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Why They Impeached Andrew Johnson

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Sarah Emmott

Why they impeached Andrew Johnson

In the article “Why They Impeached Andrew Johnson” by David Donald, Donald states that Andrew Johnson was impeached due to his selfish and self-centered personality; also Andrew Johnson’s decisions were made to benefit him as a person and not the country. “President Andrew Johnson was called upon for positive leadership, and he did not meet the challenge. Andrew Johnson’s greatest weakness was his insensitivity to public opinion.” says David Donald explaining more of Andrew Johnson’s flaws. Then Donald goes into listing the differences between President Lincoln, who believed in taking the course of action that was held with agreement with public opinion and Andrew Johnson. Donald says that Andrew Johnson seemed not to realize the weakness of his position. He was the representative of no major interest and had no genuine political following. Basically thought the whole article David Donald list adjectives and reasons Andrew Johnson was not a good president and was impeached. David Donald also states that Andrew Johnson’s relationship with Congress was yet another one of the many reasons that Andrew Johnson was impeached. Andrew Johnson was a southern democrat who had no intentions of working with the northern republicans of congress, and one of the main issues was that Andrew Johnson was not going to continue working on the reconstruction that was started by Abraham Lincoln. Donald says that Andrew Johnson relationship with the radical republicans can be stated by “His radical foes denounced him as a trickster, a culprit, a man touched with insanity, corrupted with lust, stimulated with drink”.
With that being said, there was always a lot of tension between the congress and Andrew Johnson. Again the major issue was the reconstruction and the two different sides had opposing and opposite ideas of reconstruction. With the president using all of his power to the fullest he shut down the idea of ever working on the reconstruction and that made Andrew Johnson’s relationship with the south very different and basically divided it. Then to make things worse Andrew Johnson came from the white working class. He hated rich southern landowners, and made them beg to be readmitted. Donald states that Andrew Johnson did favor with the south but it was only some of the south because of his ideas on reconstruction again. Because he was against congress “disapproving bills” and Johnson literally became the force stopping the ability for the reconstruction aimed for by Lincoln.
If Lincoln were still alive then Reconstruction would have differed because of Lincoln as a person and how he thought of things. David Donald states how good of a president Lincoln was and how he would have based his decisions and decided the best course of actions that were best for the country as a whole and that would help reconstruction because he believed “public opinion in this country is everything.” However while Johnson was president he had his own ideas, which were more self-concerning rather than president like, causing him to be impeached.

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