At the end of Johnson's term, he returned to Tennessee where he began to rebuild his political base of support and unsuccessfully seeking the Democratic vote for various offices. Finally in 1875, an alliance of Republicans and a fraction of the Democratic Party in the Tennessee legislature again elected him to the party in the US Senate. He served only five months before he passed away.
Today many historians agree that the claim of Johnson's violation of the Tenure of Office Act was only a pretext for impeaching him. Had Johnson been convicted, the verdicts would have set a precedent that officials can be impeached just because Congress disagrees with their political views. The real issue was political- the president's use of the powers of his office to abstract the execution of laws that Congress had enacted.
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