Wednesday; June 11
If there ever was an individual that seemed destined to failure, it was probably Andrew Johnson. Johnson was born in North Carolina, but raised in politics in Tennessee. He ran with Abraham Lincoln and was elected as vice-president in the 1864 election. Then, just a matter of weeks into this administration, Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed and Andrew Johnson became president. If the tragedy of the moment wasn’t tough enough, Johnson (the disenfranchised Southerner) had to follow the idolized martyred leader out of the Civil War and into the Reconstruction. Honestly, I am not sure Andrew Johnson or anyone was up to the challenge – but, suffice it to say, that it really didn’t get much better and his impeachment trial began in 1868. As you might imagine, Johnson was not reelected and Ulysses S. Grant became president in 1969. Johnson was able to make a political comeback, but by then his history was already being written. Traditionally, Johnson...