The Struggle between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction

The study traces competing postwar visions for restoring the Union, surveying theories held at the war's close and Lincoln's evolving approach before contrasting Andrew Johnson's lenient, state-centered reconstruction experiment with the more interventionist congressional program. It analyzes Johnson's use of pardons, his restrictions on black suffrage, and the rapid restoration of Southern governments. It follows Congress's escalating responses: legislation such as the Freedmen's Bureau and civil rights measures, the Reconstruction Acts that imposed conditions for readmission, and the 1866 political campaign. The account culminates in the impeachment struggle, debates over presidential power, and the institutional consequences that shaped federal control of reconstruction.