Senator Lyman Trumbull's bill to extend the life and authority of the Freedmen's Bureau had passed the Senate by a vote of 37 to 10, and the House by 136-33, along strict party lines, two weeks before. The Bureau had been founded in March 1865 to aid freed slaves in making the transition to freedom. President Johnson had been expected to sign the bill but instead sent a lengthy veto message calling the bill unconstitutional. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
William A. Barnes, History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1868), 164.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Lawmaking/Litigating
