Johnson's Impeachment Is a Pretext for the Reconstruction of the South

LZ Granderson: We're much too close to the events of our current existences to mine them for soapy melodrama. He says in 1867, Lincoln tried to fire his secretary of war and congress passed a law that would force him out if he didn't agree with its policies. LZ: The act was probably unconstitutional but it's used as a pretext by congress to impeach president Johnson who had been an obstacle to their reconstruction plans. In later years, black political power emerges in southern states leading to some of the most progressive constitutions they'd see into the 20th century," lz writes.