Besides, the President's authority and influence had been much curtailed by the legislation relating to the Freedmen's Bureau, tenure of office, reconstruction, and command of the army, and Congress had also refused to recognize his amnesty and pardoning powers.
* Senator Wade of Ohio was President pro tempore of the Senate and by the act of 1791 would succeed President Johnson if he were removed from office.
But the desire to impeach the President was increasing in power, and very little was needed to provoke a trial of strength between the radicals and the President.

The drift toward impeachment was due in part to the legislative reaction against the executive, and in part to Johnson's own opposition to reconstruction and to his use of the patronage against the radicals.

Specific grievances were found in his vetoes of the various reconstruction bills, in his criticisms of Congress and the radical leaders, and in the fact, as Stevens asserted, that he was a "radical renegade." Johnson was a Southern man, an old-line State Rights Democrat, somewhat anti-Negro in feeling.

He knew no book except the Constitution, and that he loved with all his soul.
Sure of the correctness of his position, he was too stubborn to change or to compromise.

He was no more to be moved than Stevens or Sumner.