​

In May 1868, the Senate came within a single vote of taking the unprecedented step of removing a president from office. Although the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson was ostensible about a violation of the Tenure of Office Act, it was much more than that. Also on trial in 1868 were Johnson’s lenient policies toward Reconstruction and his vetoes of the Freedman’s Bureau Act and the Civil Rights Act. The trial was above all else a political trial, a test of strength between the Legislative and Executive Branch of government. 

 

Andrew Johnson’s presidency was a tragic one for him and the nation. It is possible that the problems of Reconstruction were too difficult for any statesman to solve, but Johnson’s truculence, his insensitivity to the plight of black Americans, and his unimaginative adherence to constitutional doctrines at variance with practical realities all made matters worse. The imposition of Reconstruction exacerbated a heritage of bitterness between the sections and races. That is, southerners ultimately took out their frustration on their hapless black constituents when they were able to gain control over the internal policies of their states. For nearly a century white segregationists imposed many cruel and inequitable practices on blacks in retribution for Reconstruction Laws passed and executed by Northern legislators.

 

Andrew Johnson was a lifelong Democrat and slave owner who won a place alongside Abraham Lincoln on the 1864 Republican ticket in order to gain the support of pro-war Democrats. Johnson was fiercely pro-Union and had come to national prominence as a hero to the North when, as a Senator from the important border state of Tennessee; he denounced secession as “treason.” Because of his courageous stand, Johnson along with his family had to flee Tennessee to avoid execution at the hands of Confederates.

 

Johnson faced the knottiest problem of the post—Civil War era—formulating a policy for restoring the Union. Difficult for Lincoln, this task was even harder for Johnson. Johnson did not understand Northern attitudes toward slavery. Instead, as a Southerner he displayed alternately a sympathetic paternalism and contemptuous hostility. A strict constructionist who believed in limited government, Johnson found federal domination of the people of the South extremely distasteful. He wanted no major change in the relationship between the national government and the states. Johnson’s program left the decision of how to cope with emancipation completely in the hands of white Southerners. Southerners enacted Black Codes that de facto returned Negroes to slavery.  Northerners justifiably feared that freedmen’s basic rights of citizenship would not be recognized. Johnson in 1866 completely broke with the Republican Party when he vetoed civil rights laws designed to protect the rights of ex-slaves. 

 

In 1867, Congress set aside the governments Johnson had created in the South and put Southerners under military supervision until new governments based on civil and political rights were establish. To Johnson this marked the total subversion of the federal system.  He hindered the Army’s enforcement of the reconstruction laws through his power as commander in chief. When Johnson tried to gain control of the Army in February 1868, removing the secretary of war, he was impeached by the House of Representatives and tried before the Senate. Furthermore, Johnson in a series of combative speeches lashed out at his congressional critics, calling them “traitors.”  He compared the ultra radical Thaddeus Stevens, Wendell Phillips, and Charles Sumner of comparing themselves to the “Savior.” Johnson’s intemperate speeches would later become the basis for articles of impeachment.

 

Johnson actively opposed the Fourteenth Amendment known today for its requirement that states guaranteed equal protection and due process law. Johnson’s opposition to the amendment was based upon its requirements that the southern states needed to assent to the Fourteenth Amendment, frame a new constitution with delegates chosen without regard to color, and submit the new Constitution to the Congress for examination. Johnson felt that this reduced southerners to “the most abject and degrading slavery” for it emasculated their states rights. 

 

The issue that finally led to Johnson’s impeachment was his alleged violation of the Tenure of Office Act. This act, passed in 1867, prevented the President from removing from office without the concurrence of the Senate, those officials whose appointment required Senate approval. The Act was passed primarily to preserve in office as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a holdover from the Lincoln Administration. Johnson and Stanton differed sharply on Reconstruction; however, their final bitter estrangement erupted when Johnson learned Stanton had withheld petitions from five members of the military commission that had convicted Mary Surratt urging her death sentence be commuted to imprisonment. When Stanton notified his Capital Hill allies of the presidential order to vacate his office, he received from Senator Summer a one- word telegram: “Stick.” Impeachment in the House for violation of the Tenure Act and other “ high crimes and misdemeanors” shortly followed.

 

During the trial, Johnson proved to be an able witness, highlighting his isolation in the face of the Radical Republicans and his concern over the Separation of Powers between (1) the President and Congress and (2) the federal and state governments. Furthermore, his counsel argued effectively that impeachment would violate the free speech clause of the First Amendment.