Total fiction!

You're right, but unfortunately this film pretty fairly represents the image of Johnson that was propagated for a century after the Civil War: as a principled, unprejudiced man trying to stave off a gang of power-mad "radicals". Only in the aftermath of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s was Johnson finally reevaluated more accurately. Many facts about his stands and character, previously suppressed or glossed over, were at last brought to the fore, giving us a full picture of the man, which in turn has led to his being downgraded in the pantheon of presidents to the low esteem in which he's now, more justly, held.

Much of this was part and parcel of the post-1860s (or -1870s) "guilt trip" laid on the victorious North by the South and its apologists, with most literature and, later, films depicting the South as a genteel land of noble men and ladies seeking nothing more than to live in harmony with their obedient and happy "darkies", only to be pillaged and raped (literally and figuratively) by greedy and loutish Yankees interested only in money, power and southern belles. (See The Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind, Band of Angels, and dozens of other such films.)

This skewed, upside-down version of history held great sway for a hundred years, and is certainly reflected in the attitudes and slanted history in this movie.

All this aside, the movie takes many dramatic liberties with straight facts, including the nature of Johnson's Senate trial and acquittal. This is also typical of Hollywood, and it's too bad, since the actual events were far more interesting than the fictions the screenwriters concocted.