Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth President of the United States, 1865 – 1869, impeached because he refused to let Congress usurp presidential rights, missed conviction and removal from office by one senatorial vote.  Johnson’s fortitude in the face of overwhelming congressional pressure strengthened the presidency and helped preserve the separation of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government. 

Before his Presidency, as a Tennessee Democrat, he was the only southern senator who refused to follow his seceding state.  As President, due to Lincoln’s death, he made enemies of Republican Radicals because he believed, as President Lincoln, that the South should be treated more as a wayward friend than a conquered enemy.  Johnson was the only President to be elected to the Senate after the Presidency.

In President Johnson’s last annual address to Congress in 1868, he bitterly denounced the legislator’s repeated violations of the Constitution stating, “Our own history, although embracing a period of less than a century, affords abundant proof that most, if not all, of our domestic troubles are directly traceable to violations of the organic law and excessive legislation.”

Perhaps the most valuable achievement of the Johnson administration was the acquisition of Alaska.  This vast northern territory proved to be worth far more than its purchase price of $7.2 million.

When the Civil War ended, chaotic conditions prevailed in the South and in the nation.  Both north and south were torn by internal dissension. Government within the Southern states had collapsed.  Political ties between Southern states and federal government had been sundered.  And economic disaster threatened. 

The only large-scale effort to overthrow our government by force had been put down, and the great problems of the late 1860’s were what the government should do with those who had sought to destroy the nation and how it could best restore loyalty, prosperity and a national well-being.

President Lincoln had determined upon principles and put a program into operation even before the war ended.  He believed that fair treatment of a defeated foe would best recreate a united and happy nation.  Lincoln was willing to forgive past disloyalty in return for future loyalty.   

Andrew Johnson as President, tried to carry out those plans.  In pursuit of what he knew President Lincoln would have done, Johnson offered amnesty with restoration of full civil rights and property to most of the disloyal groups of the South.

In Congress, were Radical Republicans with ideas and views far different from Johnson, determined to control the South for political/power gain.  They insisted that the Southern states were traitors and must be punished with the crime if treason. 

During the war the Northern Congress, with the absence of the Southerners had won many things such as, high tariffs, a national banking system, large grants from public domain, and freedom of government regulation of business.  The Northern government feared that all this would be a risk of being lost if the Southerners were re-admitted into Congress.

President Johnson and the majority of Northern and Western voters sided with the South, but through propaganda of Radical Republicans were convinced that Democrats, moderate Republicans, and even President Johnson were traitors. Thus these Radical Republicans won control of Congress and impeached President Johnson.

The impeachment failed by one vote.  Had Johnson been removed from office, the President would have become a tool for Congress and the Supreme Court would have been stripped of its powers.  The objective of the Radical Republicans was to make Congress omnipotent with a strong central government, eliminating all checks and balances of government.

The tide turned beginning in 1869, when Southern conservatives gained control over the next decade.  The South’s problems were far from being over and the unity of the nation had not yet come, but the the recovery process of being one nation under God had begun. 

History tells us that it would take nearly a century before the Constitution of the United States of America would be enforced, by another President named, Johnson, that all men are created equal and have equal rights by the law.

References taken from the writings of Historian, Howard K Beale, The American Story,  Professor University of Wisconsin.