President Johnson has been referred to as the worst president to ever hold office in United States history. His legacy is of course, weak but is this title justified? As president, Johnson lack of leadership lead to the failure of the reconstruction era. As president Johnson continued Lincoln's 10% plan which was Lincoln's blueprint for readmitting confederate states into the union. If said southern states held a vote and 10 percent of the voters swore an oath of allegiance to the Union, the state as a whole would be readmitted into the union. Under president Johnson this policy became more lenient as Johnson didn't require an oath by the states to be readmitted, essentially allowing confederate states back into the union with no consequence. This policy pissed off radical republicans and increased divisions within United States politics. Johnson also had stern opposition to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment. His opposition of these policies proved detrimental to hopes of further compromising to forward movement after the war. In the end, Johnson did more to extend the period of national strife than he did to heal the wounds of war.

Andrew Johnson was a white supremacist governing in a time of immense racial change “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men,” he wrote in 1866. As president, Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Bill and opposed many other moves by the republicans to move forward with reconstruction. The republican congress overrode the veto in unprecedented move to create an amendment (14th) that would serve the position of the Civil Rights Bill. Johnson's laid back and almost counter-productive approach to reconstruction led the Radical Republicans to an inevitable failure, and Reconstruction had ended within a decade. Racial discrimination continued on into the middle of the following century. President Johnson's loose approach to reconstruction and readmitting states into the union is alike the response of Herbert Hoover in the great depression. Johnson's lack of action in reconstruction policies concerning civil rights and ex-confederate states is alike President Hoovers approach to the great depression as he took a lassaiz-faire approach leading to an economic crisis of likes never seen before. Johnson favored a very lenient version of Reconstruction and state control over who could vote, according to their race.