To forget the reasons why Andrew Johnson was impeached, to denude or belittle them, ignores how a divided, culpable nation had destroyed so many lives, and how it then came near to destroying itself. If those reasons are forgotten, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson seems unreasonable or ludicrous. It was neither. The impeachment and trial of Andrew Johnson represented yet another attempt to preserve the Union and free the slaves, which, to the impeachers, were the self-same thing: to preserve the Union meant creating a more perfect one, liberated at last from the noxious and lingering effects
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