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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r of 1865 while Congress was out of session, Johnson offered the southern states re-admission on terms which followed closely those intended by Lincoln. On the enfranchisement of blacks, he asked only that the new southern governments promise to treat the former slaves fairly. His terms were unacceptable to the Radical Republicans who wanted stricter and retrospective loyalty oaths and full enfranchisement of all adult male blacks. Southerner Carter said the advocates of a hard peace represented a congerie of interests --ideological zealots, practical politicians who saw the granting of negro voting rights as a way to ensure Republican dominance in the South, "economic realists who intended for the industrial North to stay on top, and a horde of graceless scavengers to whom the fallen South irresistibly beckoned." According to Trefousse, Johnson made a tactical error by moving forward so quickly before he had secured his political base and thereby antagonized many northern moderates. Conditions in the South in the spring and summer of 1865 rapidly deteriorated. Four million freed slaves were milling about, many aimlessly, amidst chaos and devastation. Although very little violence was committed by blacks against w
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Radical Republicans, Freedmen's Bureau, South Riddleberger, Congress Sefton, South July, Kennedy Johnson, Johnson Congressional, Southerner Carter, Perret Johnson, Impeachment Johnson, radical republicans, reconstruction policy, majority congress, civil war, southern governments, freed slaves, summer 1865, york random house, civil rights, random house, freedmen's bureau, radical republicans congress,
Approximate Word count = 2313
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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