[This weekend
marks the 150th anniversary of the landmark Civil
Rights Act of 1866, one of many such Reconstruction sesquicentennials
over the next decade. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy five Reconstruction
histories, leading up to a special weekend post on the Civil Rights Act.]
On three telling
stages in the life and career of one of our worst presidents.
Maybe it’s just
a coincidence that Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches young adult novels first
became bestsellers with 1868’s Ragged Dick,
Fame and
Fortune, and Struggling
Upward, but I don’t think so. In many ways, these works can be seen as
Reconstruction texts—their protagonists tend to begin their stories at the
lowest possible point, after all, and struggle to work their way toward a more
stable, successful, and even ideal future. Seen in that light, Andrew Johnson
was a perfect president for the start of the Reconstruction era, as his life to
that point seemed to mirror an Alger story. Born into abject poverty in
Raleigh, North Carolina, where his father died when Andrew was only three years
old, he began his professional life as a tailor’s apprentice before running
away to Tennessee, entering politics at the most local level, and working his
way up to Governor and then Senator. And it was his bold and impressive choice
at one crucial turning point, his decision to side with the Union when
Tennessee seceded (he was the only Senator not to give up his seat when his
state seceded), that cemented his national status and led to his appointment as
Military Governor of Tennessee and then his nomination as Lincoln’s running
mate in the
1864 election.
As I wrote in
that hyperlinked piece on 1864, however, “impressive” is one of the least
likely words that historians would apply to Johnson’s term as president, which
began when Lincoln was assassinated only a month into his second term. It’s not
just that Johnson was an
overt white supremacist—he had never tried to hide that perspective, which
of course he shared with many of his fellow Southerners and Americans. Nor is
it that he advocated for a different form of Reconstruction (Presidential,
as it came to be known) than Congressional Republicans—policy disagrements are
part of governance and the separation of powers, and Johnson did seek to
uphold the Constitution as he understood it. Instead, what truly defines
the awfulness of Johnson’s presidency was how far out of his way he went to
oppose even the most basic rights for freed slaves and African Americans, a
stance exemplified by his
veto of the 1866 bill that would have renewed the Freedmen’s Bureau. Johnson’s
concludes that veto by arguing that in taking this action he is “presenting
[the] just claims” of the eleven states that are “not, at this time, represented
by either branch of Congress”—yet of course, the veto served only the claims of
the white supremacists within those states. The question
of whether Johnson deserved to be impeached for actions such as his
veto (and other similar stances taken in opposition to Reconstruction) is a
thorny one, but I have no qualms in saying he deserves our condemnation for it,
and all that it illustrates about his presidency.
Johnson survived
the impeachment trial (by one Senate vote), and continued his destructive
policies for the remainder of his presidential term (although he did also
support the proclamation that nationalized
the 8-hour workday, evidence that even the worst presidencies are not
without their complexities). Yet his life and career did not end with Ulysses
Grant’s 1868 election to the presidency, and two 1870s moments reflect how both
sides of Johnson’s American story continued into his later life. In 1873,
Johnson both nearly died of cholera and lost $73,000 in the
national Panic, but recovered from both of these traumas to successfully
run for the Senate once more in 1875, becoming the only past president to serve
in the Senate and adding one more rags-to-riches moment to his legacy. Yet in
his brief stint as a Senator (the seat was only open for one special session),
Johnson’s only significant contribution was a speech
attacking President Grant for using federal troops as part of
Reconstruction in Louisiana; “How far off is military despotism?,” Johnson
warned, one final mythologized and destructive critique of Reconstruction from the
man who did as much to undermine it as any American.
Last
Reconstruction remembrance tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other Reconstruction histories you’d highlight?
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