"It raises two big questions: Why wasn't Johnson thrown out of office for making those choices, and should he have been? She answers the first with erudition and cogency. The second she essentially leaves open, reminding us that even some of the lawmakers who reviled Johnson hesitated to remove him. Their ambivalence helps explain why no president has ever been convicted of 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' or why impeachment, often viewed as a necessity to stop a lawless leader, may prove almost impossible to execute successfully."
Michael Kazin at The New Republic reviews Brenda Wineapple's The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation.
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