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This morning, GOP Rep. Dusty Johnson spoke on @NPR @MorningEdition about why he opposed impeachment, citing Abraham Lincoln's amnesty plan as an example of how we should avoid impeachment in order to "heal the nation."
I know I already shared our @dig_history episode, but I think it's really important to push back on this appeal to Lincoln to justify a forgive-and-forget approach to insurrection. As we discuss, Lincoln's amnesty plan was never enacted. https://digpodcast.org/2021/01/07/election-of-1876/
Instead Andrew Johnson oversaw the first phase of Reconstruction & issued sweeping pardons to former Confederates. While that might seem like a way to "heal the nation" what it actually did was allow former Confeds to reclaim positions of power & recreate slavery by other names.
It did not allow the country to heal or move on, but instead allowed traitors to return to more or less the status quo antebellum, enact the Black Codes, and found the KKK and other white supremacist terrorist organizations.
The only way the nation could *actually* move on wasn't through forgiving and forgetting, but through the strong action of the Radical Republicans, who passed legislation to protect Black civil rights, control former Confederates, and root out the Klan.
When commitment to Reconstruction ended so too did all those protections, ushering in Jim Crow. Appeals to amnesty did not help the country move on & pardons did not lead to real reconciliation. They enabled white supremacist violence and civil rights violations.
If you're going to appeal to history to make your points, you really need to know what you're talking about.
