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New Civil War Books > Impeachers by Wineapple

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message 1: by Porter (new)

Porter Broyles | 210 comments So has anybody else read The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation?

I just finished it. The book is a fairly simple easy book. Wineapple tells the story through the characters and often by quoting them.

Unfortunately, I didn't think that it covered the subject in sufficeint details and a lot of key facts were either omitted or understated. Key points such as the Tenure of Office Act was passed during the Johnson administration to curtail his actions and possibly provide a legal foundation for impeachment. Or that there were political reasons NOT to impeach Johnson 6 months before a presidential election. Or that the trial was determined arguably more from behind the scenes machinations than the actual merits of the case.

The area where Wineapple went the furthest was in attempting to paint Lincoln as a Radical Republican. Wineapple tries to present Lincoln as a politiican who planned on taking a hardline stance against the restoration of the South to the Union.

(My full review is https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ).


message 2: by Jan C (new)

Jan C (woeisme) | 160 comments I haven't. But there was a section on the Johnson impeachment in Impeachment: An American History by Jeffrey A. Engel. There was an essay by different historians on each of the presidential impeachments, and one on the possible future impeachment of the current occupant of the office.


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