"[1] Rhetoric professor Brett Warnke puts Andy's Trip in a class of memorably ruthless takedowns of American presidents, along with works like Hunter S. Thompson's obituary of Richard M. Nixon and H. L. Mencken's commentary on the speeches of Warren G.

"[3] One editorial writer quoted by historian James Ford Rhodes described the tour as revealing Johnson as "the first of our chief magistrates who believed in the brutality of the people and gave to the White House the ill-savor of a corner-grocery.

"[4] Over the course of the almost three week tour, Johnson had compared himself to Jesus and his enemies to Judas Iscariot more than once (for example, stating: "Yes...over 1800 years ago, there was a man who...descended from on high and finding that the whole world was condemned and sentenced under the law...put himself upon the cross and attested by his wounds and his blood, and there declared, instead of putting the world to death: 'I will die that man may live.'

Johnson rose to the bait, complaining over and over again, as at St. Louis, 'I have been traduced, I have been slandered, I have been maligned..." Much of his speaking time was devoted to Radical charges of excessive pardons, tyrannical use of the veto, usurpation of the congressional prerogative in reconstruction, lack of United States citizenship, misuse of the federal patronage, and betrayal of the party that elected him.

And the more time he spent in self defense, the less he could use for debate on Negro suffrage, the fourteenth amendment, economy, and other issues the Radicals would rather postpone until after the election.

The Appleton Post of Wisconsin wrote, "Any Republican who wants something to smile at will find it abundantly in Harpers' Weekly for October 27.