Prosecution
United States Senate
Defendant
President Andrew Johnson
Crime Charged
"High Crimes and Misdemeanors" within the meaning of Article II, Section 4 ofthe Constitution.
Chief Prosecutors
Seven "trial managers" from the House of Representatives
Chief Defense Lawyers
William Maxwell Evarts, Benjamin R. Curtis
Judges
The United States Senate, with Chief Justice Salmon Portland Chase presiding
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
26 May 1868
Decision
Not to impeach.
Significance
The U.S. Congress for the first time exercised its constitutional prerogativeto try a president of the United States for impeachable offenses. Johnson survived the Senate impeachment trial by one vote, but his hopes for re-election in 1868 were destroyed. Johnson was succeeded by the corrupt administrationof Ulysses S. Grant.
After five years of bloody civil war, the Union emerged victorious. PresidentAbraham Lincoln and his Republican administration were vindicated. On 14 April 1865, to the shock and horror of the Union, while attending a performanceat Ford's Theatre, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. The next day Vice-President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as president of the United States. Ironically, the man who would lead the United States into the Reconstruction era was a Southerner.
Born in North Carolina and raised in Tennessee, Johnson entered into politicsand had enjoyed a successful career with the Democratic Party. He was chosento represent Tennessee in the United States Senate. When the Southern statesleft the Union to form the Confederacy, Johnson was widely admired in the North for being the only Southern senator to remain loyal while his state seceded.
Johnson's loyalty and newfound fame caught the attention of President Lincoln. First, Lincoln appointed Johnson the Union's military governor of Tennessee. When Lincoln was up for re-election in 1864 against General George McClellan, Lincoln chose Johnson as his running mate. As a Southern Democrat and loyalist, Johnson would attract moderate voters in addition to the abolitionist and radical Republican forces already in Lincoln's camp.
Lincoln won the election of 1864. Although his assassination makes it impossible to know for certain how his Reconstruction administration would have proceeded, he had chosen Johnson as vice-president and had used the phrase "withmalice toward none, with charity for all" in advocating leniency toward the South. Thus, many historians have concluded that Lincoln would have pursued amoderate and conciliatory approach toward the reunited Confederate states.
Johnson Becomes an Unpopular President
Johnson lacked the stature that Lincoln had enjoyed as the president who heldthe Union together. Although Lincoln would probably have approved of Johnson's moderate policies toward Reconstruction, Johnson did not have the prestigenecessary to convince Congress or the American people that he was suited tothe job. The electorate of the victorious Union, having undergone the bloodiest war in American history, sent mostly Republicans to Congress because the Republicans had been Lincoln's party. Within Congress, the Republican majoritybecame Johnson's enemy.
The political antagonism between Johnson and Congress was further aggravatedby Johnson's opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment, which expanded constitutional protection of basic civil liberties, and such congressional initiativesas establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau to assist freed slaves. Johnson went on a nationwide speaking tour, known as the "Swing Around the Circle," inwhich he made a series of abrasive and blunt speeches full of accusations against his political enemies in Congress. The Swing Around the Circle only served to further erode Johnson's public support.
Sensing vulnerability, Congress moved against Johnson by passing the Tenure of Office Act, which limited Johnson's ability to remove cabinet officials without congressional approval. Predictably, Johnson fought the act, particularly because he wished to rid his cabinet of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton,who was now allied with the opposition. When Johnson attempted to fire Stanton, Congress retaliated. Thaddeus Stevens, a representative from Pennsylvaniawho spoke for radical Republicans in favor of harsh treatment for the South as "conquered territory," led the House of Representatives to a 126-47 vote infavor of a short but historic resolution:
The Senate Tries President Johnson
Although the House of Representatives had adopted the resolution to impeach Johnson, Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution mandates that the Senate must conduct the impeachment trial. This provision further states that at leasttwo-thirds of the Senate must vote in favor of impeachment and, because a presidential impeachment was at issue, that Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase of theSupreme Court must preside.
Therefore, the House appointed seven congressmen as "trial managers" or prosecutors for the impeachment. These congressmen were John A. Bingham, George Boutwell, Benjamin F. Butler, John A. Logan, Thaddeus Stevens, Thomas Williamsand James F. Wilson. Although Stevens had been the House leader, illness forced him to relinquish most of his authority to Butler.
Butler was a colorful character. A general in the Union Army during the CivilWar, he was the military governor of New Orleans after the city was taken. During his governorship, he tolerated no pro-Southern dissent. One day when Butler perceived that he had been slighted by a group of New Orleans women, heissued an order that any woman showing "contempt for a United States officer"should be considered a "woman of the town plying her avocation" and thus implicitly subject to prosecution for prostitution. After the war, Butler returned to Massachusetts and was elected to the House.
Butler lost no time in launching the House's case against Johnson. From the beginning, however, it was clear that the proceedings would be dominated by the political struggle between Johnson and Butler. Legal niceties were secondary.
Under Butler's direction, the trial managers presented the House's articles of impeachment. These eleven articles consisted of various non-specific charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors" against Johnson. For example, Johnson wasaccused of making "intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues" against Congress during the Swing Around the Circle. Johnson's response to thesevague charges was quick and furious:
The trial began on 30 March 1868. After initial confusion, the trial managersdecided to pursue a two-pronged attack. They would attempt to prove that Johnson's opposition to the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional and that Johnson had flagrantly abused his office with his comments about Congress. Thetestimony of the witnesses the trial managers produced was not limited to these issues, however. There was testimony on practically any matter that couldserve to discredit Johnson, such as Johnson's alleged excessive drinking habits.
Johnson's defense rested with William Maxwell Evarts, a New York attorney highly regarded throughout the North, and Benjamin R. Curtis, a former Supreme Court justice. Other lawyers, such as former Attorney General Henry Stanbery,assisted with the defense. All of Johnson's counsel felt strongly enough about the importance of the case that they worked free of charge.
Senate Republicans Thwart Johnson's Defense
Johnson's lawyers attempted to introduce evidence showing that Johnson's opposition to the Tenure of Office Act was no more than a legitimate desire to test the constitutional validity of the act in the federal courts. The defenseoffered to produce witnesses who could testify that Johnson's opposition to the act on constitutional grounds had long preceded his quarrel with Secretaryof War Stanton. Chief Justice Chase ruled that this evidence was admissible.Although a two-thirds vote of the Senate was necessary for a conviction of impeachment, it took only a simple majority vote to decide procedural matters.Therefore, despite Chase's rulings, the Senate repeatedly voted to prevent the defense from producing its witnesses concerning Johnson's legitimate opposition to the act.
The second prong of the trial managers' attack concerned Johnson's public statements. But the defense argued that the Senate could hardly impeach Johnsonfor exercising the right of freedom of speech that the Constitution gave to every American. Butler's retort made little legal sense but was good rhetoricand played well with the anti-Johnson public of the North:
The Consciences of Seven Republicans Save Johnson
Throughout the two-month-long trial, Johnson's defense lawyers repeatedly sawtheir sound legal arguments thwarted by purely political forces. However, seven Republican senators were disturbed by how the proceedings had been manipulated in order to give a one-sided presentation of the evidence. Senators William Pitt Fessenden, Joseph S. Fowler, James W. Grimes, John B. Henderson, Edmund G. Ross, Lyman Trumbull, and Peter G. Van Winkle defied their party andpublic opinion and voted against impeachment.
The Senate met on 26 May 1868, for the final vote. The shift by the seven Republicans proved critical: the tally was 35-19 in favor of impeachment, one vote short of the two-thirds majority necessary to impeach Johnson. Johnson wasacquitted. But his political career never recovered. Later in 1868 the war hero General Ulysses S. Grant was elected the next president of the United States.
Related Cases
The Emancipation Proclamation
Although Abraham Lincoln was opposed to slavery before he became president in1861, he did not initially believe that the federal government should becomeinvolved in the issue. Events forced the transformation that led to Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863. When Lincoln became president, 11 slaveholding states seceded, launching the Civil War. Lincoln began to perceive the war as not simply over preserving the Union, but over freedom. He drafted the Emancipation Proclamation in July of 1862.
He waited for a Union victory before announcing the proclamation to the nation, after the Battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862, the bloodiest day in American history. On 22 September Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves only in the Confederate states, but not in the slaveholding Union states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. (Lincoln needed those states to remain in the Union in order to win the war.) The proclamation would not go into full effect until 1 January, giving the Confederate states an opportunity to surrender before losing their slaves. The Confederacy continued to fight, the war ended two years later, and all slavesthroughout the United States were freed.
Sources
Prokopowicz, Gerald J. "The Emancipation Proclamation: A History for Teachers," Lincoln Museum, http://www.thelincolnmuseum.org.
Impeachment
Impeachment is a formal indictment of an official of the executive or judicial branch of the federal government. The indicted individual then goes on trial. If convicted, he or she is removed from office. Only the highest figures in the executive and judicial branches of government--the president, the vicepresident, cabinet members, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, associatejustices of the court, and federal judges--are subject to impeachment, whichis carried out by the legislative branch.
The Constitution discusses impeachment in six clauses. Under constitutional provisions, the House of Representatives--the body of government thought to bethe most closely tied to the people of the United States--votes on articlesof impeachment, which are presented by the House Judiciary Committee. If theHouse approves the articles, the Senate tries the impeachment.
As of 1995, only 14 individuals had ever had articles of impeachment voted against them, and the two most famous of these--President Andrew Johnson and Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Chase--were not impeached. In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. President to be impeached and the second to have impeachment proceedings brought against him.
Sources
Bacon, Donald C., et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
United States Senate
Defendant
President Andrew Johnson
Crime Charged
"High Crimes and Misdemeanors" within the meaning of Article II, Section 4 ofthe Constitution.
Chief Prosecutors
Seven "trial managers" from the House of Representatives
Chief Defense Lawyers
William Maxwell Evarts, Benjamin R. Curtis
Judges
The United States Senate, with Chief Justice Salmon Portland Chase presiding
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
26 May 1868
Decision
Not to impeach.
Significance
The U.S. Congress for the first time exercised its constitutional prerogativeto try a president of the United States for impeachable offenses. Johnson survived the Senate impeachment trial by one vote, but his hopes for re-election in 1868 were destroyed. Johnson was succeeded by the corrupt administrationof Ulysses S. Grant.
After five years of bloody civil war, the Union emerged victorious. PresidentAbraham Lincoln and his Republican administration were vindicated. On 14 April 1865, to the shock and horror of the Union, while attending a performanceat Ford's Theatre, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. The next day Vice-President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as president of the United States. Ironically, the man who would lead the United States into the Reconstruction era was a Southerner.
Born in North Carolina and raised in Tennessee, Johnson entered into politicsand had enjoyed a successful career with the Democratic Party. He was chosento represent Tennessee in the United States Senate. When the Southern statesleft the Union to form the Confederacy, Johnson was widely admired in the North for being the only Southern senator to remain loyal while his state seceded.
Johnson's loyalty and newfound fame caught the attention of President Lincoln. First, Lincoln appointed Johnson the Union's military governor of Tennessee. When Lincoln was up for re-election in 1864 against General George McClellan, Lincoln chose Johnson as his running mate. As a Southern Democrat and loyalist, Johnson would attract moderate voters in addition to the abolitionist and radical Republican forces already in Lincoln's camp.
Lincoln won the election of 1864. Although his assassination makes it impossible to know for certain how his Reconstruction administration would have proceeded, he had chosen Johnson as vice-president and had used the phrase "withmalice toward none, with charity for all" in advocating leniency toward the South. Thus, many historians have concluded that Lincoln would have pursued amoderate and conciliatory approach toward the reunited Confederate states.
Johnson Becomes an Unpopular President
Johnson lacked the stature that Lincoln had enjoyed as the president who heldthe Union together. Although Lincoln would probably have approved of Johnson's moderate policies toward Reconstruction, Johnson did not have the prestigenecessary to convince Congress or the American people that he was suited tothe job. The electorate of the victorious Union, having undergone the bloodiest war in American history, sent mostly Republicans to Congress because the Republicans had been Lincoln's party. Within Congress, the Republican majoritybecame Johnson's enemy.
The political antagonism between Johnson and Congress was further aggravatedby Johnson's opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment, which expanded constitutional protection of basic civil liberties, and such congressional initiativesas establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau to assist freed slaves. Johnson went on a nationwide speaking tour, known as the "Swing Around the Circle," inwhich he made a series of abrasive and blunt speeches full of accusations against his political enemies in Congress. The Swing Around the Circle only served to further erode Johnson's public support.
Sensing vulnerability, Congress moved against Johnson by passing the Tenure of Office Act, which limited Johnson's ability to remove cabinet officials without congressional approval. Predictably, Johnson fought the act, particularly because he wished to rid his cabinet of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton,who was now allied with the opposition. When Johnson attempted to fire Stanton, Congress retaliated. Thaddeus Stevens, a representative from Pennsylvaniawho spoke for radical Republicans in favor of harsh treatment for the South as "conquered territory," led the House of Representatives to a 126-47 vote infavor of a short but historic resolution:
"Resolved,
that Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeachedof high crimes and misdemeanors in office."
The Senate Tries President Johnson
Although the House of Representatives had adopted the resolution to impeach Johnson, Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution mandates that the Senate must conduct the impeachment trial. This provision further states that at leasttwo-thirds of the Senate must vote in favor of impeachment and, because a presidential impeachment was at issue, that Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase of theSupreme Court must preside.
Therefore, the House appointed seven congressmen as "trial managers" or prosecutors for the impeachment. These congressmen were John A. Bingham, George Boutwell, Benjamin F. Butler, John A. Logan, Thaddeus Stevens, Thomas Williamsand James F. Wilson. Although Stevens had been the House leader, illness forced him to relinquish most of his authority to Butler.
Butler was a colorful character. A general in the Union Army during the CivilWar, he was the military governor of New Orleans after the city was taken. During his governorship, he tolerated no pro-Southern dissent. One day when Butler perceived that he had been slighted by a group of New Orleans women, heissued an order that any woman showing "contempt for a United States officer"should be considered a "woman of the town plying her avocation" and thus implicitly subject to prosecution for prostitution. After the war, Butler returned to Massachusetts and was elected to the House.
Under Butler's direction, the trial managers presented the House's articles of impeachment. These eleven articles consisted of various non-specific charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors" against Johnson. For example, Johnson wasaccused of making "intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues" against Congress during the Swing Around the Circle. Johnson's response to thesevague charges was quick and furious:
Impeach me for violating theConstitution! Damn them! I have been struggling and working ever since I have been in this chair to uphold the Constitution they trample underfoot! I don't care what becomes of me, but I'll fight them until they rot! I shall not allow the Constitution of the United States to be destroyed by evil men who are trying to ruin this government and this nation!
The trial began on 30 March 1868. After initial confusion, the trial managersdecided to pursue a two-pronged attack. They would attempt to prove that Johnson's opposition to the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional and that Johnson had flagrantly abused his office with his comments about Congress. Thetestimony of the witnesses the trial managers produced was not limited to these issues, however. There was testimony on practically any matter that couldserve to discredit Johnson, such as Johnson's alleged excessive drinking habits.
Johnson's defense rested with William Maxwell Evarts, a New York attorney highly regarded throughout the North, and Benjamin R. Curtis, a former Supreme Court justice. Other lawyers, such as former Attorney General Henry Stanbery,assisted with the defense. All of Johnson's counsel felt strongly enough about the importance of the case that they worked free of charge.
Senate Republicans Thwart Johnson's Defense
Johnson's lawyers attempted to introduce evidence showing that Johnson's opposition to the Tenure of Office Act was no more than a legitimate desire to test the constitutional validity of the act in the federal courts. The defenseoffered to produce witnesses who could testify that Johnson's opposition to the act on constitutional grounds had long preceded his quarrel with Secretaryof War Stanton. Chief Justice Chase ruled that this evidence was admissible.Although a two-thirds vote of the Senate was necessary for a conviction of impeachment, it took only a simple majority vote to decide procedural matters.Therefore, despite Chase's rulings, the Senate repeatedly voted to prevent the defense from producing its witnesses concerning Johnson's legitimate opposition to the act.
The second prong of the trial managers' attack concerned Johnson's public statements. But the defense argued that the Senate could hardly impeach Johnsonfor exercising the right of freedom of speech that the Constitution gave to every American. Butler's retort made little legal sense but was good rhetoricand played well with the anti-Johnson public of the North:
Is it,indeed, to be seriously argued here that there is a constitutional right inthe President of the United States, who, during his official life, can neverlay aside his official life, can never lay aside his official character, to denounce, malign, abuse, ridicule, and condemn, openly and publicly, the Congress of the United States: a coordinate branch of the government?
The Consciences of Seven Republicans Save Johnson
Throughout the two-month-long trial, Johnson's defense lawyers repeatedly sawtheir sound legal arguments thwarted by purely political forces. However, seven Republican senators were disturbed by how the proceedings had been manipulated in order to give a one-sided presentation of the evidence. Senators William Pitt Fessenden, Joseph S. Fowler, James W. Grimes, John B. Henderson, Edmund G. Ross, Lyman Trumbull, and Peter G. Van Winkle defied their party andpublic opinion and voted against impeachment.
The Senate met on 26 May 1868, for the final vote. The shift by the seven Republicans proved critical: the tally was 35-19 in favor of impeachment, one vote short of the two-thirds majority necessary to impeach Johnson. Johnson wasacquitted. But his political career never recovered. Later in 1868 the war hero General Ulysses S. Grant was elected the next president of the United States.
Related Cases
- Samuel Chase Impeachment, Senate Document #876, 62nd Congress, 2ndSession (1805).
- United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974).
The Emancipation Proclamation
Although Abraham Lincoln was opposed to slavery before he became president in1861, he did not initially believe that the federal government should becomeinvolved in the issue. Events forced the transformation that led to Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863. When Lincoln became president, 11 slaveholding states seceded, launching the Civil War. Lincoln began to perceive the war as not simply over preserving the Union, but over freedom. He drafted the Emancipation Proclamation in July of 1862.
He waited for a Union victory before announcing the proclamation to the nation, after the Battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862, the bloodiest day in American history. On 22 September Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves only in the Confederate states, but not in the slaveholding Union states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. (Lincoln needed those states to remain in the Union in order to win the war.) The proclamation would not go into full effect until 1 January, giving the Confederate states an opportunity to surrender before losing their slaves. The Confederacy continued to fight, the war ended two years later, and all slavesthroughout the United States were freed.
Sources
Prokopowicz, Gerald J. "The Emancipation Proclamation: A History for Teachers," Lincoln Museum, http://www.thelincolnmuseum.org.
Impeachment
Impeachment is a formal indictment of an official of the executive or judicial branch of the federal government. The indicted individual then goes on trial. If convicted, he or she is removed from office. Only the highest figures in the executive and judicial branches of government--the president, the vicepresident, cabinet members, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, associatejustices of the court, and federal judges--are subject to impeachment, whichis carried out by the legislative branch.
The Constitution discusses impeachment in six clauses. Under constitutional provisions, the House of Representatives--the body of government thought to bethe most closely tied to the people of the United States--votes on articlesof impeachment, which are presented by the House Judiciary Committee. If theHouse approves the articles, the Senate tries the impeachment.
As of 1995, only 14 individuals had ever had articles of impeachment voted against them, and the two most famous of these--President Andrew Johnson and Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Chase--were not impeached. In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. President to be impeached and the second to have impeachment proceedings brought against him.
Bacon, Donald C., et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
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