A real Whistleblower!

 
This 1867 drawing by Alfred Waud, “The First Vote,” depicts Black
men waiting in line to cast ballots in Southern states.

On January 8, 1867, African American men gained the right to vote in the
District of Columbia despite the veto of President Andrew Johnson. The
Republican-controlled senate overrode Johnson by a vote of 29-10
three years before a constitutional amendment granted the right to
vote to all men regardless of race.

As evidenced by his veto, Johnson valued reconciliation with the former Confederacy over racial equality and also opposed the Fourteenth
Amendment, which made freed slaves citizens. His opposition to 
the Republicans’ views on Reconstruction would define his presidency 
and lead to his becoming the first president ever to be impeached.

Though Johnson was unable to stop Congress from granting voting 
rights to the African Americans of D.C., he spent much of his term in 
office vetoing the bills of the so-called Radical Reconstructionist.  

Andrew Johnson (1808-1875)

Johnson was the 17th U.S. president,
assumed office after the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln.

MIKE GRACIA

The Senate meeting to consider the Articles of Impeachment against
President William Clinton. Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding.

President Clinton went on trial before the Senate on this day in 1999. It was
only the second time in U.S. history that an impeached president had gone
to trial. Clinton was acquitted February 12 of perjury and obstruction of
justice charges.
 

  
Hillary Clinton stood next to Bill Clinton as he delivered his
strongest public denial of allegations that he had an affair
with Monica Lewinsky, during a press conference at the
White House.

On January 4, 1965, in his State of the Union address, President Lyndon
Baines Johnson lays out for Congress a laundry list of legislation needed
to achieve his plan for a Great Society. On the heels of John F. Kennedy’s
tragic death, Americans had elected Johnson, his vice president, to the
presidency by the largest popular vote in the nation’s history. Johnson
used this mandate to push for improvements he believed would better
Americans’ quality of life.

Following Johnson’s lead, Congress enacted sweeping legislation in the
areas of civil rights, health care, education and the environment. The 1965
State of the Union address heralded the creation of Medicare/Medicaid,
Head Start, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development and the White House Conference on
Natural Beauty. Johnson also signed the National Foundation of the Arts
and Humanities Act, out of which emerged the National Endowment for
the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter (seated left) and Soviet General Secretary
Leonid Brezhnev signing the SALT II treaty in Vienna, June 18,
1979.

On January 2, 1980, in a strong reaction to the December 1979 Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter asks the Senate to
postpone action on the SALT II nuclear weapons treaty and recalls
the U.S. ambassador to Moscow. These actions sent a message that
the age of détente and the friendlier diplomatic and economic relations
that were established between the United States and Soviet Union
during President Richard Nixon’s administration (1969-74) had ended.

Carter feared that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in which an
estimated 30,000 combat troops entered that nation and established
a puppet government, would threaten the stability of neighboring 
strategic countries such as Iran and Pakistan and could lead to the
USSR gaining control over much of the world’s oil supplies. The
Soviet actions were labeled “a serious threat to peace” by the
White House.

President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev shake hands after signing the SALT II Treaty.