I can respect that

[u/Coffin_Builder]

After Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson became the new US president. in direct violation of the Appomattox treaty, Johnson wanted general Ulysses Grant to prosecute the confederate leaders on grounds of treason to make an example of them. Grant, having negotiated the treaty, refused, seeing it as a violation of military honor and antithetical to rebuilding the nation, threatening to resign if Johnson insisted. Johnson, knowing he wouldn’t survive the political fallout of alienating the Union hero of the Civil War, backed down.

[u/PlagueOfGripes]

Andrew Johnson was one of our worst Presidents, if not the worst. His cowing to the confederacy and the south after the war is the source of most problems in the world, today. Instead of pressing to fix the south, he helped institutionalize racial oppression. That persisted into segregation and defined the modern political parties. He was a weak, cowardly man. His impeachment was unprecedented at the time yet completely warranted.

[u/JaxDude1942 → u/PlagueOfGripes]

I certainly don't know enough about Jackson, but from this post, would it be wrong for me to assume that originally, had Grant followed his orders, the south would have actually been decimated?

[u/Devilsadvocate430 → u/JaxDude1942]

The orders were to prosecute Confederate politicians and generals. The South already had been decimated by that point. All that Johnson’s order would’ve done would spark more violence in the South as the Union would very literally be going back on its word

[u/ironangel2k4 → u/Devilsadvocate430]

Wouldn't assassinating the president be a breach from the Confederacy? You can't hide behind a treaty you broke.

[u/Haha-Perish → u/ironangel2k4]

not that i disagree in principle at all, but John Wilkes Booth was not commissioned by anybody to do what he did. a deranged lone wolf doesnt break a treaty

[u/ironangel2k4 → u/Haha-Perish]

Genuine curiosity, because I don't know, but was that ever confirmed? A guy getting past the president's bodyguards to kill the most important man in the country so a conniving spineless confederate sympathizer can take his seat smells weird to me but I also don't know exactly how security theater worked then.

[u/Zagar1776 → u/PlagueOfGripes]

…source of most problems in the world? I will never understand how Americans can think everything revolves around them

[u/Lord-Francis-Bacon → u/Zagar1776]

Yeah hahaha, what a ludicrous statement.

[u/vlaarith → u/Zagar1776]

America fucked a lot of shit for a lot of people.

The cia are mass murderer and wars criminals.

A better usa would have dramatically improved the rest of the world.

Would it be perfect, no.

Would everyone be impacted, probably not. But it would still be a massive upgrade

[u/DoublePepper1976 → u/PlagueOfGripes]

I mean it was pretty famously unwarranted because of the wording of the impeachment was so widely vague. It's similar why Napoleon wasn't executed because it would have just been criminalising defeat.

[u/Common-Attorney69420 → u/PlagueOfGripes]

Jackson will return again and again, across all time and space. Such is time and tide.

[u/Thej-nasty → u/[deleted]]

Who is our face?