How to stop a bad president: A case study

from power without necessarily throwing him out of office. The book,

is all about the effort of the US Congress and some members of the Cabinet to neutralize Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States (1865-69), who succeeded Abraham Lincoln after his assassination at the Ford Theater on April 14, 1865. US Democrats could use it as a possible playbook

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instructive in dealing with their own ill-tempered president.

Lincoln’s successor

In 1868, Johnson became the first US President to be impeached since 1789. He was impeached by the House of Representatives on 11 articles of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but escaped conviction when the Senate failed to deliver the two- thirds vote required to convict and remove the impeached. What follows is all from the book.

Johnson was a racist and a very

He routinely called blacks an inferior race, no matter how much progress they had made in life. In a statement he gave to the Commissioner of Public Buildings Service, Johnson said: “Everyone would, and must admit, that the white race was superior to the black, and that while we ought to do our best to bring them…up to our present level, …we should at the same time raise our intellectual status so that the relative position of the two races would be the same.” He called his critics disloyal, even treasonous; he liberally threw insults like candy during public speeches; he rudely ignored answers he didn’t like; and blamed others when things went sour. His bodyguards called

The first scandal

Johnson’s oath- taking as vice president was a scandal. He threw down three glasses of whiskey before he took his oath and gave his speech; as a result, his face turned bright red and his planned five- minute speech stretched three times longer. He shouted, made wild gestures, stumbled over his words, shook his fists, and went into stump- speech mode, declaring violently that he was a “man of the people.” He bungled his oath, stumbled through his words, added his own befuddled commentary, then put his lips on the Bible he had just sworn on, and yelled, “I kiss this Book in the face of my nation of the United States!”

Apparently mortified by his own scandalous behavior, Johnson kept himself out of the public eye for the next 10 days to let the scandal subside. Between the inauguration and Lincoln’s assassination six weeks later, there was no interaction between him and the president, so he had no clue whatsoever on how Lincoln

surrender of all the Confederate forces in the Civil War and how to rebuild the war- torn nation.

ideas sharply conflicted with those of the radical Republicans in Congress, who were intent on reconstructing the South from Washington, to guarantee the freedoms of those who had been enslaved for so long.

Weird policies

Johnson rankled most legislators and the vast majority of Northerners when he released leading members of the Confederate Cabinet from government custody, up to and including former Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens; appointed governors in southern states and allowed their legislatures to meet as legitimate entities without the prior approval of Congress, which still considered the southern states “occupied territory.” Dominated by “secessionists,” these legislatures passed “black codes,” allowing slavery in all but name to continue in many places.

Within a year from becoming president, Johnson proved himself “already more disposed to be the political partisan of the Southerners than the ally of those who had elected him,”

of Army General Ulysses Grant.

Overriding the president

In December 1865, Johnson vetoed a civil rights bill designed to fight back the dreaded “black codes,” and another measure which sought to expand the function of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was charged with the caring and feeding of former slaves. But in an unprecedented act, Congress overturned the veto without any lengthy debate. This unprecedented act established a new precedent, which Congress repeated, again and again, for at least 15 times.

The degree of disdain and opprobrium for the president reached such a point that one Virginia Republican governor was quoted as saying to a prominent US congressman, “We pay no attention anymore to what he (Johnson) says.”

In 1866, a congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction developed a constitutional amendment, which presidents have no power to either approve or deny. It sought to prohibit states from depriving citizens of fundamental rights or equal protection under the law, and to rescind the constitutional formula by which states had gained the

- tion in Congress for slaves within their borders, without letting those slaves vote.

Both Houses passed the measure in June 1866. But Johnson

the scenes. Congress fought back, and by 1868, this became the 14th Amendment.

Also in 1866, Johnson declared the Southern rebellion ended. His apparent purpose was to end the Army’s primacy over law enforcement. Grant, who had commanded the Union army against the Confederates, disagreed, and sent instructions to military commanders to continue enforcing martial law as needed. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton joined Grant in resisting Johnson’s orders from within the Executive branch.

In August of that year, Johnson embarked on a 19-day trip across the US during which he intended to deliver 100 speeches. He was met with a frosty reception from the local folk. In Bloomington, Illinois, a heckler yelled at him saying, traitors were not welcome in the land of Lincoln. This made it impossible for him to continue his planned speech.

The general says no

In October, Johnson tried to deputize Grant to join a diplomatic mission to Mexico. Grant refused. Twice this was offered, and twice it was refused. Grant feared that Johnson might disband the Congress and use force to take control of the government, while he was out of the country. He saw the proposed mission as a ploy to get him out of the way. At a Cabinet meeting, where the instructions to the mission was read, and Johnson condescendingly asked the Attorney General to lecture Grant on the duty of a subordinate official to obey a presidential order, Grant stood up and declared:

“I am an American citizen and

any American is eligible. I am an to obey your military orders.

diplomatic duty that you offer me, and I cannot be compelled to undertake it. No power on Earth can compel me to do it.”

Johnson and the military

Indeed, nothing could compel Grant to accept. He had become the most popular living American at the time, who had won respect even from the Southerners for his generous treatment of Gen. Robert E. Lee after the latter’s surrender at Appomattox Court House in 1865. By the end of 1866, one powerful editorial said Johnson “became, if not treasonable in intent, yet unpatriotic in character.” In 1867, Congress wrote language into the military appropriations bill for 1867- 1868 that both denied the President’s right to directly control the military — all orders had to go through the General of the Army ( Grant) — and prevented Grant’s demotion without the Senate’s consent.

Whether this legislation was constitutional or not, Johnson had apparently no chance of contesting it. His relationship with Congress and the Judiciary had hit the rocks. When a Supreme Court vacancy came up, Congress abolished the seat rather than allow Johnson to nominate a candidate. In anticipation of any future high court vacancy, Congress also legislated in advance that such vacancy would

Congress also refused to con-

nominations. The only presidential power Congress did not attempt to obstruct was the power to pardon, which Johnson exercised without the proper restraint. He pardoned many who had participated in the rebellion against the Union, and even in the conspiracy to kill Lincoln.

his war secretary Stanton in violation of the Tenure of Office Act, which Congress had passed in March 1867 over the President’s

Stanton refused to leave, claiming legal protection under the Act.

On March 3, 1868, Johnson was impeached on 11 counts of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and

be tried by a Senate impeachment court. With Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon Chase presiding, the Senate fell short by one vote to convict the respondent. But while failing to remove Johnson from the presidency, Congress, the General of the Army and the Secretary of War had succeeded in reducing a potentially imperial president to the lowest level of political impotence.