On this episode of The Open Mind, we're delighted to welcome Brenda Wineapple, author of the recently released and critically acclaimed “The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation” heralded as a “riveting and absorbing book” by The New York Times and both “a guidebook” and “cautionary tale for our times” by the Boston Globe.

The subject today: impeachment Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and the righteous Republicans and the first ever impeachment in American history. After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, the first U.S. president to fall victim to assassination the country entrusted it's survival to an accidental president, Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee who had forged a unity ticket with Lincoln for reelection. Despite Lincoln's assessment that Johnson was, in his words, “a good man” or at least he thought the new leader abandoned the promise of emancipation and enfranchisement and defied the protection of America's newest citizens. My guest today will analyze this history and its contemporary relevance.