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How did Andrew Johnson's background influence his Reconstruction attitudes and policies?
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Andrew Johnson's background shaped his Reconstruction policies through his distrust of wealthy Southern planters and commitment to white dominance. Born into poverty, Johnson grew to resent the Southern aristocracy, influencing his leniency towards the South post-Civil War. His support for states' rights and opposition to measures promoting Black equality, like the Civil Rights Bill, reflected his biases. This led to conflicts with Radical Republicans, resulting in his impeachment proceedings.
Johnson's upbringing and life experiences certainly predisposed him against the wealthy slaveholders that led the southern states into secession and civil war. He was born into poverty and moved to Tennessee as a teenager to escape life as a tailor's apprentice in North Carolina. He only came to prominence in Tennessee out of marriage, and he was basically illiterate until young adulthood.
Johnson's approach to Reconstruction was characterized by his unshakeable belief that the South should always be dominated by whites. He was not antislavery per se, but he despised the powerful planters who dominated the politics and economy of the antebellum South. This was actually a fairly common position among many white men in areas of the South where slavery was less central than in others. They resented slavery because it devalued the work of ordinary white men who were not, themselves, slaveholders. Some even argued that slavery contributed...
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to the poverty of poor whites.
But men like Johnson had no sympathy whatsoever for African American men and women. Indeed, as one historian has written, his speeches before, during, and after the war were full of "vile racist language against blacks." So when Republicans in Congress attempted to enact measures that would have fostered black political and social equality in the postwar South, Johnson vehemently opposed them. He foresaw a South without slavery, but no less dominated by whites than before the war.
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Born in North Carolina and representing Tennessee, Andrew Johnson was raised in poverty and ascended politically by supporting the interests of common people against the Southern aristocracy. During the Civil War, he remained a senator loyal to the Union, and this got him selected as vice president during the Civil War.
Politically, Johnson's background was reflected in his views, with his distrust of large government (he was a supporter of states's rights) as well as in his unwillingness to defend the rights of freedmen, all despite his support of the Union. During Reconstruction, he ran afoul of the Radical Republicans, who accused him of being too lenient with the South. Furthermore, he vetoed government actions that would have granted more money to the struggling Freedmen's Bureau, as well as 1866's Civil Rights Bill, which would have expanded citizenship, all while black people faced severe legalized discrimination by way of the Black Codes. When the Radical Republicans gained control of Congress, they were able to overrule his vetoes and begin impeachment proceedings against him.
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