today we're looking at the impeachment of andrew johnson
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questions down in the description the impeachment of president andrew johnson took place during a
period in american history known as reconstruction as the nation was attempting to piece itself
back together after the american civil war if you recall impeachment is charging a sitting political
official with misconduct or breaking the law and eventually can lead to removal of an official
according to the u.s constitution the power to impeach is held by congress and in order to fully
impeach a president the house of representatives has to get a majority vote or over 50 percent to
vote in favor of impeachment and then in the senate there has to be a two-thirds majority
vote in favor of impeachment in american history there has never been a president fully impeached
in order to see more about impeachment in american history see my other video that's just strictly
devoted to impeachment in american history but back to andrew johnson as the american civil war
got underway in april of 1861 andrew johnson was serving in the u.s senate representing the state
of tennessee when tennessee left the union or seceded johnson was the only senator from
a seceding state that remained with the union or loyal to the union and by 1862 president abraham
lincoln had made him the military governor of tennessee when abraham lincoln was elected
president in 1860 he had hannibal hamlin as a fellow republican as his vice president but with
the election of 1864 approaching lincoln wanted to have a vice president that might balance his
ticket more and possibly get more southern support at the time it was not uncommon for a president of
one party to have a vice president from the opposite party to balance their ticket
so lincoln a republican chose andrew johnson a democrat because he was a democrat from tennessee
to be his new vice president and of course in april of 1865 lincoln was assassinated and johnson
being the vice president was sworn in as the 17th president of the united states
virtually from day one in his presidency johnson was at odds with republicans who held control of
congress johnson was very in favor of a forgiving plan of reconstruction basically giving amnesty
or forgiveness to any ex-confederates and he was also in favor of allowing southern states to keep
their laws in place that discriminated against african americans the radical republicans that
dominated congress were not at all happy with johnson's policies in march of 1867 congress
passed the tenure of office act which said that the president could not remove appointed officials
that had been confirmed by the u.s senate it was basically meant to keep johnson from
removing members of his cabinet that were part of lincoln's appointed cabinet johnson actually
vetoed or refused to sign the act into law but the republicans had a big enough majority in congress
that they were able to override johnson's veto and made it law well johnson particularly did not
like his secretary of war edwin stanton who had aided in leading the nation through the civil war
but was also aligned with the radical republicans so after the act was passed johnson attempted to
replace stanton with ulysses s grant just to see if the supreme court might declare the act
unconstitutional but the supreme court refused to hear the case on the tenure of office act
so stanton remained in office and by february 21st of 1868 johnson decided to move ahead with
removing stanton anyway and replacing him with general lorenzo thomas edwin stanton refused and
actually barricaded himself in his office the house of representatives had already considered
starting impeachment proceedings against johnson they jumped on the opportunity and led by radicals
such as thaddeus stevens within three days had voted overwhelmingly 126 to 47 to impeach johnson
so he had been impeached in the house so now the impeachment moved on to the senate where
they would have a trial to look at evidence and they would have to get a two-thirds majority to
remove johnson from office the trial in the senate began on march 4th of 1868 and president johnson's
defense team requested additional time to collect evidence and so the trial was put off or put on
hold until march 30th the defense argued that johnson had done nothing wrong because lincoln
had not officially reappointed stanton before his death the prosecution of course argued that
johnson blatantly defied congress by dismissing stanton and ignoring the tenure of office act
at the time there were 54 senators from 27 states in the senate and they needed 36 votes
in order to get a two-thirds majority the senate voted on march 26 of 1868
the vote was 35 guilty to 19 not guilty so johnson was spared removal from office by one single vote
johnson remained in office until march 4th of 1869 when ulysses s grant took the oath of office as
the 18th president of the united states and not surprisingly andrew johnson did not attend the
inauguration of president grant so hopefully with that you learned something and thanks for watching
you