I can understand why Andrew Johnson ranks as one of the worst presidents of all time. In reality he was a strategical political move by Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln chose him for his running mate to “quiet dissent by running with a non-northerner and a non-Republican” (Schultz, 2013). Had Lincoln known that this decision would cause any advancement he had made prior to his death in the Reconstruction process to take gigantic leaps backwards he may have made a different one. Johnson saw his office as a way to finally receive the respect of the southern aristocracy. He was only concerned with looking good in their eyes and not focused on doing what was right for the broken nation he was put in charge of. Here was a nation that had ripped itself apart