Why was Andrew Johnson impeached?
ANDREW Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States a few hours after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
Initially welcomed by fellow lawmakers - but later reviled - Johnson was the first president to be impeached in the aftermath of the American Civil War.
Why was Andrew Johnson impeached?
On April 15, 1865, US President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
A few hours after Lincoln's murder, Chief Justice Salmon Chase swore in his vice-president, Andrew Johnson, as America's new leader.
Johnson, never among America’s most famous presidents, was widely considered one of the country's worst premiers.
The newly installed president traveled the country, fanning racial animosity.
He viewed the Congress with disdain.
Johnson also tried to undo some of the most important achievements of his predecessor, using his executive powers.
The resulting conflict between president and Congress led to the first presidential impeachment in American history.
Researchers at the Miller Center explain that, back then, many so-called "Radical Republicans had assumed that Johnson shared their concept of federal power and their commitment to political equality for blacks".
Before Lincoln was assassinated, he had formed a plan of reconstruction that would be lenient toward the defeated South as it rejoined the Union.
But Johnson actively sought to undo the verdict of the Civil War as the Republicans of the day saw it.
He obstructed Republicans as they sought to extend citizenship and the vote to black Southerners.
Friction was fanned between Johnson, who contended blacks were incapable of self-government, and many of the Republicans who controlled Congress and favored extending voting rights to blacks.
The Radical Republicans also wanted to set up military governments and bring in more stringent terms for readmission for the seceded states.
But, there was a contest for power in a nation struggling with reunification.
On the issue of what to do with the defeated Southern states, Johnson wanted to impose conditions upon their return to full standing, such as the irrevocable abolition of slavery, but not impose black suffrage as a condition of readmission.
"As neither side was willing to compromise, a clash of wills ensued," explains the National Parks Service.
Tensions peaked in 1868 when the House voted to impeach Johnson after alleging he had illegally fired War Secretary Edwin Stanton.
The sacking of Stanton was in breach of the Tenure of Office Act, which said a president could not dismiss appointed officials without the consent of Congress.
On March 4, 1868, the House of Representatives formally presented 11 articles of impeachment to the Senate, making Andrew Johnson the first President in the country’s history to be impeached.
What happened after Andrew Johnson was impeached?
On February 24, 1868, the House voted to impeach Johnson by a vote of 126 to 47.
This was carried out without holding hearings first or having specific charges against him.
The House subsequently drew up eleven charges against the president, mainly associated with his alleged violations of the Tenure of Office Act and the Command of the Army Act.
But it also included charges that his actions had brought disgrace and ridicule to the presidency.
The managers of the House of Representatives Impeachment Committee presented the articles to the Senate for trial on March 4.
And Johnson's impeachment trial began with opening statements on March 30, presided over by Chief Justice Chase.
What did the Senate do?
During the Senate trial, the president's legal counsel argued that Johnson had fired War Secretary Edwin Stanton to test the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act.
His action constituted neither a high crime nor a misdemeanor by any sensible definition of the terms, he told lawmakers.
His political trial lasted from March to May 1868.
The trial attracted considerable public and press attention - every day the Senate printed 1,000 tickets after opening up the visitors’ gallery to the public, according to the US National Archives.
While Republicans held more than a two-thirds majority in the Senate, several had already indicated they would vote “not guilty.”
The deciding vote turned out to be that of Edmund Ross.
Those who knew him thought that Ross would vote in favor of conviction.
However, when his turn to vote came, Ross very quickly voted “not guilty,” thus guaranteeing there would not be enough votes to convict Johnson.
To this day, Edmund Ross’s motives for voting “not guilty” are still being debated.
One theory is that President Johnson’s friends made use of a $150,000 slush fund to bribe the senator.
In the end, the Senate voted to acquit President Andrew Johnson by a margin of 35 guilty to 19 not guilty - one vote short of the two-thirds needed to convict him of violating the Tenure of Office Act.
Republicans recessed temporarily before coming back ten days later to vote on two more Articles to do with abuses of presidential power - with both failing by the same one-vote margin, effectively ending President Johnson’s impeachment trial.
What happened to Andrew Johnson next?
Having survived the constitutional crisis, Johnson served out his term as president, leaving office on March 4, 1869.
"For the rest of his term, Johnson was a cipher without influence on public policy," says the Miller Center.
After Johnson's leadership collapse, the country was really run by congressional committee leaders and cabinet secretaries.
In 1874 he ran a successful senatorial campaign and returned to Washington - to the very chamber where he had been tried and acquitted a few years earlier.
Johnson served just three months before his death on July 31, 1875.
Has anyone been removed from office after impeachment?
Only three US presidents have ever been impeached - including President Donald Trump - but none has been removed from office.
The trio - Trump in 2019, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868 - were previously impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.
Trump is the first president to be impeached twice.
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