President Andrew Johnson, the accidental president who assumed office after Lincoln’s assassination, joined the white southern backlash and rolled back Lincoln’s promises. He thoroughly undermined the Freedmen’s Bureau bill, including the land grant, and fought the black rights movements, asserting that America would remain a “white man’s government.”46 Though the southern rebels had expected to be hanged for their treason, Johnson welcomed them back into the fold, pardoned them, and restored their confiscated land.
