Surrender

By fall 1864 the South was running out of resources and spirit. "Southern Disunion" began to occur in September 1864, as characterized by a high desertion rate, riots, food shortages, and even South Carolina ignoring Acts of its own Confederacy. Fearful of a slave rebellion, the Confederation delayed in arming the slaves.

Congress was preparing for the Union victory. It passed the Freedmen's Bureau in March 1865, which established a government agency to help emancipated blacks get food and medical supplies, and to find jobs.^[15]

Under General Ulysses S. Grant the Union army was racking up big wins against the Confederate army in Virginia in early 1865. A Union victory was becoming inevitable. To avoid further loss of life, General Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9th. The terms of surrender were generous to the South: southern officers were allowed to keep their arms, and soldiers were allowed to keep their horses. Some observers complained that it looked more like Grant was surrendering to Lee rather than Lee surrendering to Grant. Truth be told, Grant did have enormous respect for Lee, as most soldiers on both sides did.

Five days later, on Good Friday, April 14th, Lincoln was attending a theatrical performance (that's an odd way to spend Good Friday, one might observe), and Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, who was himself an actor sympathetic to the South. Some suggest that Lincoln accepted this ending to his life. Booth's crime was part of a conspiracy to assassinate the top persons in government, including Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. General Ulysses S. Grant was to be with Lincoln at the theater but canceled his attendance. Of all the targets of the conspiracy, only Lincoln died.^[16] The conspirators were quickly caught and either killed in the chase (Booth) or tried and hung. The expression "your name is mud" comes from the conviction and imprisonment of Dr. Samuel Mudd for treating Booth's broken leg after Booth's crime. Dr. Mudd was later pardoned by President Andrew Johnson, who became president upon Lincoln's death.

Lincoln remains a controversial historical figure to this day. His original goals were not moral, and he admitted that he was not trying to abolish slavery. He was trying to save the Union. He even agreed to try to preserve slavery as a way of saving the Union. A cynic might point to Lincoln's career as a railroad lawyer as the prime motivation for his obsession with unity. The profitability of a railroad depends heavily on national unity; if a country were to break up, then the railroad might not work nearly as well with different sections refusing to cooperate with each other. Today Lincoln is idolized in the North, but is still disliked by many in the South.

President Andrew Johnson

Vice President Andrew Johnson, who was liked by almost no one, became president in spring 1865 when Lincoln died. When Johnson succeeded Lincoln as president, it was only the third succession of presidential power in our history (the first was Tyler becoming president after Harrison's death, and the second was Millard Fillmore becoming president after Zachary Taylor's death).

Johnson was a Democrat from Tennessee, not a Republican. In fact, the Radical Republicans in Congress loathed and ridiculed him. They even spread an unjustified rumor that Johnson was drunk during his inauguration. Johnson was blunt speaking, and that did not help win him any friends. He went on a nationwide speaking tour called the "Swing Around the Circle," during which he harshly and unsuccessfully criticized his opponents in Congress. Meanwhile, at this time the United States was missing all the southern states of the Confederacy: they did not have any seats in Congress. Simply put, the United States was in disarray in 1865.

Congress was controlled by the "Radical Republicans" who wanted to impose harsh conditions on the South both to protect the freed slaves and to punish the South for the War. Congress, led by the Radical Republicans, improperly attempted to control Johnson by passing the Tenure of Office Act in 1867. This required Senate approval before the President could fire his own Cabinet officials, and this law sought to stop Johnson from firing Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, who was allied with the Radical Republicans in Congress. In 1868, Congress also passed the Command of the Army Act, which restricted the President in how he commands the army.

But Johnson did not back down. He attempted to fire Stanton, which the Radical Republicans considered to be grounds for impeaching Johnson. Thaddeus Stevens was a representative from Pennsylvania who would talk about the South as "conquered territory," and was a typical Radical Republican. He led the House of Representatives to vote by an astounding margin of 126-47 to impeach Johnson:^[17]

Resolved,

that Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors in office.

But impeachment is not removal from office. Rather, it is like filing charges against someone, and it is up to the Senate under the Constitution to decide whether to remove the official from office. That requires a 2/3rds vote of the Senate. After a trial in the Senate, Johnson survived by only one vote. Johnson then continued to serve the remainder of his term in office.