Accuracy
David O. Stewart has questioned the accuracy of the book's chapter on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Of Johnson's defenders in the Senate, Profiles in Courage stated that "Not a single one of them escaped the terrible torture of vicious criticism engendered by their vote to acquit." However, Stewart wrote of the supposed suffering: "It is a myth, ..." and "None was a victim of postimpeachment retribution. Indeed, their careers were not wildly different from those of the thirty-five senators who voted to convict Andrew Johnson ..." There is also significant evidence that Edmund Ross was bribed to vote for Johnson's acquittal, a fact which is not mentioned in Profiles in Courage.
Kennedy also praised Lucius Lamar, who, while working in the public eye towards reconciliation, privately was an instigator of growing racial agitation, as chronicled in the book Redemption: The Last Battle for the Civil War by Nicholas Lemann. Blanche Ames, the daughter of Governor Adelbert Ames, who in Kennedy's Lamar chapter was described in negative terms for what he supposedly inflicted against Mississippians, tried to get Kennedy to look at the record and correct that section; Kennedy ignored her efforts.
Read more about this topic: Profiles In Courage
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