Impeachment Of President Andrew Johnson example essay topic

Congress's Presidential Conquest Jessica J. ScholtzUS to 1877 Mr. Mark Hanson 28 April 2005 "I am sworn to uphold the Constitution as Andy Johnson understands it and interprets it". This is a simple quote from a simple man. 17th President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, and Congress had a sharp conflict about the way the South should be "re-constructed" in the wake of the just finished Civil War. The interpretation of this period of US history has been that Johnson was railroaded by radical Republicans and did not deserve to be impeached.

Johnson wanted reconciliation with the former rebel states of the South, and that radical Republicans were out to humiliate the South and force a radical reconstruction program on them. The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson was unjust and primarily driven by radical members of the Congress who held different views on Reconstruction and how it should be accomplished. Andrew Johnson was born to a poor family in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was never formally educated but until the age of 16, he was apprenticed to a tailor. At 16, he ran away to Greeneville, Tennessee where he opened his own tailor shop. He would eventually marry Eliza Mcardle who helped to improve on his reading, writing, and math.

Because his tailor business was doing so well, he was able to save up and buy a few slaves of his own. The two would have five children together. In 1829 Johnson was elected councilman and mayor of Greenville. During this, Johnson discovered a chic for public speaking. He made a rapid rise within the ladder of political offices. In 1835 he was sent to the state general assembly.

Running as a Democrat, he was elected to the state senate and then two years later the House of Representatives which he served in until 1853. While in Congress, Johnson was notorious for his advocacy of cheap western land for the homesteaders and support for the Mexican War. He was elected twice as governor of Tennessee in 1853 and 1855. In 1857, he was in the U.S. Senate and he again tried to struggle for the homestead bill. Unfortunately the measure was vetoed by President James Buchanan.

One of the biggest jumps in his political career came in 1862 when Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee. He took up his post at the state capital. In effort to win votes from the Democrats and to balance Lincoln's Union ticket with Southern Democrat, the Republicans nominated Johnson for vice-president. After his victory as Lincoln's running mate, he summoned a convention that set up a new state government and abolished slavery in Tennessee. Although Johnson made a poor impression when he appeared under the influence of alcohol at the inauguration ceremony, he was greatly supported when he was made President following Lincoln's assassination in April 1865. This, however, dissipated as his Reconstruction plans were revealed.

The Reconstruction that Johnson sought for the South was to give the South back to the white landowners that had ruled it before the Civil War. "Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North". Johnson favored the South. He believed that the people wanted things back to normal. Congress was observing an unrepentant South featuring a new state government full of ex-Confederates passing repressive laws and punitive Black Codes intended for freed slaves.

"Black codes in Mississippi prohibited freedmen from testifying against whites, allowed unemployed blacks to be arrested for vagrancy and hired out as cheap labor, and mandated separate public schools. Blacks were also prohibited from serving on juries, bearing arms or holding large gatherings". This however didn't work out how the President would have imagined. The Radical Republicans clearly wanted a new South where poor white and former slaves could vote and hold public office. In 1866, Johnson vetoed the moderate Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Right bills.

On April 9th 1866, Congress re-passed the Civil Rights Act with a two-thirds majority vote. This was the first time in American history that a major piece of legislation became law over the veto of a president. This marked a revolution in the history of Reconstruction. Congress now had the upper hand and not the President.