Okla-homey
3/13/2007, 08:51 AM
Mar. 13, 1868 : Impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson begins
http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/9215/2000773727704354386_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000773727704354386)
Andrew Johnson
139 years ago, on this day in 1868, for the first time in U.S. history, the impeachment trial of an American president gets underway in the U.S. Senate. President Andrew Johnson, reviled by the Republican-dominated Congress for his views on Reconstruction, stood accused of having violated the controversial Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress over his veto in 1867.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Johnson, a U.S. senator from Tennessee, was the only senator from a seceding state who remained loyal to the Union. Johnson's political career was built on his defense of the interests of poor white Southerners against the landed classes; of his decision to oppose secession, he said, "Damn the negroes; I am fighting those traitorous aristocrats, their masters."
http://aycu06.webshots.com/image/11245/2000786210351800607_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000786210351800607)
Johnson had been a tailor in pre-war east Tennessee, which was an area populated by pro-Union folks -- mostly because they were'nt typically slaveowners.
"The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people."
Andrew Johnson
For his loyalty, President Abraham Lincoln (peace be upon him) appointed him military governor of Tennessee in 1862, and in 1864 Johnson was elected Vice President of the United States.
http://aycu29.webshots.com/image/11788/2000789197471906179_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000789197471906179)
Lincoln-Johnson campaign poster. Lincoln of course was re-elected during the Civil War.
Sworn in as president after Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, President Johnson enacted a lenient Reconstruction policy for the defeated South, including almost total amnesty to ex-Confederates, a program of rapid restoration of U.S.-state status for the seceded states, and the approval of new, local Southern governments. IOW, President Johnson proposed "letting the South up easy," as his predecessor Father Abraham before him had repeatedly publicly stated.
Washington, DC is 12 square miles bordered by reality."
--President Andrew Johnson in 1865
Further, and quite ironically, there is no doubt that if that drunken pro-Confederate actor Booth (who is no doubt now burning in Hell) hadn't crept up and shot one of the Greatest American Presidents in the back of the head, Reconstruction would have been a great deal easier on the defeated South.
The problem for Johnson was, he didn't enjoy the wide popular support of the American people Lincoln had garnered for "saving the Union" and thus Johnson had no political capital to spend in standing up to those hard-core New England Republicans in Congress who wanted to "punish the South" even after the war ended.
Let peace and prosperity be restored to the land.
May God bless this people: may God save the Constitution.
Andrew Johnson in the U.S. Senate
The Republican-dominated Congress greatly opposed Johnson's Reconstruction program and passed "Radical Reconstruction" by repeatedly overriding the president's vetoes. Under Radical Reconstruction, local Southern governments gave way to federal military rule, and black men in the South were granted the constitutional right to vote.
In March 1867, in order further to weaken Johnson's authority, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over his veto. The act prohibited the president from removing federal office holders, including Cabinet members, who had been confirmed by the Senate, without the consent of the Senate.
It was designed to shield members of Johnson's Cabinet like Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who was appointed during the Lincoln administration and was a leading ally of the so-called "Radical Republicans" in Congress. In the fall of 1867, Johnson attempted to test the constitutionality of the act by replacing Stanton with General Ulysses S. Grant. However, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to rule on the case, and Grant turned the office back to Stanton after the Senate passed a measure in protest of the dismissal.
On February 21, 1868, Johnson decided to rid himself of Stanton once and for all and appointed General Lorenzo Thomas, an individual far less favorable to the Congress than Grant, as secretary of war.
Stanton refused to yield, barricading himself in his office, and the House of Representatives, which had already discussed impeachment after Johnson's first dismissal of Stanton, initiated formal impeachment proceedings against the president.
http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/13380/2005697640059879183_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2005697640059879183)
House articles of impeachment. Yeas at top, Nays below. As a reminder, under the Constitution, the House indicts and the Senate tries the impeached official. This is also the reason there is no way the libs could ever successfully impeach GWB just as conservatives weren't able to jettison WJC. It takes 2/3 of the Senate to convict and neither party has that large a majority.
On February 24, 1868, the House voted 11 impeachment articles against President Johnson. Nine of the articles cited his violations of the Tenure of Office Act; one cited his opposition to the Army Appropriations Act of 1867 (designed to deprive the president of his constitutional position as commander in chief of the U.S. Army:eek: ); and one accused Johnson of bringing "into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach the Congress of the United States" through certain controversial speeches.
On this day in 1868, according to the rules set out in Section 3 of Article I of the U.S. Constitution, the impeachment trial of President Johnson began in the Senate.
http://aycu17.webshots.com/image/11336/2000720769498643075_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000720769498643075)
A hot ticket on this day in 1868
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presided over the proceedings, which were described as "theatrical." On May 16 and again on May 26, the Senate voted on the charges brought against President Johnson. Both times the vote was 35 for conviction and 19 for acquittal, with seven moderate Republicans joining 12 Democrats in voting against what was a weak case for impeachment.
Because both votes fell short--by one vote--of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Johnson, he was judged not guilty and remained in office. Nevertheless, he chose not to actively seek reelection on the Democratic ticket. In November, Ulysses S. Grant, who supported the Republicans' Radical Reconstruction policies, was elected president of the United States.
In 1875, after two failed bids, Johnson won reelection to Congress as a U.S. senator from Tennessee. He died less than four months after taking office at the age of 66. Fifty-one years later, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Tenure of Office Act unconstitutional in its ruling in Myers v. United States.
I have reached the summit of my ambition"
- Andrew Johnson when he heard the news of his
election into the Senate - an opinion he held the
rest of his life.
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/9389/2000773546043465258_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000773546043465258)
In 1974, Andrew Johnson (no relation to the former president) played running back at your correspondent's alma mater The Citadel. He finished sixth in the nation that year behind Archie Griffin of Ohio State who won the Heisman Trophy.
http://aycu14.webshots.com/image/11373/2000757951290119004_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000757951290119004)
http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/9215/2000773727704354386_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000773727704354386)
Andrew Johnson
139 years ago, on this day in 1868, for the first time in U.S. history, the impeachment trial of an American president gets underway in the U.S. Senate. President Andrew Johnson, reviled by the Republican-dominated Congress for his views on Reconstruction, stood accused of having violated the controversial Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress over his veto in 1867.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Johnson, a U.S. senator from Tennessee, was the only senator from a seceding state who remained loyal to the Union. Johnson's political career was built on his defense of the interests of poor white Southerners against the landed classes; of his decision to oppose secession, he said, "Damn the negroes; I am fighting those traitorous aristocrats, their masters."
http://aycu06.webshots.com/image/11245/2000786210351800607_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000786210351800607)
Johnson had been a tailor in pre-war east Tennessee, which was an area populated by pro-Union folks -- mostly because they were'nt typically slaveowners.
"The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people."
Andrew Johnson
For his loyalty, President Abraham Lincoln (peace be upon him) appointed him military governor of Tennessee in 1862, and in 1864 Johnson was elected Vice President of the United States.
http://aycu29.webshots.com/image/11788/2000789197471906179_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000789197471906179)
Lincoln-Johnson campaign poster. Lincoln of course was re-elected during the Civil War.
Sworn in as president after Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, President Johnson enacted a lenient Reconstruction policy for the defeated South, including almost total amnesty to ex-Confederates, a program of rapid restoration of U.S.-state status for the seceded states, and the approval of new, local Southern governments. IOW, President Johnson proposed "letting the South up easy," as his predecessor Father Abraham before him had repeatedly publicly stated.
Washington, DC is 12 square miles bordered by reality."
--President Andrew Johnson in 1865
Further, and quite ironically, there is no doubt that if that drunken pro-Confederate actor Booth (who is no doubt now burning in Hell) hadn't crept up and shot one of the Greatest American Presidents in the back of the head, Reconstruction would have been a great deal easier on the defeated South.
The problem for Johnson was, he didn't enjoy the wide popular support of the American people Lincoln had garnered for "saving the Union" and thus Johnson had no political capital to spend in standing up to those hard-core New England Republicans in Congress who wanted to "punish the South" even after the war ended.
Let peace and prosperity be restored to the land.
May God bless this people: may God save the Constitution.
Andrew Johnson in the U.S. Senate
The Republican-dominated Congress greatly opposed Johnson's Reconstruction program and passed "Radical Reconstruction" by repeatedly overriding the president's vetoes. Under Radical Reconstruction, local Southern governments gave way to federal military rule, and black men in the South were granted the constitutional right to vote.
In March 1867, in order further to weaken Johnson's authority, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over his veto. The act prohibited the president from removing federal office holders, including Cabinet members, who had been confirmed by the Senate, without the consent of the Senate.
It was designed to shield members of Johnson's Cabinet like Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who was appointed during the Lincoln administration and was a leading ally of the so-called "Radical Republicans" in Congress. In the fall of 1867, Johnson attempted to test the constitutionality of the act by replacing Stanton with General Ulysses S. Grant. However, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to rule on the case, and Grant turned the office back to Stanton after the Senate passed a measure in protest of the dismissal.
On February 21, 1868, Johnson decided to rid himself of Stanton once and for all and appointed General Lorenzo Thomas, an individual far less favorable to the Congress than Grant, as secretary of war.
Stanton refused to yield, barricading himself in his office, and the House of Representatives, which had already discussed impeachment after Johnson's first dismissal of Stanton, initiated formal impeachment proceedings against the president.
http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/13380/2005697640059879183_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2005697640059879183)
House articles of impeachment. Yeas at top, Nays below. As a reminder, under the Constitution, the House indicts and the Senate tries the impeached official. This is also the reason there is no way the libs could ever successfully impeach GWB just as conservatives weren't able to jettison WJC. It takes 2/3 of the Senate to convict and neither party has that large a majority.
On February 24, 1868, the House voted 11 impeachment articles against President Johnson. Nine of the articles cited his violations of the Tenure of Office Act; one cited his opposition to the Army Appropriations Act of 1867 (designed to deprive the president of his constitutional position as commander in chief of the U.S. Army:eek: ); and one accused Johnson of bringing "into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach the Congress of the United States" through certain controversial speeches.
On this day in 1868, according to the rules set out in Section 3 of Article I of the U.S. Constitution, the impeachment trial of President Johnson began in the Senate.
http://aycu17.webshots.com/image/11336/2000720769498643075_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000720769498643075)
A hot ticket on this day in 1868
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presided over the proceedings, which were described as "theatrical." On May 16 and again on May 26, the Senate voted on the charges brought against President Johnson. Both times the vote was 35 for conviction and 19 for acquittal, with seven moderate Republicans joining 12 Democrats in voting against what was a weak case for impeachment.
Because both votes fell short--by one vote--of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Johnson, he was judged not guilty and remained in office. Nevertheless, he chose not to actively seek reelection on the Democratic ticket. In November, Ulysses S. Grant, who supported the Republicans' Radical Reconstruction policies, was elected president of the United States.
In 1875, after two failed bids, Johnson won reelection to Congress as a U.S. senator from Tennessee. He died less than four months after taking office at the age of 66. Fifty-one years later, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Tenure of Office Act unconstitutional in its ruling in Myers v. United States.
I have reached the summit of my ambition"
- Andrew Johnson when he heard the news of his
election into the Senate - an opinion he held the
rest of his life.
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/9389/2000773546043465258_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000773546043465258)
In 1974, Andrew Johnson (no relation to the former president) played running back at your correspondent's alma mater The Citadel. He finished sixth in the nation that year behind Archie Griffin of Ohio State who won the Heisman Trophy.
http://aycu14.webshots.com/image/11373/2000757951290119004_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000757951290119004)