The “Swing Around the Circle” had shown the President to be vain, vulgar, and vindictive. The London Spectator called him blind and crazy. Tennessee Governor Brownlow said he was a dead dog. Caricaturist Thomas Nast mocked him. Humorist Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby satirized him. Frederick Douglass indicted him. Johnson’s policy had failed. It was failing. It would continue to fail. Impeachment was now necessary, Ben Butler cried: election results may vex Johnson, they may rile him, they may momentarily stop him, but they will never change him.
