Somebody has gone to a great deal of effort to rehabilitate disgraced President Andrew Johnson. The hagiographic film is narrated by the late Tennessee Senator (and actor) Fred Thompson. The exhibits extol Johnson’s fidelity to the Constitution against the “radical” views in Congress that African Americans should be granted full citizenship rights. This may be the worst site for informing people about history in the park service.

In fact, Johnson was an inveterate racist, a slave-owner who got a special exemption from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to extend slavery in Tennessee. After Lincoln’s demise, Johnson reversed Reconstruction and vetoed the Civil Rights Act, paving the way for a campaign of terror by the KKK (also from Tennessee in 1865) and the collapse of all efforts to let freed slaves participate fully in elections. He was impeached (148-27), but escaped conviction by one vote. Johnson’s presidency was such a threat to the nation that Grant was pressured to run “in order to save the Union again”. A long-time historical favorite of racists, modern historians generally rank Johnson among the worst presidents. Nowhere at this historic site could I find any acknowledgement that it was morally wrong and anti-democratic to deny freed slaves the right to vote.