In response to
this post on Andrew Johnson's impeachment,
Karen writes:
Senator Edmund
Ross is one of the eight Senators featured in John F. Kennedy and Theodore Sorensen's 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning history, "Profiles in Courage."
I haven't read the book yet, but I understand it commemorates past acts of political courage in Congress.
Though arguably one of our better presidents, John F. Kennedy was not a great historian and was a man of his time who accepted the myths about Reconstruction disseminated by the
Dunning school. I again refer Karen, and anyone interested in the truth about Johnson's impeachment, to Stewart's favorably reviewed
book:
It is long past time to reclaim Thaddeus
Stevens as a great American figure.
Conversely, the myth should be abandoned that there was much of heroism in the acquittal votes of Edmund Ross and John
Henderson. The national pantheon should be closed to those who trade votes for cash and patronage favors. (IMPEACHED 319)
A full list of Kennedy's errors on the treatment of this subject is included in Stewart's notes, pp. 424-25. (There you will learn to avoid William Rehnquist's and Woodrow Wilson's books on the subject as well.) Here is a summary:
1.There is "no evidence to support" Kennedy's claim that "Ross was appointed to the Senate in 1866 as part of a Radical conspiracy to impeach the president."
2.The Tenure of Office Act was not a "cry for more patronage" but an attempt to prevent Johnson from getting rid of Lincoln appointees, especially Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, who was cracking down on white Southern violence.
3.Kennedy "describes Johnson as eager for a court test" of the act (this was the argument of the defense at his conviction trial). In fact, Thaddeus Stevens, as I have read in the original
record* of the proceedings, showed that Johnson first complied with the act and then deliberately violated it when Congress used it to thwart his desire to get rid of Stanton and appoint Lorenzo Thomas (an undistinguished, alcoholic yes man). Stewart points out, "Johnson never tried to bring a court challenge to it [the act]."
4. Kennedy claims Radical Republicans engaged in bribery and corruption. Bribery and corruption were the order of the day, and no doubt both sides engaged in them. For instance, it was legal for members of Congress to take bets on the outcome of the trial, which of course created conflicts of interest. But, Stewart writes, "most of the attempts at bribery were made by the president's men." This makes sense, since Johnson had clearly violated the law, and popular sentiment was on the Republican side.
5. Kennedy also makes errors about the number of Democrats in the Senate, the date of the fight over admitting Colorado and Nebraska into the Union, and the date of
Butler's claim that money was available to bribe Ross.
If you are still planning to read Kennedy's book, you might like to know that, according to Stewart, Nicolas Lemann's
REDEMPTION "identifies comparable errors and omissions in Kennedy's chapter celebrating Mississippi Senator Lucius Lamar."
*Click the link and then "page turner" to read the record.
Labels: education, Karen, Mrs. Weirsdo
