"This composition, and the illustration, celebrate President Andrew Johnson's vetoes of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and subsequently the Civil Rights Bill, of 1866. His defeat of these two key Reconstruction bills, contribured to his impeachment trial and acquittal two years later. "Forney" was John Wien Forney, a newspaper editor who famously opposed Johnson's policies. Johnson publically dismissed Forney, stating he would not waste his ammunition on "dead ducks." Of the other "dead ducks" pictured on the cover, all except celebrated abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, were members of Congress, who would later be key players in Johnson's impeachment."
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