How Did Andrew Johnson Impeached

In the spring of 1868, all of America was focused on Congress to see if the President of the United States was going to be removed from office. On May 16, 1868, Congress was crowded with government officials, journalists, and citizens all waiting for the results of the impeachment trial. Individuals were impeached and removed from office before, however, President Andrew Johnson was the first president to be impeached. Many have regarded Andrew Johnson as one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States because of his racism, stubbornness, disastrous Reconstruction policies, failing to live up to be like Lincoln, and, most importantly, his impeachment trial. Johnson’s impeachment trials would be the defining point of his presidency

It was as if they “had never truly ‘left’ the United States of America.” To start off, the new president had the former Confederate states acknowledge and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished the institution of slavery. Nevertheless, the end of slavery saw the rise of the Black Codes in the South. The Black Codes sought to limit the freedom and employ African Americans for low wage labor. It was slavery with a different name. Johnson failed to put an end to the Black Codes along with anything that essentially aided the African simply because he had the same views as those who passed the codes. After all, Johnson was once a slaveholder himself. If there was one thing that Johnson did for African Americans is make the former Confederate states ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. Now that slavery was over, there was a push for African American voting rights, which was something that Johnson was not in favor of, but gave voting rights to former Confederates instead. He was beginning to align more with the South than the North. As former Confederate states rejoined the Union, the President appointed provisional governors that would prevent black social and political rights. By doing this he disregarded the Test Oath law when appointing these provisional governors. The Test Oath law “required federal appointees to swear that they had never aided the rebellion.” This

He did not support the Reconstruction policies that were created by the Republicans and the radical Republicans. Congress tried expanding the Freedmen’s Bureau bill to provide government assistance to former slaves, but Johnson vetoed the bill because he saw this as “an opportunity to stop the Radicals in their tracks and to protect the states from federal power.” Johnson was known for vetoing numerous laws passed by Congress. Most notably, Johnson vetoed the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Both were eventually passed after Congress overrode them. Since the establishment of the United States to the Civil War, only fifty-nine bills were vetoed by all of the presidents combined; by the end of Johnson’s term, he single-handedly vetoed twenty-nine bills. Many of his vetoes were a result of his Democratic background. For example, Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 because 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented in Congress and that the bill worked towards the favor of African Americans and against whites in the South. His veto policy was frowned upon by the radicals in Congress, but they viewed it as “ammunition to support their charges that the President was studiously against the people.” It became clear to the radicals in Congress that Johnson would not negotiate with them during a time where it was