The Union Saved Again

Abstract

The fifth chapter explores the transformation of northern evangelical opinion regarding Andrew Johnson from 1866 to 1868 and their subsequent welcoming of Ulysses S. Grant as a two-time savior of the Union in the election of 1868. During the spring and summer of 1866, Johnson broke with Congressional Republicans over Reconstruction policy and began to lose the support of non-radical northern evangelicals in the process. Many northern evangelicals would feel compelled by Johnson’s stubbornness and southern recalcitrance to support the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and then Johnson’s impeachment in 1868. Northern evangelicals saw an image of themselves in Grant, and they envisioned the final healing of sectional difficulties in a Grant presidency along with the opportunity to focus on other problems threatening their country.