Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-04-22
AContrust Between
rumun and Johnson
Lincoln's Successor Faced a Bit.
terly Hostile Congress
By William, II. Harrison.

teIly I1OStlle congress
By William H. Harrison.
There is a certain parallel between
what has happened to Harry S. Truman
and what happened to Andrew john
son, but it is strictly limited, for there
is a great contrast, too.
The sameness between the two men
lies in the fateful character of the
times surrounding their sudden ascend
ancy to the highest office in the land.
On April IA, 1865, little more than a
month after he had begun his second
term, Abraham Lincoln was MORALLY
wounded by an assassin. The next day
he died, and Vice President johnson
promptly became President. Lee had
already surrendered, and the Civil War
could be considered at an end, but the
new Chief Executive inherited the
enormously difficult task of reconcilia-
ton and reconstruction.
Similarly, 80 years later, on April IL,
not quite three months after he had
begun his fourth term, Franklin Roose-
welt was struck down. And on that
same day Vice President Truman rose
to the presidency, becoming the Ma
tons leader in one war now nearing
an end In Europe, in another war
whose climax has yet to be reached in
Asia, and in vast complex Of inter-
tangled domestic and international
problems whose solution will profoundly
affect the character and the duration
OF the next peace and the fortunes of
human beings not in this country alone
but all over the world
Here the parallel ends, excepting such
minor facts as that both were at one time
Senators and that johnson was once
a tailor and Truman a haberdasher.
Beyond that the contrasts abound-the
contrast in personality, the contrast in
background, the contrast in the COM
plexity. scope and weight Of the in
herited burdens, and the contrast-the
most important OF al-in the relation
ship of each to Congress.
Almost as soon as he became Presi-
dent, Andrew johnson ran into con-
gressional opposition of the bitterest
sort. An able and courageous man,
self-educated, he had been, by turn,
alderman and Mayor of Greenville,
Tenn, member Of the Tennessee State
Legislature, member Of the House OF
Representatives, Governor of Tennessee
and, finally, United States Senator. It
was while he was Senator that he
won the attention Of Lincoln and the
North and was made head of the mill
tarV PnVnrnn1aat Nf hic
member of the Jacksonian Democratic
party, he was not so much anti
slavery as he was pro- Union. He
was for the Union in heart and mind
nrSt, last and all the time, and when
the Great Emancipator was renomi-
mated by the Republicans in 1864, he
reached out to johnson and made him
his running mate.
Fatigued to the point of illness by the
presidential campaign, Andrew johnson
unfortunately imbibed too much on the
DAY OF his inauguration as Vice Presi-
Gent and showed clear signs of being
drunk at the ceremonies. Scarcely more
than a month later, he was President
and the incident was not forgotten.
Time and again afterward his enemies
used 1t as a weapon, and during his
first year as Chief Executive, he unwit-
tlngly fed more ammunition to them
by tactless and sometimes abusive
speeches beneath the dignity of his
once. But 1T was not primarily because
OF such mistakes as these that he was
thwarted in his efforts ito bind up the
Nations wounds" in the spirit of Lin
coin: The causes ran much deeper
IMAM that. The war had greatly ex-
banded the presidential powers, and
Congress was jealous, and the North
felt vengeful toward the South.
Moreover, as the Dictionary of Amer
lean Biography points out, the Repub-
licans-particularly the radical Repub-
licans led by the brilliant but vindic-
tive Thaddeus Stevens, member of the
House from Pennsylvania-were con-
Vlnced that for johnson to apply Lin
coins ideas would be to imperil their
political dominance. What actually
happened in 1865 was that fate threw
the control OF the executive department
OF the Government, with its vast patron
age, into the hands Of Southerner and
Democrat of the State-rights school"
And SO the first consideration of
Stevens famous and somewhat sinister
joint congressional committee on re-
construction was the preservation of
the rule of the Republican party; and
this could only be assured, under the
circumstances, by the use of the vote
OF the Negroes in the Southern States,
by writing into the Constitution new
limitations On the power of the States.
and by reducing to impotence, or, if
that were impossible, by removing, a
Democratic President"
And so 1t happened that Johnsons
Lincolnesque policies were vitiated, that
law after law was passed over his veto
and that his powers were Systematically
undermined by shrewd congressional
moves that led finally to the Tenure
OF Office Act and his impeachment for,
high crimes and misdemeanors. It was
rugged business in more ways than
one. coming to head in February of
1868, when Secretary Of War Stanton
who had been kind of spy for Stevens
IN the cabinet and who certainly had
long merited dismissal-was removed by
johnson in defiance of the tenure law
which unconstitutionally forbade such
action without the Senate,s consent. It
was on this flinsy ground that the
House had him brought to trial before
the bar OF the Senate. A cruel travesty