Paternalism to Partnership: The Administration of Indian Affairs, 1786–2021

Paternalism to Partnership provides a biographical sketch of each head of Indian affairs between 1786 and 2021 in context with each commissioner’s political philosophy. These administrators have been responsible for enforcing an Indian policy as directed by the president and/or the Congress but also influenced by their own political and social philosophy. From 1786-1848, authority was delegated to a superintendent of Indian affairs, a superintendent of the Indian trading houses, a superintendent of the Office of Indian Trade, a chief clerk, and a commissioner of Indian affairs, all of whom reported to the secretary of War. Since 1849, the commissioner of Indian affairs, and after 1977, the assistant secretary for Indian affairs have reported to the secretary of the Interior. Today, the BIA is administered by the assistant secretary for Indian affairs—all of whom have been Native Americans. Previous studies focused on the commissioners, completely overlooking the superintendents that preceded them and the colonial and early American antecedents. David DeJong’s documentary edition is the first to provide an understanding of the political philosophy of each head of the Indian bureau through the emphasis of policy.

President Andrew Johnson Impeached: The First Presidential Impeachment in American History

Introduction. The article is devoted to the mechanism of impeachment procedure on the example of the first practical application of it in the history of the U.S. in relation to President Andrew Johnson. This created a necessary precedent in the further political struggle between the branches of government and has made the study of the history of the first presidential impeachment an urgent problem. Impeachment cases were brought against six subsequent presidents: Cleveland, Hoover, Truman, Nixon, Reagan, and G.W. Bush in the lower house of Congress. W. Clinton and D. Trump’s impeachment was discussed in the Senate, but was not successful. Methods and Materials. The article is based on materials from the American press as well as cartoons. The novelty of the source base is in combination of verbal and visual materials. The author used theoretical concepts developed within the framework of interdisciplinarity. The problem-chronological approach was the methodological basis of the research. In American historiography, Johnson is regarded as the “worst” President in U.S. history. However, the debate over the legitimacy of the first impeachment of a President in U.S. history has not subsided until now. In American studies, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson has not been specifically considered. Analysis. The conflict between the President and Congress was caused by the Reconstruction policy. The confrontation between the two branches of government led to impeachment. The President was charged in connection with the dismissal of Secretary of War E. Stanton, which was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The article examines how the impeachment procedure was implemented by Congress and why it failed. Results. Despite the failure, the first impeachment of a President in the history of the United States showed the effectiveness of the “checks” and “balances” mechanism in implementing the principle of separation of powers. It has become a deterrent to the relationship between the President and Congress.

The Rise of Federal Title

The failure of federal efforts to reform title meant that federal officials in the territories found themselves, unwillingly, adjudicating conflicting claims to ownership, often in ad hoc, unplanned fashion outside of courts. This chapter describes three sets of adjudications of territorial land rights. The first involved conflicting assertions of different Native nations to ownership, as federal officials, as part of their effort to “extinguish” Native title, had to decide which nation owned which land. The effort led them to try to understand Native land laws in an effort to parse these claims. The second required wading into the land rights of the French habitants of the Illinois Country, where territorial officials similarly attempted to understand past French land law to confirm preexisting claims to title. The third concerned veterans of the Revolutionary War, who were promised land in the U.S. Military District in the Northwest Territory. Frequently defrauded out of their rights, these holders of the so-called bounty lands appealed to the U.S. Secretary of War to protect their title. In all three cases, the result was that federal officials distilled the territories’ plural sources of ownership into a single federal title issued under federal authority. This decades’ worth of difficult and unheralded legal and administrative work became the foundation for the federal land system, especially when the Harrison Land Act of 1800 codified the resolution to long-standing heated debates about the public lands.

Federal Sovereignty

In the territories, the federal government confronted what it regarded as endemic violence between Natives and U.S. citizens based on long-standing racial animosity. At the urging of Secretary of War Henry Knox, the federal government sought to establish itself as a neutral arbiter between both sides, a vision of what the chapter calls federal sovereignty expressed in the Trade and Intercourse Acts. These laws sought to distinguish and separate “Indian country” from “ordinary jurisdiction,” and they established a federal criminal regime to punish both Natives and U.S. citizens who committed crimes against the other, in an effort to replace practices of retaliation. Yet this effort to establish federal sovereignty largely failed. In part, federal officials misunderstood territorial realities, where Natives and whites were entangled by economic and social relationships that could not be easily divided. But they also misunderstood the jurisdictional and institutional limitations within federal law. In particular, their approach converted the question of justice for Natives into a debate over the scope of federal authority in the territories, in which territorial citizens strongly resisted what they regarded as heavy-handed federal control.

Commanding General of the Army, 1869–1884

This chapter recounts that on November 7, 1868, Ulysses S. Grant gained election to the presidency, leading to William T. Sherman succeeding him as general-in-chief. Throughout, Sherman had abstained from political activities, but he did express enthusiasm for Grant’s win. He also made early preparations for the move to Washington. Before Grant and Sherman’s ascents to greater responsibility, they were able to enjoy one last wartime swansong with 2000 former comrades at a joint reunion of the societies of the Armies of the Cumberland, Georgia, the Ohio, and the Tennessee in Chicago on December 15–16, 1868. At the meeting, Grant and Sherman discussed the future structure of the army. Grant assured Sherman that he intended to make the arrangements that he had introduced as general-in-chief permanent. The long duel between the commanding general and secretary of war waged since 1836 over who should direct the army would be finally decided in favor of the general-in-chief. On the same day of Grant’s inauguration, he sent to the Senate his nomination of Sherman in the rank of General of the Army of the United States. The following day, John M. Schofield issued the executive order stipulating that Sherman would succeed as commanding general.

Marching to Victory, December 1864–April 1865

This chapter describes William T. Sherman’s approach march to Fort McAllister. The March to the Sea might be over, but Sherman had not yet reached the sea. He had managed to cross the Ogeechee River thanks to the reconstruction of King’s Bridge, but he still faced two problems. First, he needed to make contact with the Union fleet. Second, he still needed to seize Savannah, a risky operation that needed to be completed swiftly. It is true that Sherman encountered weak opposition and that the March had not pulled significant Confederate reinforcements to Savannah. Nonetheless, Sherman lacked the equipment for a prolonged siege and might yet be seriously embarrassed. The fall of Fort McAllister permitted Sherman to concentrate his energies on establishing contact with the US Navy. Once contact with the US Navy had been firmly established, it brought some unexpected pleasures. The chapter then looks at the interactions between Sherman and the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.

Down to the Crossroads

Southern Democrats wielded tremendous power over national policy in the mid-1850s, and Stephen Douglas’s efforts to harness his them to his program of northwestern development resulted in disaster. This chapter first reinterprets Jefferson Davis’s service as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce (1853-1857), focusing on his use of camels for military transportation in the southwest. Far from a whimsical frontier tale, the camel episode became entwined with a shadowy network of slave traders and proslavery expansionists whose late antebellum schemes reveal the chilling consequences of slaveholders’ federal clout. This context elucidates Douglas’s infamous Kansas-Nebraska Act. Striving to align powerful southern Democrats behind his efforts to promote the Greater Northwest, Douglas pushed the Act through Congress—and unleashed a political cyclone that devastated the Democratic Party’s northern wing. By 1856, violence in Bleeding Kansas made a mockery of popular sovereignty and thwarted Douglas’s presidential ambitions, while Davis anticipated returning to his role as a proslavery sentinel in the Senate.

The Army-Navy Contest for Control of Land-Based Antisubmarine Aviation and the Military Unification Debate, 1942–1948

In this chapter, George H. Monahan discusses the success of the German U-boat offensive in the Western Atlantic after the U.S. entry into World War II, which led the War Department leadership to believe that the U.S. Navy was not employing adequate antisubmarine tactics. In the application of airpower to combat the submarine threat, the War Department and Army leadership believed that aggressive "hunter-killer" tactics would prove more effective than the Navy's preferred defensive tactic of conducting aerial patrols in the vicinity of convoys. Navy leaders, meanwhile, contended that its defensive tactics were the best method of protecting shipping. A bitter interservice conflict ensued as the War Department sought to initiate an Army Air Forces antisubmarine offensive over the Bay of Biscay. Claiming jurisdiction over all air operations at sea, the Navy leadership firmly opposed the War Department's initiative and insisted that Army Air Forces antisubmarine units operate according to the Navy's defensive doctrine. Secretary of War Henry Stimson's frustration over Admiral Ernest King's refusal to accede to the War Department antisubmarine initiative led the former to support a post-war reorganization of the military command apparatus, thereby ensuring Navy subordination to civilian leadership under an overarching Secretary of Defense.

Our Home and Country

Emancipation obliged the nation to absorb into its public culture the persons freed from bondage. This imperative had ethical dimensions as well as economic, legal, and political ones. Black Americans presumed that they would participate actively in the process, but white Americans often viewed them as passive observers or objects of other people's actions. Elected officials and assorted commentators on public affairs posed the question: "what is to be done with the Negroes?" Following promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Secretary of War established the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission to advise the government regarding appropriate national action. Among other things, the commissioners recommended the formation of a bureau of emancipation to help usher the freed people and their former owners into the post-slavery era, and Congress concurred, creating the Freedmen's Bureau in the closing weeks of the war. When ratified in December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery and empowered Congress to define what freedom entailed.

Building the Problem-Solving State: Bridging Networks and Experiments in the US Advisory Specialist Group in World War II

Hidden within the office of the Secretary of War during World War II was a little-known agency called the Advisory Specialist Group (ASG). Strategically located between the laboratory, the factory, the battlefield, and civilian bureaucracy, the ASG solved the complex problem of reconciling new technologies and new military operations. In doing so, it combined incongruous domains of activity, contributed to Allied victory, and opened a channel to the problem-solving state. It is easy to overlook or misunderstand the ASG, because it was born in processes, addressed problems, and took a form unfamiliar to historical institutionalists. Drawing on Padgett and Powell’s networked theory of organizational genesis and pragmatist theories of experimentalist governance, this article explains the ASG’s emergence, networked form, and experimentalist procedures. A founding moment for the problem-solving state, this case provides empirical and theoretical guidance to study its historical and ongoing evolution.