romance bloom? Or will they go their separate ways when the trail splits?

Pre-order now: https://www.amazon.com/Julia-Prairies-Collection-Vickie-McDonough-ebook/dp/B07NYTVY2M

Vickie McDonough is the best-selling author of 50 books and novellas. Vickie grew up wanting to marry a rancher, but instead, she married a computer geek who is scared of horses. She now lives out her dreams penning romance stories about ranchers, cowboys, lawmen, and others living in the Old West. Vickie’s books have won numerous awards including the Booksellers Best and the Inspirational Choice awards. When she’s not writing, Vickie enjoys reading, doing stained-glass projects, gardening watching movies, and traveling. To learn more about Vickie’s books or to sign up for her newsletter, visit her website: www.vickiemcdonough.com

Famine in Ireland, and a Wee Bit o' Irish Trivia

by Kathleen L. Maher

The potato. A pivotal figure to the history of Ireland. But not quite the way you might think. First of all, it is not a native plant to the Old World, but originated in South America, and only made its way to Europe during the Sixteenth Century. Secondly, it is not that the Irish were born with a natural and insatiable love for the taste of potatoes, forsaking all other culinary fare, as lore or bad jokes would suggest. Potatoes simply fit into a system of subsistence tenant farmers who needed a food crop that would grow abundantly in the harshest conditions and poorest plots. Any good land in Ireland, where barley and oats grew, or where cattle might graze, would have been farmed for cash crops to enable a tenant to pay exorbitant rent to wealthy landowners. Potatoes, as it turned out, would grow in Ireland in such abundance that half an acre could produce enough to feed a family of two adults and four children for a year. Easily stored and preserved over winter, the starchy wonder offered sustenance long after harvest. And so it would seem that the potato was sent as a miraculous provision into this time and place. 

one of the many four-leaf clovers I find

The population of Ireland increased markedly with the cultivation of the tuber, along with dependence upon it as a staple. Intertwined among the social classes, from the very poor who ate potatoes almost exclusively, to the upper classes who filled out their menu of pork or mutton and fresh vegetables with daily portions of potato, the crop became ubiquitous to Irish life. Variety was the spice of the potato life, with different ways of preparing it such as colcannon--boiled/mashed cabbage and potato, boxty--a fried mixture of potato pancake and hash brown, Irish stew--the poorer cuts of meat mixed with potatoes and vegetables, and finally, champ mash--a spud mashed and served with spring onion, butter and/or milk. Milk typically would be skimmed for making butter or curds, and the remaining and less nutritious whey used by the peasant farmers to "make do".

So with a plentiful source of nutrition so easily adapted to their climate and needs, what could possibly go wrong?

Exhibit A) Britain's complex political climate leading up to and including the Victorian Age. Landowners held great influence, even if they were absentee landlords with holdings in Ireland. The poor held little power to influence law or policy. Irish tenant farmers had about as much political voice as the stones they tilled out of their rented fields. 

Exhibit B) English Corn Laws
A system of protecting the financial interests of these wealthy landowners evolved into high tariffs on imported grains into the British Isles. British corn and grain sold at an artificially high price because the more plentiful foreign grain was taxed too heavily to be profitable. The poor simply could not afford to pay for the luxury of eating grain.

Exhibit C) A blight of fungi on the potato crop in Europe
All of Europe began to experience a blight of dry brown rot on potatoes, but nowhere was it more keenly felt than in Ireland, where roughly half the population was utterly dependent upon the food source. From 1845-1852 the blight led to a failed crop which led to famine and death and mass emigration. One million would die of starvation, and two million would emigrate, ravaging Ireland's population to lows that have never fully recovered even to modern day.

Exhibit D) Protestant versus Catholic, and other prejudices alive and well at the time
History does indeed repeat itself. In every society where one group subjugates another, it can only do so if the common belief regarding the subjugated is one of inferiority, or even dehumanization. The Third Reich did this to Jews, Slavic peoples, Russians, and any of non-Aryan genetics. The American settlers regarded the indigenous people as savages. They sold Africans as slaves and decided by law they were only three-fifths of a human. The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites and enacted extermination policies when their number exceeded Egyptian ability to control them. Age-old sins of greed and pride cloud the vision of entire people groups at such sad times in history. And so it was for the Irish Catholic peasants. They were regarded as lazy, ignorant papists, somehow responsible or deserving of the disaster which had befallen them. And so relief efforts were virtually non-existent.

For a brief time, Queen Victoria and the British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel worked to repeal the Corn Laws in order to alleviate some of the suffering and starvation, but Peel's success in subsidizing grain for Irish consumption had limited effect at best. His successor overturned much of what he accomplished, and what began as a crop failure became a politically engineered famine. 

Some good came out of the ashes of this fiery trial for the Irish people. For one, Ireland has always led the world in famine relief efforts ever since. In addition, Irish culture has spread far and abroad because of the mass emigration during this time. And of note, the exact blight which caused the potato crop ravages is now widely considered to be extinct. 

If you have Irish ancestry, I would love to hear any stories you have of great (great) grandparents who escaped the Potato Famine. Share in the comments below any thoughts or stories or remarks for a random chance to win a $15 Amazon gift card. I will draw the winner with the help of random.org and post one week from today on the sidebar. The luck of the Irish go with ye!

mom and Grandpa Cronin

I'll start by sharing of my great grandfather, John Cronin. He was born in Ireland, I believe in County Cork, in 1849. I'm not certain exactly what year he and his family emigrated to America, but it was during the Great Famine. He grew up in New York City, and enlisted at the age of fifteen in the NY Fighting Irish 69th regiment in the Civil War. He served in the Color Guard, and saw action at the Siege of St. Petersburg, and was present at Appomattox and at the Grand Review in Washington D.C. after the war. He helped organize the St Patrick's Day parade in later years in Manhattan. Family legend has it that it was during his last participation in that parade that he contracted pneumonia and subsequently died. My grandfather, Vincent Cronin, was his seventh son. Vincent's youngest child was my mother, Alicia Cronin (Talvi). I am her youngest. So that is how I have only four generations separating me from that tumultuous time in Irish and American history.

I am roughly half Irish. I married a good Irishman, as my married surname says. And I have to admit, I not only love Irish history, but I actually love potatoes, too. As a kiss from heaven, our only daughter was born on Saint Patrick's Day. Katie Megan Maher, in fifth grade, dressing up to present her biographical report on on Saint Patrick.

Slainte! (Good Health)

 Post Script from last month's post about dogs: Meet the Maher's newest addition, "Bailey", AKC Bailey's Irish Cream. She is a brown and white Landseer Newfoundland. 

Kathleen L. Maher’s first literary crush was Peter Rabbit, and she’s had an infatuation with books and fictional heroes ever since. She has a novella releasing with Barbour in the 2018 Victorian Christmas Brides collection, featuring her hometown of Elmira, NY. Her debut historical “Bachelor Buttons” was released in 2013, and incorporates her Irish heritage and love of the American Civil War. She won the American Christian Fiction Writers' Genesis Contest for unpublished writers, historical category, in 2012.

Kathleen and her husband raised their three children in an old farmhouse in upstate NY, along with a small zoo of rescued dogs, cats, and birds. They run an art business in their spare time and enjoy spoiling their grandchildren on the weekends.

Find Kathleen on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mahereenie
And on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/kathleenlmaher

Thomas Nast: The Father of the American Cartoon

Our world today is filled with cartoons and satires of just about everything, and the blooming of social media has only seemed to grow the number of caricatures. Whether it be a joke about coffee, politics, or haggard mothers, everywhere you turn someone’s using a picture and a few words to make a sarcastic comment.

Did you know that caricatures and political cartoons began long before the current age of Facebook and Pinterest? Yes indeed, the history of caricatures extends well past 300 years. But today I want to talk about one of America's most famous cartoonists, Thomas Nast. Though born in Germany, he spent the majority of his life in the United States, where he raised his family, and within just a few years of beginning work as an illustrator, he became acquainted with Harper's Weekly, a union that would last for twenty-five years.

During the course of his career, Nast illustrated everything from the Civil War . . .

To Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall . . .

To federal politics . . .

To Santa Claus.

So what do you think of these caricatures and cartoons? Do you enjoy the prevalence of caricatures, cartoons and memes today? How much influence do you think someone like Thomas Nast had over popular opinion?

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Naomi Rawlings is mom to two young boys, a wife to her wonderful husband, an author for Love Inspired Historical, and an avid reader. She and her family live in Michigan’s rugged Upper Peninsula, where they get over 200 inches of snow per winter and share their ten wooded acres with black bears, wolves, coyotes, deer, and bald eagles. Because of her romance novel addiction (and the alarmingly high number of books she devours per week) she started a website for inspirational romance lovers like herself:  www.inspirationalromanceratings.com. Naomi's most recent novel, The Wyoming Heir, released in January, and she's looking forward to the release of her third novel, The Soldier's Secrets, in April of 2014. For more information about Naomi or her books, please visit her website at www.naomirawlings.com.