The Veto Galop

Bennett, Donaldson & Elmes Lithography Company, 1865 - 1872 · c. 1866

President Andrew Johnson’s veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866 inspired this lithograph and the musical score it covers. The legislation aimed to assist emancipated slaves and poor white Southerners with food, housing, education, healthcare, and employment. So-called Radical Republicans in Congress considered the bill crucial for advancing the full citizenship of the South’s formerly enslaved population. Johnson, however, deemed it unconstitutional for vesting too much power in the federal government.