page_1064 < previous page page_1064 next page > Page 1064 Andrew Johnson in 1868. Seeking to limit his power to interfere with Radical (or even moderate) Reconstruction in the South, Congress passed it on March 2, 1867. The bill prohibited the president from removing officials appointed by and with the advice of the Senate without senatorial approval. In theory, the Tenure Act was to protect low-level patronage appointees. In practice, it was to shield members of Johnson's cabinet who disagreed with him over Reconstruction  especially Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who was closely tied to the Radical Republicans. When Johnson tried to oust Stanton in favor of General of the Army Ulysses S. Grant, the Senate disapproved of the president's actions, and when Johnson sought to replace Stanton with Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas, the House impeached him. Nine of the eleven impeachment articles cited Johnson's removal of Stanton and appointment of Thomas. For the impeachers, the problem was the Tenure Act's murkiness: whether Stanton was protected was unclear. He had been a Lincoln appointee who simply remained in office, without being formally appointed, after Johnson became president. In any event, the effort to remove Johnson from office failed by one vote. In 1878 the act initially prevented President Rutherford B. Hayes, as part of his effort at civil service reform, from removing Chester A. Arthur and Alonzo B. Cornell from their political patronage jobs at the New York custom-house. Eventually, with Democratic help in Congress, he circumvented the act and secured confirmation of his own appointments. The Tenure of Office Act was repealed in 1887 after President Grover Cleveland challenged its constitutionality: the president, he said, had the sole power to remove appointees from office. The independence of the executive branch was thereby strengthened. See also Presidency. Territorial Expansion See Expansion, Continental and Overseas. Tet Offensive The Tet offensive, which began January 30, 1968, was a climactic battle of the Vietnam War, a coordinated surprise attack by the Viet Cong (the rebel forces, sponsored by North Vietnam) on hundreds of cities, towns, and hamlets throughout South Vietnam. By late 1967, forces of the U.S. Army and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) had established themselves in the urban centers of South Vietnam and were reporting growing success in the countryside. Late in the year, however, a series of scattered diversionary attacks by the Viet Cong gradually drew more and more American and ARVN soldiers away from the cities. Then in late January 1968, on the first day of Tet (the lunar new year holiday previously observed with a truce), Viet Cong units attacked five of South Vietnam's six cities, most of its provincial and district capitals, and fifty hamlets. In Saigon they assaulted the airport, the presidential palace, and the ARVN headquarters and broke into the U.S. embassy compound. The U.S. and ARVN forces, though caught off guard, responded quickly and within a week had regained most of the ground the attackers had won. Only in Hue did the Viet Cong hold on; by the time that city was retaken on February 24, thousands had died, 100,000 Vietnamese had lost their homes, and there was little left of the ancient capital but rubble. American spokespersons initially described the Tet offensive as a failure for the Viet Cong, pointing to their rapid retreat and terrible casualties (estimated as high as forty thousand). But when Gen. William C. Westmoreland reported that completing the Viet Cong's defeat would require 200,000 more American soldiers (necessitating a call-up of the reserves, a step President Lyndon B. Johnson had long avoided), even steadfast supporters of the war began to feel that changes, at least in strategy, were essential. To a growing segment of the American public, as well as a number of senior policymakers, Tet demonstrated the unimpaired resilience of the Viet Cong and the fragility of South Vietnam's control over its own territory. See also Vietnam War.  < previous page page_1064 next page >