April 24: Library of Congress

On this date in History .... April 24, 1800:

John Adams signs an Act of Congress to move the govt from Philadelphia to Washington DC.  Part of the bill provided for $5000 to establish a library for Congress, "for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress ..., “.  Thomas Jefferson followed this in 1802 by signing the first law creating the post of Librarian of Congress. 

The Library of Congress is the oldest federal cultural institution in the U.S. and is the largest library in the world with over 745 miles of shelves to hold close to 145 million items. It was first housed in the Capital building until the British burned the Capitol in the War of 1812.

Photo courtesy of www.teachingamericanhistory.org

Jefferson sold his personal collection of over 6000 books to rebuild the library.  This collection was considered unique in that it was a working scholar’s collection and not just a “gentleman’s collection” used strictly for display. 

While the library was originally established as a research arm for Congress, it was Jefferson’s belief that “all subjects are important to the library of the American legislature,” that formed the rationale behind the collection policies of the library to this day.

August 7: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution signed

On this date in History..... August 7, 1964:

Congress overwhelmingly passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (only 2 “no” Votes in the Senate; it passed the House unanimously), after U.S. boats were torpedoed in the Gulf of Tonkin (also known as the USS Maddox Incident) on August 2 and again on August 4. This gave Pres. Johnson, in his first year in office, almost unlimited power and “the right to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."  

Johnson used this resolution as his authority to escalate U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, and saw his popularity soar due to his “restrained handling of the crisis.”  The Johnson Administration used this Resolution as their green light to begin heavy bombing and increase troops in Vietnam.  

During the Nixon administration, the resolution was repealed, over Nixon’s objections. Realizing the need to restore limits on presidential authority to engage in war activity, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 which requires the president to consult with Congress before engaging U.S. forces in hostile actions.

July 16: 2nd Confiscation Act

On this date in History ... July 16, 1862:

Congress passes the 2^nd Confiscation Act to clarify the vague issue of whether slaves were freed under the Confiscation Act of 1861.  

The Act called for any confederate who did not surrender within 60 days would have their slaves freed. There was no action stated for what to DO with the freed slaves, however. The 1862 Act declared that all slaves taking refuge behind the Union lines would be freed. 

The Act did provide a provision for voluntary colonization to a tropical country, but included a clause that required the freedmen to consent to the colonization, a clause that was passed after much controversy in Congress. 

The “emancipation gesture” applied only to rebelling states and any slave owner who could prove loyalty to the Union would get their slaves back.

June 1: Senator Margaret Chase

On this date in History ... June 1, 1950:

Senator Margaret Chase Smith became the first Senator to denounce McCarthy’s anti-communist tactics.

Following her "Declaration of Conscience" speech, some pundits speculated that she might be the Vice Presidential candidate on the 1952 Republican ticket. She had other ambitions & became the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency by either of the two major parties. In the final balloting, Smith refused to withdraw and came in second to the Republican nominee, Barry Goldwater.

She had served four terms in the House, then won election to the Senate in 1948, becoming the first woman elected to both houses of Congress.

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April 17: Political Mudslinging

On this date in History ... 1950:

Time magazine publishes an article about the story circulating about political mudslinging between Florida incumbent Sen. Claude Pepper and his opponent, George Smathers.

 

The story, which has become the icon of how words can be used to distort one’s image, first appeared in an Iowa newspaper and grew rapidly on the political grapevine.  While it is denied that Smathers ever made such a speech, it followed the campaign and cost Pepper his seat in the Senate, much to the joy of Harry Truman who wanted Pepper out of office due to Pepper having been part of a failed attempt to “dump Truman” from the Democratic ticket.

 

The story was:

 

"Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, he has a brother who is a known homo sapien, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage habitually practiced celibacy."

Voters told reporters that they weren’t quite sure what words like “extrovert” and “nepotism” and “thespian” meant but they were sure they were connected to bad, immoral or illegal activities.

April 11: Truman Fires MacArthur

On this date in History .... 1951:






Truman fires Gen. Douglas MacArthur in what became known as the most public and controversial military firing. 

MacArthur was a brilliant general and strategist and proved it a number of times in the Pacific theater during WWII.  However, he wanted to repeat those successes in Korea but Truman did not want to extend the Korean conflict to include a confrontation with the Chinese. MacArthur assured Truman that the chances of a Chinese invasion into Korea were “slim” but when hundreds of thousands of Chinese moved into North Korea, Truman fired MacArthur, much to the ire of many of the American public.  

MacArthur was given parades and a hero’s welcome upon his return, and he addressed Congress with his famous line of “Old soldiers never die … they just fade away.”

March 4: Robert Smalls

On this date in History .... 1875:

Robert Smalls joins the House of Representatives from South Carolina’s 5^th District. A former slave, he was the last Republican to represent the district until 2010.

 

“As a politician, Smalls authored state legislation providing for South Carolina to have the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States, and founded the Republican Party of South Carolina. He is notable as the last Republican to represent South Carolina's 5th congressional district until 2010.”

The first ten years of his life were relatively easy.  It is rumored that his master, Henry McKee, was his father. Smalls was taken around town by McKee and he was permitted to play with other children, black and white.  This bothered his slave-mother who made sure he saw and understood the horrors of the life of slavery.  She made him sleep on the earthen floor, not on a cot. She made him work in the fields, pick cotton, and wear tattered clothes like other slaves. She even took him to watch the activities at the whipping post so he could truly understand what it was like to be a slave.

As a 12-year old slave, his master sent him to Charleston to be hired out on ships where he gained a high level of knowledge about ships and the Charleston harbor.  While on the USS Planter, he planned and executed a daring escape, disguising himself as the ship’s captain and even stopping to pick up his family. He used the correct Confederate signals to get past the Confederate ships.  He then raised a white sheet as a flag and headed straight for the Union fleet.  He turned the ship and its contents, which included a copy of the Confederate code book and locations of mines in the harbor, over to the Union Army.

Congress passed a bill, signed by Lincoln, enabling Smalls and his other “Negro crew members” to receive the prize money for turning over the Confederate ship (about $1500).  He met Lincoln himself just a couple of weeks later.  Because of the debate on allowing African Americans to join the military, Smalls served in the Union Army as a civilian.

"In December 1863, Smalls became the first black captain of a vessel in the service of the United States. On December 1, 1863, the Planter had been caught in a crossfire between Union and Confederate forces. The ship's commander, Captain Nickerson, decided to surrender. Smalls refused, fearing that the black crewmen would not be treated as prisoners of war and might be summarily killed. Taking command, Smalls piloted the ship out of range of the Confederate guns. For his bravery, Smalls was named to replace Nickerson as the Planter's captain. Smalls returned with the Planter to Charleston harbor in April 1865 for the ceremonial raising of the American flag upon Ft. Sumter."  (Quote Source: Wikipedia)


After the war, he returned to the South and purchased his former master’s house.  His mother lived with him for the rest of her life and he even permitted his previous master’s wife to live with them in the house prior to  her death.  The home as been designated as a National Historic Landmark.

March 3: The Civil War Draft is Passed

On this date in History .... 1863:

Congress passes the Civil War conscription act, the country’s first military draft of U.S. citizens.

Exemptions from the draft could be bought for $300, allowing the buyers to hire a substitute to go into the military in their place, which led to riots in New York City since only the wealthy could afford to pay for an exemption and those who couldn’t afford it had to be drafted and go to battle.

The Confederacy had a similar law and included a clause that exempted overseers or plantations owners, something that was antagonistic to those who were fighting in the Confederate Army, laying way to Confederate soldiers referring to the Civil War as a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

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February 12: Dr. Henry Garnet

On this date in History .... 1865:

Rev. Dr. Henry Highland Garnet, former slave and pastor of the 15^th Street Presbyterian Church, becomes the first African-American to deliver a sermon to the U.S. House of Representatives, ”commemorating the victory of the Union armies and the deliverance of the country from slavery.”

 

Pres. Lincoln had arranged for this special sermon, with full consent of his Cabinet,  on the President’s 56^th birthday. 

 

In 1881, Garnet was appointed U.S. minister to Liberia but died only 2 months after his appointment.

February 11 ..... "Payola"

On this date in History ... 1960:

The issue of Payola reached a new level of prominence when President Eisenhower proclaimed “an issue of public morality”.  The FCC proposed a law to make it an illegal act. 

“Payola” was the term describing how radio stations and DJ’s were paid to play a record. The number of times a record is played can influence its popularity. Some DJs admitted to receiving a total of over $10,000 for their “listening fees”.  One DJ, in his testimony to Congress dismissed it as a problem, comparing it to “giving the teacher a better gift than the fellow at the next desk.”

Congress got involved as a matter of trust, since the (public) radio airwaves were owned by the public. Others were of the opinion that 1960 was an election year and since it was the middle of the Cold War and the country was just coming out of the big Game Show Scandal, politicians wanted to appear to be on the moral side of things.

The consensus was the hearings didn’t accomplish much in the way of eliminating Payola, but did accomplish two things: they threatened the career of Dick Clark on American Bandstand (who avoided trouble by selling his interest in a recording company and cooperating fully with the investigation), and destroyed the career of rock-n-roll legend Alan Freed.

February 4: Confederate States Congress

On this date in History .... 1861:

The Provisional Confederate Congress convenes and begins drafting a constitution.  The Confederate Constitution was modeled after the U.S. Constitution, using many parts of it word for word.  Some differences included: 


·         The president would serve for a six-year term.

·         The word “slave” was actually used and the institution of slavery was protected in all existing and future states. However ….

·         The importation of slaves was banned for fear of making enemies of European countries and fear of diminishing the existing (and profitable) slave trade already going on in the southern United States.

·         The president was given a line-item veto.

·         States powers were enhanced by banning governmental money for internal improvements.

Jefferson Davis was selected as the President of the Confederate States.  He was officially "elected" (ran unopposed) to a six-year term on November 6, 1861. He never served the full six years since the Confederacy was disolved in 1865. 

Davis graduated 23rd in his class from West Point and came from a family filled with military tradition.  His father and uncles fought in the Revoluntionary War.  All of his older brothers fought in the War of 1812.  Davis himself proved himself in the military during the Blackhawk War of 1831 when Chief Blackhawk was captured and placed under the care of Davis.  Davis won Blackhawk over due to the kind care Davis extended to the chief.

Davis's first wife was Sara Knox Taylor, daughter of General Zachary Taylor, who would become a President of the United Stated.  The General did not approve of the marriage and Davis resigned his military position "to take up civic duties" before the marriage.  Sara died of malaria just a few months into their marriage.

January 31: Germany Resumes U-Boat Attacks

On this date in History .... 1917:

Germany announces they will again begin unrestricted warfare in the Atlantic with their submarines, known as U-Boats. 

The American stance of remaining a neutral in the Great War was wearing thin with the sinking of the Lusitania and an Italian ship with 27 Americans. Three days after Germany’s announcement, an American ship, the Housatonic was sunk.

On February 22, the U.S. Congress appropriated $250 million to ready America for war. In March, Germany sank four more U.S. merchant ships.  On April 6, the House of Representatives endorsed the Senate’s declaration of war and “America formerly entered WWI.”

January 25: Shirley Chisholm

On this date in History .... 1972:

Shirley Chisholm becomes the first major-party black candidate for President of the United States and the first woman (white or black) to run for the Democratic nomination. (The first woman to run for President on the Republican ticket was Sen. Margaret Chase who ran for the Republican nomination in 1950).

 

In 1968, she had become the first African American woman elected to Congress. 

 

A former teacher, she was an advocate for children, education and women’s rights.  In May of 1969 she gave a speech to the House of Representatives in which she introduced the equal rights amendment and pointed out that the bill had been introduced before every Congress for the previous 40 years.

 

To those who argued that women were already protected under the law, she pointed out that ….. "If women are already equal, why is it such an event whenever one gets elected to Congress?"

January 20: 1st Non-White Elected to Congress

On this date in History ..... 1870:

Senator Hiram Revels

Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first non-white elected to the U.S. Congress, serving as Senator from Mississippi during Reconstruction.  He was born free in No. Carolina and attended the Union County Quaker Seminary in Indiana.

 

His election to the Senate was challenged because election to the senate required a 9-yr prior citizenship. The argument brought forth was that black men were not considered citizens prior to the 1868 passage of the 14^th amendment, therefore he was only a “citizen by law” for only 2 years.

 

The prevailing argument, however, was that the Dred Scott case applied only to those of pure African blood, and since Revels was of mixed ancestry, it didn’t apply to him, therefore he was a citizen.

 

On Feb 25, 1870 he became the 1^st black man to be seated in the Senate.

 

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