Ep. 83: Robert Levine on Frederick Douglass, Andrew Johnson, and the Impeachment of a President

“The whole issue of Reconstruction for Douglass… the whole idea of being able to vote was huge. So what if you’re a black person able to vote, but your vote is now so diluted into white majority districts that your vote doesn’t matter? It’s kind of like you are back to some of the issues that people were arguing about in the Reconstruction period.” Robert Levine joins the podcast to talk about his 2021 book, The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Topics include Douglass’s relationship to other radical republicans; Johnson’s inconsistencies, idiosyncrasies, and plan for presidential restoration as opposed to reconstruction; Johnson and Douglass as historical narrators of varying credibility; Johnson’s impeachment, including the restrictions placed on the impeachment process by Article II; and the contemporary relevance of Douglass’s “Sources of Danger to the Republic,” a rousing critique of presidential powers under the existing Constitution. During the interview with Robert, I mention a different episode with August Nimtz about Douglass. I also used “Sources of Danger to the Republic” in a recent post about what it might mean to finish Reconstruction. The image for this episode is a drawing of Thaddeus Stevens announcing the impeachment of Andrew Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act.