ABSTRACT
The Thirty-ninth Congress, elected in late 1864, convened in its first session under a new president, Andrew Johnson, on December 4, 1865. And Pitt Fessenden was immediately elected chairman of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, composed of fifteen members of Congress—six senators and nine congressmen. One historian has written: “No other Committee of Congress ever wielded the power of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction or left so permanent an imprint on the country’s history.” Fessenden was clearly the second most powerful person in the nation.
