(August 24, 1867)
On March 2, 1867, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over Johnson’s veto, restricting the president’s patronage powers. It required the approval of the Senate in dismissing officers appointed with congressional consent. Legislators intended the bill, along with the Reconstruction Act, to assume control of the Reconstruction process and to limit Johnson’s power. Accordingly, on August 12, 1867, the president removed the popular secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, a supporter of the Radicals’ Reconstruction program, and, five days later, transferred General Philip H. Sheridan, who had zealously implemented the Reconstruction Act, from the Fifth Military District (Texas and Louisiana) to the Department of the Missouri. This cartoon, published in Harper’s Weekly on August 24, 1867, depicted Johnson pulling down two massive columns (representing Stanton and Sheridan), causing Reconstruction to collapse on his head. Like Samson in the Bible and later John Milton’s tragedy Samson Agonistes (1671), Johnson destroys himself.