JOHNSON, RECONSTRUCTION POLICY AND IMPEACHMENT

This research paper explores the degree to which President Andrew Johnson's conduct shaped Congressional reconstruction policy toward the defeated Southern states and whether that conduct made him deserving of impeachment. Both by his substantive approach to reconstruction and the defiant manner in which he challenged the prerogatives of Congress, Johnson frustrated and impeded the will of the majority in Congress and embittered a hard core of Radical Republicans. The impeachment of Johnson reflected not only a partisan political clash, but also fundamentally different approaches by Johnson and his Congressional opponents to federal-state relations in the North-South context and to the enfranchisement of newly freed slaves. Johnson's conviction in the Senate was defeated by one vote which suggests that grounds for impeachment existed, but his opponents failed to make a convincing case that he had committed the necessary offenses required under the Constitution for conviction. The long-term interests of the nation were better served by his acquittal.

The primary reason for the attempt of the Radical Republicans in Congress to impeach Johnson in the spring of 1868 was to impose their version of reconstruction policy on the South over which they and the President were increasingly at loggerheads for most of his term in office (1865-1868).

President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican majori

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Category: History - J