When historians rank the worst presidents in American history, indecision and inaction in the face of crisis are common attributes. Until now, most of the worst served before or after the Civil War.
The current impeachment proceedings have revived the historical error of proclaiming Kansas Senator Edmund G. Ross a hero for providing the vote that saved President Andrew Johnson’s job after the April 1868 impeachment trial.
As the impeachment inquiry of Trump unfolds, Johnson, never among America’s most famous presidents, though widely considered one of the worst, is attracting renewed attention.
When the history books are written, impeachment may define Trump’s presidency in a similar way that “impeachment” and “Andrew Johnson” are solidly and forever linked together.
"To reduce the impeachment of Andrew Johnson to a mistaken incident in American history, a bad taste in the collective mouth, disagreeable and embarrassing, is to forget the extent to which slavery and thus the very fate of the nation lay behind Johnson’s impeachment.”
We have tended to forgive those who waged the most sustained, brutal assaults in the name of white supremacy, without requiring them to repudiate their beliefs or actions in return.
