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ANDREW JOHNSON, RECONSTRUCTION & IMPEACHMENT.
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Role of President (1865-1868) in Reconstruction, struggle with Congress over federal-state & North-South relations, enfranchisement of ex-slaves, causes for his impeachment.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Role of President (1865-1868) in Reconstruction, struggle with Congress over federal-state & North-South relations, enfranchisement of ex-slaves, causes for his impeachment.
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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
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Emancipation and Reconstruction 1862-1879. New York: Random House, 1997.Riddleberger, Patrick W. On the enfranchisement of blacks, he asked onlythat the new southern governments promise to treat the former slavesfairly. He was liberal in grantingclemency, except to ringleaders of the rebellion. The Ugly Scar. Grant Soldier & President. Congress then overrode many of his vetoes.In February 1868, the House of Representatives voted Articles ofImpeachment against Johnson by a 126 to 47 vote. He opposed black suffrage in the District ofColumbia, vetoed the Civil Rights Act which would have given the Army andthe Freedmen's Bureau legal authority to enforce the 13th Amendment (whichabolished slavery) and to adjudicate the rights of blacks in its tribunals,organized opposition to the ratification of the 14th Amendment whichensured that blacks had all the rights and privileges and immunities ofother citizens and gave the federal government further enforcement powersand vetoed a further extension of the Freedmen's Act. Ulysses S. . W.Norton, 1989), 236, 243 and 331.Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 119.Carter, 51.Patrick W. Boston: Little, Brown, 198 .Trefousse, Hans L. Heannounced that no Southerner with more than $2 , in assets could assumestate office. . Sefton says that "ever sinceearly 1862 indications of leniency or softness on Lincoln's part hadaroused the ire of Republicans who insisted on Congressional supremacy."[i]The long Civil War and its enormous casualties, roughly 35 percent and 6 percent, respectively, of Northern and Southern combatants, had furtherinflamed the sectional passions which had led to the outbreak of war.[ii] Adetermined band of Radical Republicans in the Congress, including suchfigures as Senators Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner and Benjamin Wade andRepresentatives Benjamin Butler and Henry Davis, were bent upon imposing aharsh peace on the South and claiming the fruits of victory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.Perman, Michael. would be worse than the military despotism under whichthey are now suffering" and that he was opposed "to the Africanization ofhalf of our country."[xiii] Trefousse quoted Johnson: "he had never changedhis conviction of the inferiority of blacks, nor would he ever do so."[xiv]It now appears that much of the legislation passed by Congress in 1866-1867was triggered by local ordinances called the Black Codes passed by all thestates of the Old Confederacy which were intended to intimidate blacks fromexercising their new found rights and to keep them in their place. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969.Foner, Eric. In 1867, Congress passed civil rights bills and constitutionalamendments which Johnson vetoed. Riddleberger, 1866: The Critical Year Revisited(Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press, 1978), 1 6.Foote, 465 and 1 65.John F. W. . Johnson then began to tilt perceptibly toward accommodation with thenewly constituted southern governments. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom The Civil War Era (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1988), 7 1.McPherson, 712.McPherson, 843.Hodding Carter, The Ugly Scar (Garden City, NY: Doubleday,1969), 26.Hans L. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.Foote, Shelby. It was easily defended on free speechgrounds. However,according to Perret, Johnson said "the subjugation of the states to Negrodomination . . 1866: The Critical Year Revisited. Grant Soldier & President (New York:Random House, 1997), 369.Trefousse, 225.Michael Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction 1862-1879(Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1987), 6 .Sefton, 1 5.Foote, 378.Sefton, ix.Sefton, 129.Kennedy, 141.----------------------- 11 Andrew Johnson A Biography. President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican majority in Congresswere on a collision course regarding the terms of peace even before Johnsontook office after Lincoln's assassination. As aDemocrat from a border state, he was nominated for the Vice Presidency onthe Republican (National Union) ticket in 1864 to broaden its nationalappeal. After assuming power, Johnson at first mollified the RadicalRepublicans by his tough stance on the treatment of Confederate leaders. However, Johnson was weakened at the outset by themachinations of Edwin M. According to Foner, "insome areas, violence against blacks reached staggering proportions in theimmediate aftermath of the war."[viii] Carter said that for the whiteSouthern majority "the fear of bloodshed and economic disaster should theNegroes not be brought under control in the summer of 19865 was veryreal."[ix] The Union Army, which had imposed martial law, and theFreedmen's Bureau, which had been given responsibility for the welfare ofthe former slaves, struggled to maintain order and to prepare blacks toenter political life. The closeness of the final vote reflected more the heavy pressuresapplied by the Radical Republicans to wavering moderate senators than themerits of their case. Riddleberger suggests that there was a good deal of room in whichJohnson could have maneuvered because although "there was a vast gulfbetween Johnson and the radicals on . His terms were unacceptable to the Radical Republicans who wantedstricter and retrospective loyalty oaths and full enfranchisement of alladult male blacks. After the Republicans won a two thirds majority in both houses in the1866 elections, the confrontation between the President and Congresssharpened. He had been the military governor of Tennessee. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson A Biography (New York: W. Such an approachwas anathema to the Radical Republicans, who McPherson said "envisagedreconstruction as a revolution," a total removal from power of the oldoligarchy and the full enfranchisement of freed slaves in the South.[iii]Lincoln favored before his death the enfranchisement of slaves who wereliterate and who had fought for the Union, but had not gone further than tosuggest to the governor-elect of Louisiana on March 13, 1864 that thosegroups be granted suffrage. Stanton, the holdover Secretary of war, who spreadthe false rumor that Johnson intended to fashion a majority in Congressmade up of Southerners and Copperheads, thus reviving Republican fears ofthe pre-war domination of the Congress by the South. JOHNSON, RECONSTRUCTION POLICY AND IMPEACHMENT This research paper explores the degree to which President AndrewJohnson's conduct shaped Congressional reconstruction policy toward thedefeated Southern states and whether that conduct made him deserving ofimpeachment. New York: Random House, 1974.Kennedy, John F. In 1866, Johnson threw a monkey wrench in CongressionalReconstruction Act plans. Profiles in Courage. Impasse over Reconstruction Policy The primary reason for the attempt of the Radical Republicans inCongress to impeach Johnson in the spring of 1868 was to impose theirversion of reconstruction policy on the South over which they and thePresident were increasingly at loggerheads for most of his term in office(1865-1868). upon insufficient proofs andfrom partisan considerations, the office of President would be degraded,cease to be a coordinate branch of the government, and ever aftersubordinated to the legislators."[xx] Conclusion Johnson's policy toward reconstruction and his high handed approachto Congress in the controversy over reconstruction led to his impeachment.Whether he had been impeached or not, reconstruction would probably haveproceeded as it did, but his acquittal delayed the inevitable. Sefton saw the impeachmentcrisis as a struggle between different approaches to nation-staterelations, "from start to finish . a conflict over power."[xvi] All historians tend to agree that Johnson had a confrontational,reckless and often tactless style that often did not advance his interests.He projected the wrong image by making an incoherent speech at Lincoln'ssecond inaugural caused by his having imbibed too much alcohol.[xvii]Sefton said that he was "rigid, intractable, sometimes crude, oftenwrongheaded, and often courageous."[xviii] In late 1865, he accused theRadical Republicans of "being opposed to the fundamental principles of thisgovernment" and "laboring to destroy them."[xix] Was Impeachment Deserved? The other charge related tointemperate remarks made by Johnson. Both by his substantive approach to reconstruction and thedefiant manner in which he challenged the prerogatives of Congress, Johnsonfrustrated and impeded the will of the majority in Congress and embittereda hard core of Radical Republicans. The impeachment of Johnson reflectednot only a partisan political clash, but also fundamentally differentapproaches by Johnson and his Congressional opponents to federal-staterelations in the North-South context and to the enfranchisement of newlyfreed slaves. As Senator Edmund Ross, who cast the deciding vote for acquittalsaid, "if the president must step down . That actrequired the President to obtain Senate concurrence before he removed anySenate-confirmed appointees, such as Stanton. Johnson's removal would have set an unfortunate constitutionalprecedent. In July 1864 Congress enacted the Wade-Davis bill, which Lincolnpocket-vetoed, which abolished slavery in all states, specified that 5 percent not 1 percent of the voters in each state requesting readmissionto the Union would have to swear an oath of allegiance, required that nostate officials could be elected except after a constitutional conventionhad been held and restricted the right to vote for candidates to suchconventions to those who would take an 'iron-clad' oath that they had nevervoluntarily supported secession. Johnson's conduct raised fundamentalquestions about the respective powers and prerogatives of the executive andCongress in the area of reconstruction policy. . Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1987.Perret, Geoffrey. Johnson favored the abolition of slavery andhad no sympathy for the former aristocrats who owned most slaves. Congress was also stirred to act by two anti-black riots, in Memphisand New Orleans in the spring and summer of 1866. Legally, the Radical Republicans argued that by seceding from theUnion, the southern states had dissolved the Union and that, therefore,Congress alone had the power to determine the terms of their readmission.Lincoln argued that secession was illegal and therefore the southern statesremained in the Union.After Lincoln's pocket veto, Wade and Davis said Lincoln "must confinehimself to his Executive duties, to obey and execute, not make the laws . Andrew Johnson and the Uses of Constitutional Power. Not all Republicans were in favor of completeenfranchisement of freed blacks (who were not allowed to vote in mostNorthern states), but the Radical Republicans and their abolitionist alliesdemanded immediate and full political equality for all black freedmen inthe South. Although very little violence was committedby blacks against whites, the reverse was not true. By the summer of 1865Radical Republicans such as Stevens and Wade began to express outrage atwhat they regarded as Johnson's flaccidity or worse in dealing with theSouth. . . Sefton, Andrew Johnson and the Uses of ConstitutionalPower (Boston: Little, Brown, 198 ), 133.Shelby Foote, The Civil War A Narrative Red River to Appomattox(New York: Random House, 1974), 1 4 .James L. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877. Negro suffrage," "men close tothe president who still sought party harmony and the continuing Republicanascendancy advised their radical friends not to be precipitate in pushingNegro suffrage."[x] Johnson, however, repeatedly threw the gauntlet downto the Congress, which had the effect of pushing moderate Republicans intothe lap of the Radicals. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage (New York: Harper & Row,1955), 126.Geoffrey Perret, Ulysses S. New York: Harper & Brothers. Perman says that Johnsonwas "an embittered and obstinate politician determined to obstruct the willof Congress in its struggle to reconstruct the South."[xv] Johnson was also a strict constructionist and a firm believer instate's rights, whereas his opponents wished to centralize federal powerand to control its exercise through Congress. . (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press, 1978.Sefton, James E. The Civil War A Narrative Red River to Appomattox. Johnson's lawyers argued thatlaw was unconstitutional and pointed out persuasively that it did not applyto Stanton who had been appointed by Lincoln. 121-155.McPherson, James L. [and] leave political reorganization to Congress."[iv] McPherson saysthat just before Lincoln's death, after his inaugural address in which hesignalled a desire to pursue a moderate policy aimed at reconciliation withthe South by using the phrase "with malice toward none, charity towardall," "prospects seemed good for a compromise" between Lincoln andCongress.[v] An orphan son of an illiterate tailor, Johnson had opted for theUnion in 186 . Historians sympathetic to the Southern cause have tended to portrayJohnson as a beleaguered president, a centrist and a moderate who wasprevented from extending the olive branch to a defeated, prostrate South bya vengeful group of Republican extremists, whom Foote called "Jacobins" and"vindictives."[xi] Kennedy said Johnson was a "courageous if untactfulTennessean" who attempted to block those "who sought to administer thedowntrodden Southern states as conquered states who had forfeited theirrights under the Constitution."[xii] This portrait of Johnson and the issues involved in Reconstructionpolicy is somewhat inaccurate. Johnson's conviction in the Senate was defeated by one votewhich suggests that grounds for impeachment existed, but his opponentsfailed to make a convincing case that he had committed the necessaryoffenses required under the Constitution for conviction. The long-terminterests of the nation were better served by his acquittal. Congresshad little choice but to refuse to readmit a number of southern statesafter they rejected the 14th Amendment as Johnson had counselled them todo. Norton, 1989.-----------------------James E. .. Southerner Carter said the advocates of a hard peacerepresented a congerie of interests --ideological zealots, practicalpoliticians who saw the granting of negro voting rights as a way to ensureRepublican dominance in the South, "economic realists who intended for theindustrial North to stay on top, and a horde of graceless scavengers towhom the fallen South irresistibly beckoned."[vi] According to Trefousse,Johnson made a tactical error by moving forward so quickly before he hadsecured his political base and thereby antagonized many northernmoderates.[vii] Conditions in the South in the spring and summer of 1865 rapidlydeteriorated. In the summer of 1865 while Congress was out of session, Johnsonoffered the southern states re-admission on terms which followed closelythose intended by Lincoln. AlthoughLincoln and the Radical Republicans agreed that former Confederate officeholders and senior army officers should be ineligible for office in postwarSouthern state governments, Lincoln, from 1863 onwards, had used his warpowers to permit new governments to be formed in Louisiana and Arkansas inwhich votes equal to at least ten percent of the number of voters who hadvoted in 186 declared the secession illegal and their electedrepresentatives swore an oath of allegiance to the Union. Endnotes BibliographyCarter, Hodding. New York: W. However, all but one of thecharges against Johnson related to his attempted dismissal of Stanton,which had allegedly violated the Tenure of Office Act of 1867. Battle Cry of Freedom The Civil War Era. Four million freed slaves were milling about, many aimlessly,amidst chaos and devastation. In the precedent-setting impeachment trial of Supreme Court JusticeSamuel Chase in 18 5 in which Chase was acquitted, the Senate narrowconstrued what constituted "high crimes and misdemeanors" for impeachmentpurposes under the Constitution. His conductdrew into question the propriety of his actions as president, but hardlywarranted conviction.
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