The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation (2020)
Johnson believed that a new National Union Party, consisting of his kind of Democrats plus moderate and conservative Republicans, could block Congressional Reconstruction. Johnson also thought that the reconstituted party would crush Radical Republican candidates in the House and the Senate in the Congressional Elections of 1866, setting Johnson up to win the Presidency in his own right in 1868. A National Union Party convention was scheduled for 14 August 1866 in Philadelphia. All but one Republican in Congress saw the attempt to reform the National Union Party as a conspiracy to destroy the Republican Party. What Johnson really wanted was to transfer political power from the party that won the Civil War to the party that opposed and lost the Civil War.
Johnson wanted to get the locked-out Southern members of Congress admitted via the results of the off-year elections in 1866, which then would lead to enough votes to block the proposal of the 14th Amendment in both houses. Three members of the Cabinet resigned when Johnson pressed them to endorse the convention. Stanton did not endorse the convention, nor did he resign as SecWar. The National Union Convention in 1866 consisted almost entirely of Rebels and Copperheads, and Nathaniel Bedford Forrest was nominated as a vice-president of the convention. Despite 7000 in attendance, the convention fizzled, and it appeared that Johnson would not have a party in which to run for President in 1868. Johnson had succeeded in alienating every faction of the Republican Party as well as most Democrats, who were upset with the President that he hadn’t yet forced out Stanton.
The city councils of Baltimore and Philadelphia refused to host official receptions for Johnson’s tour, but well-wishers still greeted Johnson et al when the tour arrived in those two cities. Johnson experienced great crowds in NYC and was feted in the city to a great degree. When the tour traveled to Upstate New York, Johnson was advised to avoid speaking extemporaneously, and to use honey instead of vinegar to build support; Johnson ignored both those pieces of sage political advice. Johnson simply couldn’t resist going after his enemies in his speeches, and the most commonly used word in his speeches on his tour was “my”. Springfield (Ill) only welcomed Grant and Farragut, and increasingly, Johnson heard only hisses and hecklers when he spoke.
The massacre in New Orleans had become the reference point for Johnson’s policies in allowing former Confederates to return to power in the South. Hecklers kept baiting Johnson, and the President kept answering back with his usual tart and blunt responses; facing hecklers had become the norm for Johnson as his tour continued. Grant and Farragut were crowd favorites, while Johnson was booed and hissed, even when only his name was mentioned. By the time Johnson arrived in Cleveland, crowds had learned to drown out Johnson by chanting “Grant! Grant!”, and after Cleveland, Johnson looked ill. St. Louis was no better for Johnson, and when he referred to New Orleans, someone in the crowd called Johnson a traitor.
By the Fall of 1866, every card Johnson played worked against him. Americans that had initially supported Johnson left his political camp like rats from a burning building. Democrats soured on Johnson as a result of his tour, suspecting that Seward had set up Johnson for his fall so he increase his chances of becoming President. By mid-September 1866, both Grant and Farragut had distanced themselves from Johnson and his policies, with Grant going so far to tell his his wife that Johnson was a national disgrace. With crowds cheering Grant and calling for the General to run for President in 1868, Johnson’s attitude towards Grant cooled, just as Grant had cooled to Johnson. Grant returned to DC alone, not with the rest of the tour, and soon thereafter he stated that the military needed to keep another New Orleans from occurring.
Seward made things worse for Grant when the SecState affirmed Grant’s support of Johnson and his policies, which led to a significant number of Republicans losing confidence in Grant. Johnson wanted to rid himself of Grant, but he knew he couldn’t remove his as the Commander of the Army since the general was so popular. As a result, Johnson told Grant that he was soon to depart on what in essence was a diplomatic mission to Mexico. Johnson hoped that Grant would get drunk and that it would be noticed and reported, so as to reduce Grant’s popularity, after which he planned to appoint General William Tecumseh Sherman as the acting Commander of the Army.
Johnson either didn’t know, or he ignored the fact that Grant and Sherman had been friends for over a quarter-of-a-century. Grant unequivocally refused to go to Mexico, and Sherman refused to be Johnson’s catspaw. An irritated Johnson told Seward to order Grant to go to Mexico, but Johnson backed off when his Cabinet advised him that Seward should only request that Grant go to Mexico.
Speculation about the possibility of impeachment started in earnest in 1866 after the massacre in New Orleans, going beyond the isolated political voices in the wilderness. In other words, the rhetoric concerning impeachment was no longer the sole province of a few Radical Republicans. Johnson kept on the attack against the Radical Republicans, practically daring them to start the process of impeachment, but Congress wasn’t yet taking the bait. The most brash call for impeachment came from the Radical Republican Benjamin Butler, the former Union General, who by 1866 was a member of the House from a district in MA. Butler would become the chief prosecutor from the House during the Senate trial of Johnson. One reason why Butler was all-in on impeachment was that he thought it might be a way to get people to forget he was a major failure as a major general in the Civil War. That was especially true during the Spring of 1864, where instead of advancing on Richmond under orders from Grant, he bottled up his army along the James River, which seriously prolonged the Civil War.
Moderate Republicans were hopeful as the Congressional Elections of 1866 approached, in that they were optimistic that New Orleans opened many eyes. Sure enough, the Republicans benefitted from an off-year election landslide, and in the process Johnson was defied. The Republicans gained veto-proof majorities in both houses, 173 to 55 in the House, and 43 to 9 in the Senate. Memphis and New Orleans meant that no new National Union Party had formed, that Johnson’s “Swing Around the Circle” showed the President to be vulgar, vain, and vindictive. It also became clear to more than just Butler that impeachment was necessary, who argued that despite the results of the election, Johnson would never change.
The House Judiciary Committee started it impeachment investigations on 7 January 1867, but most Republicans still thought that impeachment was too rash a measure in terms of dealing with Johnson, with Butler and Stevens in the minority, wanting impeachment. Despite the House vote of 108 - 39 to authorize the committee’s investigation, Seward believed that the entire impeachment process would not get past the committee.
Johnson was livid that the word impeachment was even used towards him. However, Johnson was very pleased with the Supreme Court’s ruling in ex parte Milligan, in that the decision did not allow military courts to function if civilian courts were open. In the South, that meant that rebel civilian courts were the rule, which would be at the extreme expense of Af/Am’s. The Court’s decision in ex parte Milligan was used by Johnson to exonerate numerous Southern whites that had murdered Af/A’s as if they had killed a bug. A young French journalist by the name of Georges Clemenceau commented that anyone that hoped the Radical Republicans would idly stand by while the nation was going to ruing under Johnson were badly mistaken; however, impeachment was still seen as too extreme by most Republicans.
Making matters murky for impeachment was the huge gray area of what was considered legal and Constitutional and what was moral and political. To many, Johnson had long ago flunked the moral test, but it was highly questionable as to whether Johnson had violated any law(s); in other words, Johnson hadn’t broken a law. Also murky was the questions of whether the President would be required to leave the office during the removal trial, or would he remain in office as a functioning President, and would the President be able to testify in the Senate on his own behalf.
Republicans in Congress knew of these obstacles and thorny questions, and they viewed impeachment as a last resort to deal with a calamity. At the same time, to many impeachment offered a glimmer of hope, a new beginning. Johnson’s refusal to bend on his opposition to the 14th Amendment as well as his regular obstinancy and his insistence on white supremacy, started to wear thin with even his friends and acquaintances. All the Southern states except TN refused to ratify the 14th Amendment, and during the process, Grant had been watching Johnson with mute disgust. As a result of the ten Southern states refusing to ratify the 14th Amendment, both moderate and Radical Republicans became far more galvanized in that they agreed that Johnson needed to be corralled.
Addendum: The Tenure of Office Act and the Battle for Reconstruction . . .