While the first three sections create Congress, the next 7 sections develop exactly what they can and can not do. This included how often they would meet, requirements for those meetings, their ability to regulate taxation, themselves and how they could create laws.
Continue reading “The Consititution: Article One (Part Three)”
When I first started this essay series, I really had no real understanding of what an Impeachment meant. I assumed that it was akin to governmental criminal trial, that you weren’t “impeached” till they found you guilty. And that it was only for Presidents.
Most of that was wrong. Reading the mentions in Article One’s sections 2 & 3 had me doing some research into what exactly is an impeachment and what is the result of it. Turns out it was a lot different then the image I had in my head.
Impeachments are basically administrative reviews in our government. This is one of the many governmental transfers from our time as a colony of Great Britian, where impeachment was a power of Parliament. A committee is formed in the House to look into and investigate claims that are impeachable offenses (which honestly tend to be a little vague and on occasion partisan). After the investigation, the House can either decide there isn’t any evidence (or perhaps not enough) or they feel there is enough and Impeach the person in question. So basically being ‘impeached’ is being accused of doing something that goes against the office you hold, or laws.
Once the House impeaches the officer, it then goes over to the Senate. Impeachments are supposed to be high priority over any other business the Senate might be looking into, and they prepare to hear the evidence on the impeachment. In order to be found guilty, the Senate must vote with a 2/3 majority.
There have been several impeachments over the years, the most known are probably the 2 presidential impeachments: Andrew Johnson and William Jefferson Clinton. Also within the Watergate Scandal, Impeachment was implied.
In 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House for breaking the Tenure of Office Act, which had been passed the year before overriding Johnson’s veto. The law restricted the President’s ability to remove office holders (like cabinet members) from office without the okay of Congress. This was also part of an ongoing feud between him and congress over the reconstruction plan for the south. The President wanted to accept all the states back immediately while Congress preferred to wait and have them under military law till they proved they could be loyal. (personally, I side with Johnson on this). Johnson wanted to remove his Secretary of War, who was a Republican and indicted under Lincoln’s tenure. When he did, the House began to investigate him for breaking the law. This law would later be thrown out by the Supreme Court and later Congress in 1887 itself for being unconstitutional. He ended up being acquitted and going on to serve as Senator before his death in 1885.
Bill Clinton’s Impeachment trial is probably more familiar to more of us, as it happened only recently in history. Clinton was impeached by the House on December 18, 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice brought on by an investigation by Ken Starr into the President’s behavior during a recent sex assault trial brought by one of Clinton’s former employees.. The trial was hotly debated and Clinton ended up being acquitted by a single vote.
Richard Nixon was never impeached, although it is considered that had he not resigned and turned over the office to Gerald Ford (who pardoned him) he would have had to go through an impeachment trial. So in effect, his presidency was ended by the threat of impeachment rather then the impeachment itself.
So that explains why I knew of it as being a way to remove a President from office. But it turns out its a way to remove other governmental officials from office. There have been 19 federal impeachments. The Majority of those impeached by the House of Representatives were judges. Only four were not. These were the aforementioned Presidents, a Cabinet Secretary and a US Senator. Only 8 of the 19 were convicted, the rest were acquitted.
Notable impeachments include:
An impeachment trial does not end up like a criminal case does. They are only given the power to remove a person from their position in the government and disqualify them from future office, not to sentence them for their crimes, which would have to be seen to under a civilian criminal court.
During most cases, the Vice President resides over the trial as leader of the Senate. However, during Presidential impeachments it is left to the Chief Justice. The prosecutors are members of the House, choose to represent them in the case. The Senate acts like the jury.
The House has looked into over 60 impeachments, but only 19 have actually been passed on to the Senate.
Further Reading/Sources
The Impeachment of Bill Clinton (Wikipedia)
Impeachment in the United States (Wikipedia)
The Impeachment Trial of Alcee L. Hastings (Senate.gov)
Briefing on Impeachment (Senate.gov)
Complete list of Impeachment trials by Federal Senate (Senate.gov (same link as above, only more specific)
Impeachment: US House of Representatives (House.gov)
In our previous post, I talked about Article One’s second section, which developed the House of Representatives. The third section likewise develops another branch of the government
Section Three: The Senate
In the Articles of Confederation, our original constitution, there was only a single body legislative branch. It gave each state one vote, with the ability to have a delegation team making said vote. Many people wanted to keep this when they sat down to revise and come up with a new Constitution. The Senate is inspired by the Ancient Roman equivalent, which each region had Senator representing them. These were meant to be wise statesmen who had the best interests of their people at heart.
Well, in compromise with those who wanted more democracy and less republic, they made two. The House of Representative which contains representation by population, and the Senate which has representation by set amount.
Under Section Three, the senate gives each state two votes. This has not changed. We continue to have 2 Senators per state admitted to the union (So the first Senate had 26 Senators. much smaller room then the 100 Senators we have now.)
Each Senator had to abide by a few guidelines. They had to be over 30, been a US citizen for at least 9 years. This was important because when the nation first started, there were no technical “naturally born” US Citizens as the country hadn’t existed at the time. Now, it allows for immigrants to be a part of their new country’s government.
Term limits were given at 6 years per term to provide them an ability to avoid being caught up in short term trends and fads on the political scene. Starting during the first congress in 1789, they began a three class rota of elections (Class A would be elected the first 2 year election, Class B would be at 4 years, class C would be at 6 years, this making sure that every six years we didn’t end up with all our Senators running for re-election.
Section three also talks about the Senate leadership. The House of Representatives chooses their own head, known as the Speaker of the House. The Senate on the other hand does not, instead the Vice President (and Section 3 is the first to mention the post) is the lead officer. There are various other leadership positions that are elected by their fellow senators but the Vice President presides over the Senate, only voting when there is a tie.
When it was originally written, the constitution supplied Senators by appointment rather then public elections. They were voted on by the state legislatures. However in 1913, this was changed to public elections with the 17th Amendment, which we still hold. It also allowed for the Governor to have a election to fill the spot if there was a vacancy for some reason during a non election year. Originally they could only fill the vacancy until the next meeting of the legislature who when then choose who would fill in.
The Senate also has the power to try all impeachments made by the House of Representatives. I have decided that because it would take up a lot of space to do a separate post on Impeachment. In summary however, the basic process is the House makes the charge, and then the Senate is the jury/judge.
The Senate convened for the first time, according to their website, on March 4, 1789 in New York City’s Federal Hall. It had to wait till April 6 to complete business, as that required that half +1 of the elected were present. (Currently that would be 51 people). Their first act was to elect a doorkeeper, who kept the public out till the Senate was open for public viewing in 1790, and afterwards kept the galleries in order as well as make sure any shipment of Senate materials be kept in order as the Capital changed.
That position still exists, actually. Currently it is held by Frank J. Larkin. The position is elected by the Senate and serves as an officer of the law, protocol enforcement, and administrative managing.
Further Reading/Sources
The US Senate: Origins and Development (Senate.gov)
Senators of the 114th Congress (Senate.gov) – You can find contact information for your senator here. They have it available to filter by class, state or last name.
Office of the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper (or the dude who does everything but sit and vote) (Senate.gov)
The Constitution (2007 Edition, GPO.gov)
The Articles of Confederation (Yale Law School: Lillian Goldman Law Library)
The Constitution in its first article goes about the design of our legislature.
Section One: Congress
This section is brief. In fact, It’s probably shorter than the paragraph I’m writing about it. It essentially gives the powers to legislate to ‘Congress’ and explains its design. In the United States, we have a bicameral legislature – meaning we have two governing bodies. In the original Articles of the Confederation, we were unicameral and each state got one vote when it assembled. There was quite a debate about staying that way. However, in the end, it was decided that a bicameral design was best for the new nation.
Section Two: The House Continue reading “The Consitution: Article One (Part 1)”
Today is the American holiday celebrating our declaration of Independence from Great Britain and aliens. We celebrate by eating copious amounts of food, singing Bruce Springsteen, and blowing up sparkly gunpowder in the sky.
On an interesting note, it is neither the day we choose to declare independence (that was July 2nd), nor the day we finally won it (that was September 3, 9 years later). Its not even the day the war started. That was earlier, in April of the previous year. The day the treaty following the war was ratified was May 12, 1784.
What does this day actually celebrate? The formal release of the Declaration of Independence, which had been written earlier in the month but had to have some revisions done. On July 4, 1776, we formerly declared that we wanted Independence from Great Britain. (except Delaware forgot to sign so it took till August 2nd for everything to be completed).
After 8 and a half years of fighting, and several months of talking it was formally recognized that the American Colonies, now called the United States, had won their freedom.
Not that it was the end to our growing pains, but thats a subject for another day.
Happy Fourth of July to all my American readers and all alien fighters.
This week is a big week in American History. Tomorrow is July 4th, a day to celebrate the release of the Declaration of Independence and beat up aliens , Yesterday was the aniversery of everyone agreeing this was a good idea, and the signing of the Civil Rights Act.
Today’s annivsery is Gettysburg. Its a pretty well known battle of the American Civil War (or War for Southern Independence depending on who you ask). Abraham Lincoln also did a pretty important speech here (the infamous “Four score” speech). And for me, its got the added benefit of being local history (Gettysburg is located in the state of Pennsylvania.).
Gettysburg was a 3 day battle in 1863 between General Robert E. Lee and General George Meade. It wasn’t planned to happen that way (they all thought it would happen in Maryland). Meade had sent some of his men to PA to block off that direction, and Lee had sent some of his men into PA for some supplies. They ended up both in Gettysburg and a battle emergers and Meade and Lee had to move to catch up with the fighting.
Three days later, Lee was not any closer to invading the North, and both sides were pretty equally beat up. A grand total of approxamently 48,000 Americans were casualties of this battle by the time Lee withdrew on July 4th after a day of everyone catching their breath. Not a very good Indpendence Day for the Confederate States. In the end, the Union withstood their position, and the Confederate army left with no progress towards the north and close to 26,000 casuelties all on their own.
The war would continue for two more years, but this was the last major offensive of Robert E. Lee and considered by some historians to be a turning point in the war. Others disagree, but most agree that the Battle is very important in the course of the war.
To learn more:
History.com “This Day in History: Battle of Gettysburg Ends”
CivilWar.org “Gettysburg”
Wikipedia: Battle of Gettysburg
EyeWitnessToHistory.com “Gettysburg”
When looking at my daily email about events in history on this day, I found out today in 1776, The Second Continential Congress voted to adopt the resolution of Independence from Great Britian.
The resolution was presented by Richard Henry Lee on June 7th, but due to some lingering doubts from some of the colonies, they decided to wait to vote on July 2nd. In the meantime they set a group off the write up a declaration. This group included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and of course Thomas Jefferson. In the end Jefferson was selected to be the primary author (which is why he often gets credit but we don’t often hear about Sherman or Livingston). They managed to present the declaration to Congress on June 28 for review. Not bad, writing a document that will literally change the world in only three weeks.
Since I think most Americans (and probably alot of non-americans) can remember something about Adams Franklin and Jefferson (and not just that two are on our money) I googled the other two.
Roger Sherman is the only man to sign all the starter papers for the US (The Continnental Association (which I just learned about today), The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, and the Consitution. He was greatly involved in the reorganization of the Connneticicut government and worked on developing guidelines for ambassadors, particularly those to Canada. And according to Wikipedia, his Great-great grandson helped create the CIA.
Robert Livingston was the first Secratary of State (then called Secretary of Foriegn Affairs), and later as Ambassador to France. It was then that he helped negociate the Louisana purchase, so a third of the country can thank him for being American and not French. He also developed the first steamboat. He got the honor of swearing George Washington in as President.
On July 1st, Congress, like congress today, choose to debate the issue. Unlike congress now, they unanimously voted for it, with only New York abstaining. John Adams, according to History.com, thought that this would be the day we would celebrate. In the end however, we celebrate the day they actually presented the Declaration to the public, July 4th.
Another key document was also signed today. In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law The Civil Rights Act. It was something that John F. Kennedy had fought for and that Lyndon Johnson picked up after Kennedy was killed in 1963. Still, I’m not entirely sure how someone uses 75 pens to sign ‘Lyndon B. Johnson’. Even if he spelled out his middle name and the name of the country.
The Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination against race in employment, education, and in public places such as buses, schools, parks, and pools.
This is a week for National birthdays, apparently. Today is Canada’s “birthday”.
Canada was originally a bunch of seperate colonies, but on July 1, 1867, the Consitiution Act/British North America Act united three of them into a single country within the British Empire. It was called Dominion Day until 1982, when it was officially renamed Canada Day.
The three colonies joined together were Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Providence of Canada. The Providece of Canada was then divided up into more providences (Ontario and Quebec). Since then the country has changed both in shape of the providence (there are now 10), and their governmental relations with the British Empire (They still are under the Queen, but the UK parliment has no say in their government anymore)
The actual day as a holiday was not started until 1879, but only as a day for local communities to celebrate. Official celebrations started in 1958, although not popularized till the 1980s. It is held on July 1, unless it is a sunday then the legal holiday will be held the following Monday.
So here’s wishing all my Canadian friends a happy Canada Day. Thank you for being a good neighbor.
Memorial Day has been celebrated for over a hundred years, developing in the years following the Civil War as a day to pause in remembrance of the men who died during the War. At the time it was called Decoration Day, in reference to the fact that it involved people deocrating the graves of deceased soldiers.
It is not clear where the celebration started (Although Waterloo, NY likes to claim it was them, and others say Charleston, NC) but it soon became something celebrated across the nation. However,the first purposeful celebration of it happened in Columbus, Georgia, where a group of women decided that on the anniversy of the final surrender of the confederate army, April 26, they should make sure to go out and decorate the graves of vetrans with flowers. They mailed letters out to various newspapers across the country, and it became a national, abit southern, effort in 1866.
It soon was reported in Northern Papers after the southern women made a point to also decorate the graves of Union soldiers burried in the south and people began to join in on the activities.
On May 5, 1868 General John Logan, who was national Commander of the Grand Army at the time, declared that May 30th would be dedicated to the decoration of graves of those who died for their country. He choose that day to avoid choosing a date of a battle. However it wasn’t till 1873 that states started to recognize the day (starting with New York) and it was largely only celebrated on Logan’s date by the North. Southern States continued to celebrate on dates of their own choosing.
After WWI, the day went from celebrating simply those who died in the civil war to those Americans who died in any war. In 1971, Congress passed the National Holiday Act and set Memorial Day as a three day weekend, making Memorial Day the last Monday in May as well as making it an offical Federal holiday . Southern States started to observe Memorial Day after WWI, but also kept seperate days to celebrate those who died as Confederate soldiers.
Title: While You Were Mine
Author: Anne Howard Creel
Publication date: April 1,2016
My Grade: B-
My Review:
This book is a sweet historical romance. It takes place during the day following World War II in New York City. The main character is Gwen, the nurse in the infamous Life magazine image. She is raising the daughter of her former roommate who has abandoned her daughter. As the book begins she returns home to find the child’s father waiting to be reunited with his daughter and wife.
The book deals with post traumatic stress disorder ( though it is called shell shock), different types of relations including three mothers who take different paths with how they deal with it.
It’s a good book for a lazy afternoon, although I think sometimes the author spends too much time describing Mary’s baby clothes when it could be moving the plot line forward. Also it has a weird pov situation, with most chapters in Gwen’s first person PvP with three or so chapters in third person focused chapters for John.
My final grade is a B-. Good for a lazy read but could be better.
Sokorra Lewis 