Johnson’s defense argued that he hadn’t appointed Secretary of War Stanton in the first place, which meant that he wasn’t violating the Tenure of Office Act. When he was tried in the Senate, Johnson ultimately held onto his presidency by a single vote, after seven Republicans decided to vote with Senate Democrats to keep him in office. Years later, the Supreme Court determined that the act was unconstitutional. Johnson was impeached by a two-thirds super majority of the House, and the case moved to the Senate for trial. The final straw came when he replaced Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Lincoln appointee who sided with the Radical Republicans, a faction of the party that favored enfranchisement and civil rights for freed African Americans.Ĭongress produced 11 articles of impeachment, which alleged that Johnson had violated the Tenure of Office Act - a law intended to limit presidential power to remove federal appointees from office - and had found a replacement without consulting the Senate. This approach put him at odds with Congress. He clashed with Congress throughout his term, vetoing bills he felt were too harsh on the South - including the Freedmen’s Bureau Acts, which gave displaced southerners, including African Americans, access to food, shelter, medical aid and land. However, he was also a racist who favored a lenient approach to Reconstruction, the process of bringing the states of the Confederacy back into the nation. Johnson was a pro-Union Democrat who had refused to secede from the Union along with his state, Tennessee, during the war. After President Abraham Lincoln’s death, he was succeeded by his Vice President, Andrew Johnson. The aftermath of the Civil War set the stage for the first impeachment of a U.S. PhotoQuest-Getty Images Why was Johnson impeached? Here’s what you need to know about the Presidents who have been impeached - and why they stayed in office. Read more: Here’s How the Impeachment Process Actually Works Once the House votes to impeach, the Senate must hold a trial to decide if the President should be removed from office. To impeach an official, the House of Representatives must pass articles of impeachment, which formally accuse the President of misbehavior. Impeachment alone isn’t the only step to take a President out of office, but is actually the first part of a two-pronged process. To be impeached, a President or other federal official must have committed one of the violations described by the Constitution as “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” But history shows that if a President is to be impeached, the biggest factor may be political will - whether members of a President’s own party are willing to turn against him, and whether enough members of Congress believe that trying to remove the President is worth the risk of losing popular support.
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