Photo credit: Elena Seibert
All my books begin with a question, and so
The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation began with a question inspired by
Ecstatic Nation: Why neither I nor many other people knew much about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, the first-ever impeachment of an American president; especially since it occurred at such a crucial time in the nation's history, shortly after the Civil War, when the country was reeling from more than 750,000 deaths and the horrific assassination of Abraham Lincoln, when four million people had been freed from slavery but had nowhere to go and no obvious source of income.
The country seemed broken. The new president was a Southerner and white supremacist, so whatever would happen to the nation, everyone wanted to know...