When John Wilkes Booth fired the bullet from his .44-caliber Deringer into the back of Abraham Lincoln’s head, he not only ended the life of the 16th President of the United States, he also denied his country Lincoln’s adept leadership that was sorely needed in the aftermath of the nation’s Civil War. Instead, that responsibility fell on Andrew Johnson, the man who had risen from the depths of poverty to become the nation’s Chief Executive at a time of continuing peril despite the cessation of arms. Johnson pledged to continue to make the path to restoration as painless as possible, consistent with the model for which his predecessor had firmly advocated. But Johnson was no Lincoln, and the national legislature was not about to go along with his overly generous and forgiving approach.
 
The Radical Republicans that dominated Congress saw Johnson as the enemy – a poor, uneducated Southern Democrat who fell into the presidency by way of an assassin’s bullet. As Johnson began to veto their legislative approach to Reconstruction, overriding those vetoes wasn’t enough. The Radicals wanted Johnson gone. For two years they investigated the President seeking any reason to impeach and remove him from office. When Johnson took action that directly violated a Federal statute that he believed to be unconstitutional, the Radicals pounced – approving impeachment in less than 72 hours, before they had even taken the time to write out formal articles of impeachment. In his Senate trial, Johnson escaped expulsion by a single vote.
 
Johnson’s presidency was mostly a nightmare for himself and the country – one long battle after another. In many ways, Andrew Johnson stood alone as President of the United States, ever-true to his personal convictions, even though he was at odds with so many around him. Johnson’s presidency was hardly a success, but through obstinacy and perseverance, it did narrowly prevail as a check on a vengeful Congress and ultimately preserved the status of the executive as a co-equal branch in the American system of government.