Rehabilitation of the state was a job for the state itself. The other theory of reconstruction argued that the Civil War was a struggle between two governments, and that the southern territory was conquered land, without internal borders-- much less places with a right to statehood.
Under this theory, the Federal Government might rule this territory as it pleases, admitting places as states under whatever rules it might prescribe. Andrew Johnson was a proponent of the first, more lenient theory, while the radical Republicans who would so nearly remove him from office were advocates of the second theory.
The most radical of the radical Republicans, men like Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner , believed also in the full political equality of the freed slaves. They believed that black men must be given equal rights to vote, hold office, own land, and enter into contracts, and until southern states made such promises in their laws they had no right to claim membership in the Union.
Republicans also had more practical reasons to worry about Johnson's lenient reconstruction policy: the congressmen elected by white southerners were certain to be overwhelmingly Democrats, reducing if not eliminating the Republican majorities in both houses. In the spring of , the new Congress passed over Johnson's veto a second Freedmen's Bureau bill and proposed to the states a Fourteenth Amendment to the U.
The Fourteenth Amendment is best known today for its requirement that states guarantee equal protection and due process of law, but the most controversial provisions of the time concerned the conditions precedent that imposed on states for readmission to the Union.
Johnson announced his opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment and campaigned for its defeat. The Reconstruction Act of , also passed over a presidential veto, wiped out the "pretended state governments" of the ten excluded states and divided them into five military districts, each commanded by an officer of the army.
To escape military rule, states were required 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's message vetoing the Reconstruction Act was angry and accusatory, calling the act "a bill of attainder against nine million people at once" and suggesting that it reduced southerners to "the most abject and degrading slavery.
Representative Blaine spoke for a number of conservative Republicans when he said he "would rather have the President than the scallywags of Ben Wade. The issue that finally turned the tide in favor of impeachment concerned Johnson's alleged violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The Tenure of Office Act, passed in over yet another presidential veto, prohibited 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, whom the radical Republicans regarded "as their trusty outpost in the camp of the enemy.
The Department of War, under Stanton, occupied and administered military zones in the states fo the former Confederacy, until such time as they established biracial governments and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. Although in theory the Department of War was under the President, in the years following the Civil War it acted more as an independent organization enforcing the wishes of Congress agains the wishes of the president. Johnson saw the situtation as nothing short of a mutiny.
The final straw appears to have been the revelation on August 5, , during an ongoing trial of Lincoln assassination conspirator John Surratt that Stanton two years earlier had deliberately withheld from Johnson a petition from five members of the military commission that convicted Mary Surratt urging that her death sentence be commuted to imprisonment.
Stanton, Johnson believed, had hood-winked him into signing the death warrant of a woman who he most likely would have spared. That day Johnson sent Secretary Stanton the following message: "Sir: Public consideration of high character constrain me to say that your resignation as Secretary of War will be accepted. In January of the returning Senate took up the issue of Johnson's suspension of Secretary Stanton, and voted 35 to 6 not to concur in the action. On January 14, a triumphant Stanton marched to his old office in the War Building as the President considered his next move.
Johnson was anxious to challenge the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act in court, but to do so he would have to replace Stanton and defy the Senate. When Stanton notified his Capitol Hill allies of the presidential order to vacate his office, he received from Senator Sumner a one-word telegram: "Stick.
After an awkward confrontation, the two men enjoyed a bottle of liquor together before Thomas finally headed home. For the next ninety days, Stanton would remain barricaded in his office. The Lorenzo Thomas appointment made impeachment in the House for violation of the Tenure of Office Act and other "high crimes and misdemeanors" inevitable.
On February 24, the House voted to adopt an Impeachment Resolution by a vote of to Five days later, formal articles of impeachment were adopted by the House. Historians such as David Dewitt have been struck by the improbability of the scene: "The ponderous two-handed engine of impeachment, designed to be kept in cryptic darkness until some crisis of the nation's life cried out for interposition, was being dragged into open day to crush a formidable political antagonist a few months before the appointed time when the people might get rid of him altogether.
His disrespectful treatment of the President damaged the prosecution's case with wavering senators and, in general, he made key strategic errors. House Managers proceeded to introduce documentary evidence and witness testimony supporting the eleven various articles of impeachment.
One witness brought on torrents of laughter by his description of his meeting with Thomas in the East Room of the White House when he told Thomas "that the eyes of Delaware were upon him. Louis in September of On Thursday, April 9, the Managers closed their case. Many observers concluded that the testimony added little to the Manager's case, and may have actually hurt their case by emphasizing the President's isolation and powerlessness in the face of a hostile Congress. The opening argument for the President was delivered by Benjamin Curtis , a former justice of the Supreme Court best known for his dissent in the famous Dred Scott case.
Curtis argued that Stanton was not covered by the Tenure of Office Act because the "term" of Lincoln ended with his death, that the President did not in fact violate the Act because he did not succeed in removing Stanton from office, and that the Act itself unconstitutionally infringed upon the powers of the President.
As for the article based on Johnson's speeches, Curtis said "The House of Representatives has erected itself into a school of manners Counsel for the President called only two witnesses of real consequence. Lorenzo Thomas , Johnson's would-be Secretary of War, was sworn in as a witness for the President and examined by Attorney General Stanbery concerning his encounters with Stanton.
According to Thomas's testimony , the two were surprisingly cordial after Stanton had Thomas arrested, at one point sharing a bottle of whiskey together. Secretary Welles was called for the purpose of testifying to the fact that the Cabinet had advised Johnson that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional, and that secretaries Seward and Stanton had agreed to prepare a draft of a veto message. Benjamin Curtis argued that the testimony was relevant because an article of impeachment charged the President with "intending" to violate the Constitution, and that Welles's testimony tended to show that the President honestly believed the law to be unconstitutional.
Over the House Managers' objection, Chief Justice Chase ruled the evidence admissible, but was overruled by the Senate 29 to 20, and the testimony was not allowed. Johnson believed the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional and wanted it to be legally tried in the courts. It was the President, himself, however, who was brought to trial.
The House of Representatives voted impeachment and the Senate tried the case. The trial lasted from March to May, In May, the Senate voted to acquit Andrew Johnson by a margin of 35 guilty to 19 not guilty - one vote short of the two-thirds needed to convict. Greeneville , TN Explore This Park. Info Alerts Maps Calendar Reserve.
Explore This Park. Info Alerts Maps Calendar Reserve. Alerts In Effect Dismiss. Dismiss View all alerts. Andrew Johnson and Impeachment. Why was Andrew Johnson Impeached? Although President Johnson and Congress had been grappling with different ideas for reconstructing the country, the political backing to begin impeachment came when Johnson breached the Tenure of Office Act by removing Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, from his cabinet.
Edwin Stanton had been the hinge of this act for both sides. He was an ally of the Republicans in Congress, who wanted to protect his position, but he had also been a problematic cabinet member for Johnson, at one point withholding information from Johnson regarding the New Orleans riots. Stanton's removal, therefore, was not only a political decision made to relieve the discord between the President and his cabinet, but a test for the Tenure of Office Act.
Johnson believed the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional and wanted it to be legally tried in the Supreme Court.
It was the President himself, however, who was brought to trial.
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