Andrew Johnson Impeachment Analysis

Reconstruction is during which the United States began to rebuild the Southern society after they lost to the civil war. It lasted from 1865 to 1877, and it was initiated by President Lincoln until his assassination in 1865. President Johnson continued Lincoln’s agenda to continue the Reconstruction. Throughout the process of Reconstruction, one of its main purpose was to guarantees for equal rights for all people, especially for the African Americans. Even though slavery was abolished after the civil war, many Southerners were still against the idea of equal rights for all black people, such as the Republicans.

Grant was reelected for a second term but, then announced that he would not seek a third term. There were some so-called flaws in his presidency. He angered southern whites by passing the 15th amendment, a depression came from Europe, and some people thought that he picked bad people to turn to for

In this week discussion, I will talk about the conflict between one of our President and the radical republicans. I will do this with the help of the book. After the tragic death of our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln, we got a new president. A politician named Andrew Johnson was the one to become our president after what happened to Lincoln. Andrew Jackson was a man that even though he was a Democrat, was loyal to the union after Tennessee decided to secede from the union.

A few days after the civil War ended, President Lincoln was assassinated and never had the chance to implement his Reconstruction plan.   The Reconstruction Era occurred in the period of 1865 to 1877 under the reign of President Andrew Johnson who was the predecessor of President Lincoln.  Congress was not scheduled to convene until December 1865, which gave Johnson eight months to pursue his own Reconstruction policies. Under his Reconstruction policies, the former Confederate states were required to join back into the Union and heal the wounds of the nation.

I can understand why Andrew Johnson ranks as one of the worst presidents of all time. In reality he was a strategical political move by Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln chose him for his running mate to “quiet dissent by running with a non-northerner and a non-Republican” (Schultz, 2013). Had Lincoln known that this decision would cause any advancement he had made prior to his death in the Reconstruction process to take gigantic leaps backwards he may have made a different one. Johnson saw his office as a way to finally receive the respect of the southern aristocracy.

Sandrew Johnson tried to stop the 14th Amendment from being passed by Congress. This amendment granted the blacks citizenship. Andrew Johnson tried to convince the Southern states not to ratify the amendment but they did anyway. Andrew Johnson was the only Southern Senator

Because the republicans had a majority they would override his every veto with a two-thirds vote. The Congress began to have enough of his Democratic ways and the House of Representatives impeached him on February 24th of 1868. They believed he had been removing government office-holders without the approval of the Senate, which was against the Tenure of Office Act. This escalated when Johnson decided to remove the Secretary of War and prominent Radical Republican,

Following his assassination in April 1865, Andrew Johnson became president and began the period of Presidential Reconstruction and the rebuilding of society in the South which also influenced them to make the Black Codes. After the resistance of the Black Codes the South began to create Jim Crow laws which targeted a loophole in the 13th Amendment which allowed them to sentence black people to slavery in prison for doing normal things such as staying in a place too long.(Loitering) Due to the many failures of this Reconstruction, it was mostly considered a failure, however the few successful things created by it were a step in the right direction and eventually led to a successful version of Reconstruction. Work Cited Foner, Eric. "Reconstruction".

President Abraham Lincoln was poised to have a solution, but he was assassinated before he could ever deliver. His Vice President, Andrew Johnson, became the new president and took a knife to the delicate procedure of southern reintegration. While he banned former Confederate officers and government officials from ever taking part in U.S. government, he turned around and pardoned them back into the country almost instantly. Congress was rightfully angry with the President’s betrayal of the Reconstruction Movement, crippling it before it even had a chance to begin. For the next few years, Congress was fighting against their own president to get reconstructive efforts passed, fighting veto after veto.

The rest of Congress started not to later in his tenure and he became the first president to have a veto overridden on him with ⅔ vote from Congress. Also there were two really bloody riots in the south that involved slavery, putting a bad stamp on Johnson. Congress put several laws on the President that would get him impeached if he violated any of them and when he violated the Tenure of Office Act he became the first president to get impeached. Because he had to work with radical Republicans in Congress Johnson never got his way when it came to trying to help the country improve from the Civil

The Constitution fastens the responsibility of trying impeachments upon the Senate. Yet some Senators have doubted whether they have the requisite competence to try impeachments . Rule XI was adopted as a response to poor attendance and preparation by Senators in impeachment trials in the early twentieth century. Yet even in the 1980s, some Senators claimed that they had not bothered to prepare before voting, and such proceedings diverted their energies away from legislative business of greater concern to their constituents. Others argued the proceedings restored their confidence in the Senate 's institutional competence to conduct them.

With Lincoln being assassinated, the next man up was Vice President Andrew Johnson. He was a democrat and disagreed with essentially everything Congress decided. Whenever Congress would attempt to legislate Reconstruction, Johnson would veto the regulation. Radical Republicans, who dominated Congress, hated him even before he was President. It is believed that Lincoln could have controlled the Radical Republicans in Congress, but he obviously never got the chance.

At the end of the Civil War between the North and South arose the Reconstruction era. This was a time period of the late 1800s where the united states, specifically the North started to attempt the rebuilding of the South. Abolitionists were eager to see the end of slavery and Lincoln attempted to end slavery. President Lincoln attempted to put in place the Emancipation Proclamation which stated all slaves in confederate states would be free. This was to weaken the southern states; except, the confederate states did not obey.

The American Civil War that was started due to the controversy over slavery in 1861, was won by The Union supported by President Lincoln against the Confederate states. President Lincoln’s original goal during the civil war was to reunify the nation as quickly as possible and help both sides come to an understanding. After the Civil War ended in 1865, the newly formed United States’ reconstruction era began. The Reconstruction era was put into effect by the Congress in 1866 and lasted until 1877. The Union’s victory in the Civil War had given African Americans a new sense of hope, devastated the southern economy, and eased the history of disunity in American political life.

Reconstruction era, which was followed by post-civil war, was meant to unite the states back together, reconstruct properties, and most importantly, abolish slavery in the South. Although the factors such as amendments legally freed former slaves, yet WRITE THESIS After the end of civil war in 1865, Reconstruction era, which was controlled by President Abraham Lincoln, appeared to quickly coalesce the Northern and Southern states. reconstruction amendments, which were approved between 1865 and 1870, played a huge role on giving legal rights to blacks and former slaves. 13th amendment constitutionally abolished slavery in 1865 and followed up by that, 14th and 15th amendment admitted equal citizenship, protection, and rights of suffrage despite the one’s race or skin color. Former slaves were no longer belongings of their owners.