Review

General Books

In an effort to shed some light on the inevitable comparisons made between the Johnson and Clinton impeachments, Fordham University Press has reissued Hans L. Trefousse's book on the Johnson impeachment. In a new introduction, Trefousse lists the parallels between the two events. Both Johnson and Clinton were hounded by partisan pressure, it was unclear at the beginning of each trial that neither had committed offenses that could be classified as "high crimes and misdemeanors," and race played a factor in each impeachment. While Johnson was an ironwilled proponent of keeping the South a "white man's country" who resisted radical Republicans at every turn, Clinton depended on the support of African Americans and "many of his opponents have been accused of having racist ties" (p. x). Inevitably, however, the differences between the two trials are perhaps more instructive. Johnson did not commit an indictable crime, while Clinton was accused of committing perjury. Johnson was unpopular, especially in the north, while Clinton's popularity grew despite prosecution. Clinton was never really in danger of losing his office. Johnson retained his Presidency by one vote (p. xi).	1
Beyond surface similarities and differences that serve to instruct citizens during times of constitutional crisis (the first edition was published during the Watergate scandal), the Johnson impeachment is obscured by examinations of the trial that do not fully examine the relationship of the trial to the broader pattern of Reconstruction. According to Trefousse, Johnson was very much a Southerner of his time: a consistent racist, a stubborn administrator, but by no means the political imbecile so often portrayed by revisionist historians. Those who expect anything different do not understand Johnson. In fact, Trefousse's Johnson is often a skilled political tactician who played a cat and mouse game with Congress, often testing radical Republican resolve before backing down at strategic points. Johnson consistently vetoed any measure passed to protect civil rights of African Americans. Buoyed by the election of Democrats who ran against African American suffrage in Ohio and Pennsylvania in 1867, Johnson did everything in his power to challenge the enforcement of the Reconstruction Acts. He bypassed Secretary of War Stanton to replace commanders of Military Districts and Assistant Commissioners of the Freedman's Bureau who were working too vigorously in support of freedmen. Hoping to gain the backing of moderate Republicans who would surely support a moderate Grant in the 1868 Presidential election, Johnson went as far as appointing Grant as an interim Secretary of War. When the Senate voted to challenge President Johnson's removal of Stanton under the Tenure of Office Act, Grant chose to resign rather than remain as interim Secretary of War in defiance of the Senate. Grant's resignation led to a very public rift with Johnson and the disaffection of moderates who then supported impeachment.	2
To Trefousse, impeachment was thus not directly caused by partisan politics, failure to compromise, or by a test of the Tenure of Office Act. The squabbles and tests were smoke. Impeachment was a struggle to control Reconstruction in the South. Johnson wanted ex-Confederates to control states and he wanted southern states readmitted under white rule. Radical Republicans wanted African Americans and Unionists to rewrite state constitutions that included equal protection and suffrage for blacks before Southern states could be readmitted. Impeachment failed because several key moderate Republicans did not buy the argument that the Tenure of Office Act could be applied to Johnson who did not appoint Stanton. Many of these Republicans also did not believe that appointing an interim Secretary of War constituted a "high crime or misdemeanor." Perhaps equally important as a factor in the Senate's failure to convict was the prospect of the outspoken radical Benjamin Wade becoming an interim President. Moderate Republicans thought that a temporary presidency for Wade, who was a labor and women's rights advocate, would destroy the party. Contrary to current conventional wisdom, Trefousse believes that it was Johnson and not radical Republicans who won in the long run. Radical power waned after the impeachment and trial, while Johnson's resistance encouraged Southern conservatives to further challenge the Reconstruction Acts. Trefousse overstates his case here. The formation of Democratic clubs and the organization of the Ku Klux Klan were well under way before the trial ended. Although Southern conservatives may have been encouraged by Johnson, they possessed the resolve to take Reconstruction away from the radicals by force if necessary, with or without Johnson's resistance at the national level. Union League meetings were attacked well before the Senate failed to convict Johnson. The radical Republicans proved to be no match for determined Southern terrorists who were betting that war-weary Northern voters would not support sending more troops to the South for the protection of African Americans and Unionists.	3
Trefousse's book, therefore, remains a corrective to those who lapse too quickly into easy comparisons. The Johnson impeachment was symbolic politics, a political drama that all too easily obscures the underlying conflict over the path of Reconstruction. Newspapers and analysts understood this in 1868; Trefousse helps us to remember this in 1999. The Impeachment of a President should be used in American history and Government classes to help students think more deeply about why playing political chicken is a zero sum game, especially if it involves real people, as in this case when freedmen and Unionists were hung out to dry. Students should be asked to look at Reconstruction counterfactually. What if the radicals and Johnson could have achieved more compromises? Could the Southern conservatives have been given incentives to pursue an alternative course? If Lincoln had not been assassinated, how would he have dealt with the radicals? Impeachment, the radicals learned, was not the best answer.	4
Price Laboratory School, Cedar Falls, Iowa   Paul Horton

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