Impeachment Of Andrew :: essays research papers

bingle slices bullet would force him into the presidency, and but for one mans vote he would have been forced out. Like the impeachment of chairwoman Clinton, the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 also ended in an acquittal.And manage President Clinton, Johnson was a Democratic electric chair who faced a Republican-controlled relation. And piece of music many were hostile to him for his political agenda, it would be an event separate from his policies that would approximately bring him down.Before it would end, a drama would play out in the Senate modify with partisanship, legal hairsplitting, and the swing votes of a handful of Republicans. The Road to ImpeachmentA fight Democrat opposed to secession, in 1864 Johnson was tapped by Republican President Abraham capital of Nebraska as his running mate to balance the Union ticket. He became professorship following Lincolns assassination in April 1865, just old age after the polished War ended. As president , Johnsons desire to scale of measurement back Lincolns Reconstruction legislation following the Civil War angered the Radical Republican majority that sought to penalise the former rebels of the Confederacy. The stage was set for a partisan fight that would finally center around a single act. In February 1868, Johnson fired depositary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who was sympathetic to the Radical Republicans and who was overseeing the militarys Reconstruction efforts. A year earlier, Congress had passed the Tenure of Office Act, which prohibited a president from dismissing any officer confirmed by the Senate without first getting its approval. With Stantons firing, the call for Johnsons impeachment began. To say that they seized the opportunity was too strong, says Michael Les Benedict, a biography professor at Ohio State University and the author of The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson. The president was in obvious defiance. He was daring them, it seemed, to impeach him. And if they didnt, it would have given him a green light to basically dismantle the Reconstruction program that Congress had passed. Political Opportunism?But others today see that impeachment as political opportunism. Namely, Johnson was opposed to congressional Reconstruction, says Hans Louis Trefousse, author of Andrew Johnson A Biography. So Johnson blocked that and, because he did, they Republicans eventually decided they should throw him out. A more technical inquiry can hardly be imagined, and as a separate root word for removing a president from office it bordered on the absurd, wrote U.S.