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Chapter 4 1866: Johnson’s New Challenge October 1866 found Benjamin Truman in New England on the eve of the fall elections. From Hartford he notified Johnson that “the long haired men and cadaverous females . . . think you are horrid.”Truman added an account of his conversation with “an antique female”who “declared that she hoped you would be impeached. Said I ‘Why should he be impeached—what has he done that he should be impeached?’‘Well,’ replied she, ‘he hasn’t done anything yet, but I hope to God he will.’”1 Though the president may have derived a good laugh from Truman’s story, he doubtless also knew that the anecdote conveyed a realistic message, namely, that the challenges of 1866 had taken their toll on his status as the nation’s leader. As discussed in the previous chapter, the convening of Congress in December 1865 altered the political landscape for Johnson.For example, its refusal to seat the recently elected southern members and its establishment of the Joint Committee served as splashes of cold water on the president’s earlier successes. Subsequent developments in the relationship between Congress and Johnson confirmed the conviction that the legislative branch intended to share power, if not seize power. Contributing additional tension and discord was the simple fact that Johnson lacked a clear public political identity; he seemed to be neither fish nor fowl. Eighty years ago historian Howard K. Beale made this trenchant observation: “He [Johnson] was the nominal head of a party of which he was not a member, and to whose machinery his enemies held the keys.” A life-long Democrat, he had been selected by Lincoln and the (Union) 1866 100 Republican Party in 1864 to be their vice-presidential nominee. By early 1866 no one was certain which way Johnson would lean when pressured and challenged by Congress. To be sure, the president was in a difficult and even awkward situation, given Republican dominance of the legislative branch and given his natural inclination to tilt toward the Democrats . No wonder there was trouble in 1866.The splendid and friendly New Year’s Day reception at the White House (which some blacks attended ) merely masked the potential difficulties.2 Although moderate Republicans quickly established control in Congress, Johnson remained convinced that the radicals were calling the shots. The day after the White House reception, the president “expressed himself emphatically” to Secretary Welles and Postmaster General William Dennison, insisting that the radicals had stirred up trouble even prior to the convening of Congress. In a conversation that same night with Orville Browning and others, Johnson decried the lack of representation in Congress by the southern states—a theme to which he would return again and again. A few days later Welles summarized not only his view but also that of the White House: “The President and the Radical leaders are not yet in direct conflict, but I see not how it is to be avoided.” Subsequently, the secretary met privately with Charles Sumner,on which occasion the senator vented his unhappiness with Johnson and his policy, labeling it not “the greatest crime ever committed by a responsible ruler” but definitely “the greatest mistake which history has ever recorded.”Such overheated rhetoric offered little prospect of a harmonious relationship between the president and the radical leaders. About a week later, when Sumner entreated George Bancroft to intercede with Johnson in the hope of restraining him, the senator ominously warned: “Congress will stand firm against his madness . But should he persevere, I see nothing but peril.”3 One wonders if these congressional leaders truly desired a cooperative relationship with the president. Fretting about real or imagined threats posed by certain radicals in Congress continued in the precincts of the White House for some time.A caution to Johnson from New York Herald editor James Gordon Bennett simply buttressed already existing fears. Bluntly insisting that “Stevens and the radicals have now declared war against your adminis- Johnson’s New Challenge 101 tration,” the editor pressured the president to embark on practical actions ,such as striving to get the congressional conservatives to unite behind him. Having visited with Bennett, former New York congressman John Cochrane expressed his worries to Johnson that opposition to the radicals might signal “your adherence to the democratic party.”“A more effectual Tylerization,” admonished Cochrane, “cannot be conceived.” Here he touched on a critical part of the president’s dilemma—resist the radicals and other Republicans and risk aligning...

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