On Sat, 19 Dec 1998 09:45:16 -0600 (CST) "William S. Lear" <rael at zopyra.com> writes:
>
>Foner is a lousy historian in my opinion. He's a bit more liberal
>than McDonald I guess but just as deluded.
>
>The following is a different, I think more accurate take, by
>Thomas Ferguson from chapter one of his excellent *Golden Rule*. It
>appears on p. 69, and I have removed his reference citations:
>
> Backed by a massive coalition of bankers, merchants, and some
> (not all) important railroad men, President Andrew Johnson
> treated the South rather like another group of similarly
> connected business leaders treated Germany 80 years later, and
> began reinstalling the old leadership of the defeated country
> into power. He also pursued a highly conservative monetary policy
> designed to get the United States quickly back on gold, and laid
> plans to cut tariffs.
>
> All of these proposals generated powerful opposition. The
> Reconstruction, tariff, and monetary policies were sharply
> opposed by many industrialists, especially those in Pennsylvania
> and the Midwest, who complained bitterly about tariff cuts and
> deflation; some railroads, which did not want to have to pay off
> newly issued bonds in sound money; and many Republicans of all
> stripes whose overriding priority was the creation of a viable
> Republican Party in the South to secure the fruits of the Civil
> War. Johnson had to be rescued by superlawyer William Everts,
> attorney for the Astors and the New York Central, and barely
> escaped impeachment.
>
>
>Bill
>
I hope for Ferguson's sake that Bill Lears's last line was a misquote since in fact Johnson was most certainly impeached by the House of Representatives but he narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate by just one vote.
Jim F.
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