The Johnson Impeachment

There’s an interesting discussion taking place about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson on the lawcourts listerv. Sanford Levinson brings up an interesting argument, which is that the general sense that the impeachment was unjustified was heavily influenced by “JFK”‘s Profiles in Courage, which basically put forward the standard anti-Reconstruction account of apartheid’s apologists. (Another reason why LBJ should be far higher in the progressive pantheon than JFK.)

The close relationship of defenses of Johnson with anti-Reconstruction revisionism further convinces me that Congress was right to impeach him. It was certainly justifiable (if not required) by the Constitution, and the pragmatic considerations could hardly be more compelling, given that he was going beyond the understood role of the Presidency and nullifying the will of Congress in order to gut Reconstruction and protect the interests of the old Confederacy. Some people have argued that the non-conviction was defensible in that Johnson had begun to change after his impeachment, but I’m inclined to say that he should have been convicted. (And there can certainly be no question that this would have been far, far better for the country.) I’m by no means an expert on the subject, though, so I open the floor.