 Blaine was reelected in 1864 and , when the 39th Congress assembled in December 1865 , the main issue was the Reconstruction of the defeated Confederate States . Although he was not a member of the committee charged with drafting what became the Fourteenth Amendment , Blaine did make his views on the subject known and believed that three @-@ fourths of the non @-@ seceded states would be sufficient to ratify it , rather than three @-@ fourths of all states , an opinion that did not prevail and placed him , atypically , in the radical camp . The Republican Congress also played a role in the governance of the conquered South , dissolving the state governments President Andrew Johnson had installed and substituting military governments under Congress 's control . Blaine voted in favor of these new , harsher measures , but also supported some leniency toward the former rebels when he opposed a bill that would have barred Southerners from attending the United States Military Academy . Blaine voted to impeach Johnson in 1868 , although he had initially opposed the effort . Later , Blaine was more ambiguous about the validity of the charges against Johnson , writing that " there was a very grave difference of opinion among those equally competent to decide , " but at the time partisan zeal led him to follow his party 's leaders . 
