If there had been a TV show Andrew Johnson: Presidency in Crisis, New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley would have been the star. Greeley, king of the pro-impeachment sound bite, called Johnson "an aching tooth in the national jaw, a screeching infant in a crowded lecture room," and said, "There can be no peace or comfort till he is out." And plenty of Congressmen would happily have offered up the 19th century version of talk-show rant. One Republican Representative denounced Johnson as "an ungrateful, despicable, besotted traitorous man--an incubus." Be grateful, Bill Clinton.
Political character assassination was alive and well long...
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