Page "Andrew Johnson" Paragraph 54

The President's earlier moderate views favoring the freedmen had not endured.

Johnson recommended that black voting begin with black troops, those who could read and write, and those who had property of at least $ 200 or $ 250.

Outraged at learning that black troops had been billeted in his house in Nashville, he nullified an arrangement by Gen. Sherman to allow an abandoned coastal strip in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida be allocated to freedmen for their agricultural use.

Johnson did not deal harshly with Confederate leaders, as he had earlier indicated he would ; he expanded his pardons to include those in the highest ranks of the Confederacy, including their Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens.

Since Johnson's proclamations allowed the Southern states to control the procedure and conduct of their elections in 1865, prominent former Confederate leaders were elected to the U. S. Congress ( but not seated ).

As the President's leniency toward the South became more apparent, the former secessionists responded with more arrogance.

Johnson's schism with Congress over Reconstruction widened.