Andrew Johnson Impeachment Trial Essay

In February, 1868 President Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives, the Senate tried the case in a trial, which lasted from March to May 1868. During the Civil War the far-reaching Republicans wanted to give the African-Americans more freedom and rights that the conservative Republicans, both were on the side of the North. He was impeached for violating the “Tenure of Office Act”, which had been passed over Johnsons veto. It prohibited the president from dismissing certain federal official without the Senate approval, and for denouncing Congress as unfit to legislate. In 1867, President Johnson made an effort to test the constitutionality of the act by swapping Stanton with General Ulysses S. Grant.

XI. Johnson’s defense A. Benjamin R. Curtis, put a large emphasis on how the Tenure of Office Act states that members of the cabinet “shall hold their offices respectively for and during the term of the President by whom they may have been appointed.” 1. Curtis then argued that Johnson did not violate the act because Lincoln never reappointed Stanton as Secretary of War during his second term. B. Johnson was on trial for high crimes and misdemeanours.

The U.S House of Representatives voted 11 articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson, nine of wich cite Johnson´s removal of secretary of war Edwin M. Staton ,a violation of the Tenure of office act. The House vote made President Johnson the first president to be impeached in U.S

With this assignment, I intend to demonstrate that I have not only read the text, but that I have made reflections on and analyzed the relationship between congress, the President, and the people of this country and the impacts that these changes have had on our current presidency as well as the country as a whole. In order to analyze any form of our current presidency and the strained relationships and constant power struggles that are quite apparent between the presidency, the senate and congress we must first look at the U.S Constitution as a whole. What was the intent of the constitution? Was it purposefully written to implicitly give or deny certain powers to those placed into power?

However, there are also key differences between the two impeachments, such as the specific charges, the evidence

In American Politics, impeachment is a legislature power to charge a public official for misconduct and remove such person from office if found guilty. The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power of impeaching, and makes Senate the sole court to try all impeachments. So far, no American Presidents have been removed from office as a result of impeachment. The impeachment process, according to Alexander Hamilton in the Federalists Papers, is regarded as an important tool in separation of powers to keep the executive branch in check. However, the process has been widely understood as a legal procedure, similar to a criminal prosecution.

As government officials grow more and more corrupt, the need for a system of checks and balances increases. In Article 2 Section 4 of the united states constitution, a means of controlling these unacceptable behaviors was created. This established the ability to impeach a government official, including the president. Impeachment is the process of calling into question the validity or integrity of someone who holds public office. The can be impeached due to to treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

The reconstruction era of the United Sates was from 1865 to 1877 following the civil war, during this period attempts were made to solve the political, social and economic problems arising from the readmission to the union of the confederate states. After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, President Andrew Johnson further alienated congress by continuing Lincoln’s moderate policies but the radical republicans had different plans and ideas of how everything was to be executed. The Union, mainly congress felt that it was necessary to punish the former confederacy before those states were allowed to rejoin the nation and have all their rights reinstated. The confederacy attempted to appease many of the requirements set by congress to become

They sparked fierce debates and protests over the constitutional grounds, evidentiary standards, and political implications of impeaching a president. They also had significant impacts on the 2020 election, the 2021 insurrection, and the 2024 election. The previous impeachments of Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton were less controversial, contentious, and consequential. They involved more clear-cut cases of presidential misconduct and more consensus on the impeachment process and outcome. They also had less impact on the political landscape and public opinion.

In response to Johnson's dismissal of Stanton, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson, and he was tried by the Senate. During the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson in 1868, Senator Edmund Ross faced several pressures, dangers,

Because the republicans had a majority they would override his every veto with a two-thirds vote. The Congress began to have enough of his Democratic ways and the House of Representatives impeached him on February 24th of 1868. They believed he had been removing government office-holders without the approval of the Senate, which was against the Tenure of Office Act. This escalated when Johnson decided to remove the Secretary of War and prominent Radical Republican,

Teaching American History. Accessed January 22, 2018. http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/articles-of-impeachment-of-andrew-johnson/.

I think Barbara Jordan did a great job defining impeachment and clarifying its criteria. In her speech, Jordan discusses impeachment and states, “We know the nature of impeachment. We’ve been talking about it a while now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to “bridle” the Executive if he engages in excesses.

Johnson participates in a joint-session with Congress advocating strongly for the Civil Rights legislation, mentioning the eulogy of J.F.K.’s presidency. Johnson’s aggressiveness with mentioning Kennedy’s power when he was president helped to push the legislation but there was still a lot of work to do. The House of Representatives wrote a “petition of discharge” trying to skip over the rules committee and what they had on their agenda. The rules committee which was headed by Howard W. Smith, was publicly supported. To avoid public embarrassment, Smith pushed the legislation through the rules committee himself.

Born into a non-aristocratic poor family, somewhere in the Carolina’s on March 14, 1767, was a man named Andrew Jackson. Jackson, also called “Old Hickory” was a very bold proactive man in American history. From being a military hero and founding the democratic party to enacting the trail of tears and dismantling the of the Bank of the United States, the man and his legacy are a prominent topic for scholarly debate. Some believe he was a great president and some believe he was the worse president. But if you look at it from a moral perceptive or in the eyes of a foreigner, Jackson’s legacy was far more villainous than heroic.