Comparisons to Trump in 1868 impeachment of Andrew Johnson
The president traveled the country, fanning racial animus. He viewed the Congress with disdain. He also tried to undo some of the most important achievements of his predecessor, using executive power.
That was not Donald Trump, but another president who faced the ignominy of impeachment: Andrew Johnson.
As the impeachment inquiry of Trump unfolds, Johnson, never among America’s most famous presidents, though widely considered one of the worst, is attracting renewed attention.
Johnson was the first president to be impeached, by the House of Representatives in 1868. He escaped removal from office by a single vote short of the required two-thirds after his trial in the Senate, but was so disgraced he was denied his party’s nomination that year.
Trump and Johnson came from opposite ends of America’s social spectrum — Johnson from deep poverty, Trump from great wealth. Yet they shared bellicose personalities, a disdain for political niceties, and a penchant for divisive, sometimes racist rhetoric.
Jon Meacham, a presidential historian who wrote a chapter on Johnson’s case in a recent book on impeachment, has drawn a harsh comparison after Trump suggested that four activist Democratic congresswomen of color “go back” to countries “from which they came.” Coupled with other statements by Trump, Meacham says Trump “now ranks with Andrew Johnson as perhaps the most racist of our presidents.”
Meacham sees other parallels as well.
“Like Trump, Johnson was a temperamentally tumultuous man who defied norms of the era,” Meacham said in an email. “In Johnson’s case, he actively sought to undo the verdict of the Civil War as the Republicans of the day saw it; in Trump’s case, he is actively seeking to nullify the constitutional order by using his powers to undo the sovereignty of our elections.”
Johnson, a Democrat, became vice president under Republican Abraham Lincoln on a unity ticket during Lincoln’s reelection campaign amid the Civil War in 1864. Johnson became president after Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865.
Friction grew steadily between Johnson, who contended blacks were incapable of self-government, and many of the Republicans who controlled Congress and favored extending voting rights to blacks.
Tensions peaked in 1868 when the House voted to impeach Johnson after alleging he had illegally fired War Secretary Edwin Stanton. Johnson was narrowly acquitted in a trial in the Senate.
Mark Summers, a University of Kentucky history professor, noted that many historians in the past argued that Johnson’s impeachment was a mistake and that it was fortunate he was able to stay in office.
“I would have convicted him with great enthusiasm,” Summers said.
But Summers added it’s also dangerous to seek precise comparisons of the Johnson and Trump impeachment dramas.
“Donald Trump is suggesting the whole process is illegitimate — Johnson made clear he’d abide by the Senate decision,” he said.