The 1866 Midterm Election

About this episode

TOctober 31, 2026 Andrew Johnson traveled around the country in advance of the 1866 midterm election, to drum up support for his party, He denounced Congress and called certain Republican members of Congress traitors, and compared himself to Jesus Christ, The Democrats were the party of slavery and secession, and Johnson, a former Democrat who became president in April 1865, after Lincoln’s assassination, opposed the young Republican party’s plans for a future where every man would have the right to the fruits of his own labor,  Johnson pardoned all but about fifteen hundred former Confederates, He refused to endorse Black voting, and by requiring little of the southern States, he guaranteed that the same men who had taken the South out of the Union would be responsible for bringing it back in, They joined Johnson in trying to re-create the world of the Old South, and in each state, through the Black Codes, they guaranteed the dominance of white people in the South, But Republicans had no intention of allowing the South to become more powerful, and Congress refused to seat the South’s representatives, A committee of fifteen members was assigned to come up with a better plan for re