Embattled Johnson is back in spotlight
The president traveled the country, fanning racial animus. He viewed Congress with disdain. He also tried to undo some of the most important achievements of his predecessor, using executive power.
That was not Donald Trump, but another president who faced the ignominy of impeachment: Andrew Johnson.
As the impeachment inquiry of Trump unfolds, Johnson, never among America’s most famous presidents, although widely considered one of the worst, is attracting renewed attention.
Johnson was the first president to be impeached, by the House of Representatives in 1868. He escaped removal from office by a single vote short of the required twothirds after his trial in the Senate but was so disgraced he was denied his party’s nomination that year.
Trump and Johnson came from opposite ends of America’s social spectrum — Johnson from deep poverty, Trump from great wealth.
Yet they shared bellicose personalities, a disdain for political niceties and a penchant for divisive, sometimes racist rhetoric.
Johnson, a Democrat, became vice president under Republican Abraham Lincoln on a unity ticket during Lincoln’s reelection campaign amid the Civil War in 1864. Johnson became president after Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865.
Friction grew steadily between Johnson, who contended blacks were incapable of self-government, and many of the Republicans who controlled Congress and favored extending voting rights to blacks.
Tensions peaked in 1868 when the House voted to impeach Johnson after alleging he had illegally fired War Secretary Edwin Stanton. Johnson was acquitted narrowly in a trial in the Senate.
Mark Summers, a University of Kentucky history professor, noted that many historians in the past argued that Johnson’s impeachment was a mistake and that it was fortunate he was able to stay in office.
Summers, as many contemporary historians do, takes a different view, depicting Johnson as “a very dangerous man.”
“I would have convicted him with great enthusiasm,” Summers said.
Summers says it’s also dangerous to seek precise comparisons of the Johnson and Trump impeachment dramas.
“Definitions of what presidents are allowed to do have changed,” he said. “Donald Trump is suggesting the whole process is illegitimate — Johnson made clear he’d abide by the Senate decision.”
Keri Leigh Merritt, a historian and writer in Atlanta, learned about Johnson’s personal background while researching her 2017 book, “Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South.”
She said Johnson emerged from deeper poverty than any other U.S. president, even working as an indentured servant for a master who occasionally beat him.
Yet despite that sharp contrast with Trump’s wealth, Merritt sees a similarity between the two men that dismays her.
“You’re dealing with someone who puts themselves above their country — puts their reputation and legacy first,” she said.
In mid-september, Johnson was the subject of a “Worst President Ever?” presentation by University of Maryland history professor Michael Ross.
“I convinced a good portion of the room that Johnson was the worst president, although some were lobbying for Richard Nixon or Woodrow Wilson,” said Ross.
Johnson “was by every measure an awful president. He set back American race relations probably by 100 years,” Ross said. Yet he said it was appropriate, on technical legal grounds, that the impeachment effort failed.