Andrew Johnson and his impeachment in March of 1867
It is as Yogi Berra was alleged to have said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” While there was immense disparity between their respective families’ financial status, there are similarities in the lives of Andrew Johnson, the 17th president, and President Donald J. Trump. Johnson was born in a log cabin in Raleigh, N.C. in 1808. With little or no schooling, he taught himself to read and write. When his father died when he was three, leaving the family in poverty, his mother worked as a seamstress to make ends meet. She and her second husband apprenticed Johnson and his brother to a local tailor. As a young boy, Johnson felt the sting of prejudice from the higher classes and developed a white supremacist attitude to compensate, a perception he held all his life.
In a short time, Johnson established a successful tailoring business. His tailor shop became a haven for political discussion, and he took a strong interest in politics. He gained the support of the local working class and became their advocate. He was elected alderman in 1829, and mayor of Greeneville five years later. In 1831, the Nat Turner Rebellion occurred – Turner was a slave who led the only effective, sustained slave rebellion (August 1831) in U.S. history. Spreading terror throughout the white South, his action set off a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of slaves and stiffened proslavery, anti-abolitionist conviction. Tennessee adopted a new state constitution with a provision to disenfranchise free Black people. Johnson supported the provision and campaigned around the state for its ratification, giving him wide exposure. In 1835, an anti-abolitionist and a promoter of states’ right while remaining an unqualified supporter of the Union, he won a seat in the Tennessee state legislature.
In 1843, Johnson became the first Democrat from Tennessee to be elected to the United States Congress. Declaring that slavery was essential to the preservation of the Union, he joined a new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. During his fifth and final term in Congress, Johnson saw that his chances for a sixth term were slim. In 1853, he was elected governor of Tennessee. During his two terms, he tried to promote his fiscally conservative, populist views, but found the experience frustrating, as the governor’s constitutional powers were limited to giving suggestions to the legislature, with no veto power. He made the most of his position, however, by giving appointments to political allies.
In 1856, he decided to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Although many Democratic leaders disapproved of his populist views, the Tennessee legislature elected him (this was before the 17th amendment), and the reaction by the opposition press was immediate and scathing. The Richmond Whig referred to Johnson as «the vilest radical and most unscrupulous demagogue in the Union.” During his Senate terms, Johnson kept an independent course, opposing abolition while making clear his devotion to the Union. To broaden the base of the Republican Party to include loyal “war” Democrats, Johnson was selected to run for vice president on Lincoln’s reelection ticket of 1864.
When President Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson was also a target on that fateful night, but his would-be assassin failed to show up. Three hours after Lincoln died, Johnson was sworn in as the 17th president of the United States. In a strange irony often found in American history, the racist Southerner Johnson was charged with the reconstruction of the South and the extension of civil rights and suffrage to former slaves. It quickly became apparent that Johnson would not force Southern states to grant full equality to black people, thus setting up a confrontation with congressional Republicans who sought black suffrage as essential to furthering their political influence in the South.
Congress in recess the first eight months of Johnson’s term, he took full advantage of the legislators’ absence by pushing through his own Reconstruction policies. He quickly issued pardons and amnesty to any rebels who would take an oath of allegiance to the federal government. This resulted in many former Confederates being elected to office in Southern states and instituting “Black codes,” which essentially maintained slavery. Later, he expanded his pardons to include Confederate officials of the highest rank including Alexander Stephens, who had served as vice president under Jefferson Davis.
When Congress reconvened, members expressed outrage at Johnson’s clemency orders and his lack of protecting Black civil rights. In 1866, Congress passed the Freedmen’s Bureau bill, providing essentials for former slaves and protection of their rights in court. They then passed the Civil Rights Act, defining “all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed” as citizens. Johnson vetoed these two measures because he felt that Southern states were not represented in Congress and believed that setting suffrage policy was the responsibility of the states, not the federal government. Both vetoes were overridden by Congress.
That June, Congress approved the 14th Amendment (the equal protection amendment), and it was accepted less than one month later. In a novel interpretation of the “advise and consent” clause of the Constitution, Congress also passed the Tenure of Office Act, which denied the president the power to remove federal officials without the Senate’s approval. In 1867, Congress established military Reconstruction in the former Confederate states with Generals like Phil Sheridan to enforce political and social rights for Southern Black people.
President Johnson retaliated by appealing directly to the people in a series of speeches during the 1866 congressional elections. On more than one occasion, it appeared that Johnson had had too much to drink and antagonized more than convinced his audiences. The campaign was a complete disaster, and Johnson faced a further loss of support from the public. The radical Republicans won an overwhelming victory in the midterm elections.
Johnson felt his position as president crumbling beneath him. He had lost the support of Congress and the public and felt that his only alternative was to challenge the Tenure of Office Act as a direct violation of his constitutional authority. In August 1867, he fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, with whom he’d had several confrontations. In February 1868, the House voted to impeach President Johnson for violation of the Tenure of Office Act, and for bringing disgrace and ridicule on Congress. He was tried in the Senate in March and acquitted by one vote. He remained president, but both his credibility and effectiveness were destroyed.
Johnson finished his term maintaining his opposition to Reconstruction and continuing his self-imposed role as protector of the white race. In 1874, he won election to the U.S. Senate for a second time. In his first speech after returning to the Senate, he spoke out in opposition to President Ulysses S. Grant’s military intervention in Louisiana. During the Congressional recess the following summer, Johnson died from a stroke near Elizabethton, Tenn., in 1875.
Some historians view Johnson as the worst person who could have been president at the end of the Civil War. His racist views prevented him from making a satisfying peace. His lack of political skills alienated him from Congress, and his arrogance lost him the public’s support. As president, he contributed to the strife that followed the Civil War and lost the opportunity to champion the rights of the disadvantaged.
Similar views about Trump are held by current historians. However, the powerful and influential Trump constituency will continue to maintain that he was one of our greatest leaders. In the writer’s opinion, with his extraordinary and persuasive communication skills, Trump could have “owned” both sides of the aisle. He could have had the whole country behind him, but he chose instead to focus on the ultra conservative and those who feel neglected and threatened by minorities in our rapidly demographocally changing society.
Arnold Silverman
Laguna Niguel
