Johnson Impeached: First President Faces Senate Trial

The House of Representatives voted 126 to 47 to impeach Andrew Johnson on February 24, 1868, making him the first American president to face removal from office. The charges centered on his violation of the Tenure of Office Act, but the real conflict was far larger: Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat who had ascended to the presidency after Lincoln's assassination, was systematically dismantling Reconstruction and blocking the civil rights of four million formerly enslaved people. Johnson had vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau extension, and vetoed the Reconstruction Acts that divided the former Confederacy into military districts. Congress overrode every veto. The final confrontation came when Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Radical Republican ally who was enforcing Reconstruction policies from within the cabinet. The Tenure of Office Act, passed specifically to prevent Johnson from removing Stanton, made the firing an impeachable offense. The Senate trial lasted from March 5 to May 26, 1868, with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presiding. Johnson's lawyers argued that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional and that Stanton's appointment by Lincoln, not Johnson, exempted him from its protections. The prosecution argued that Johnson's pattern of obstructing congressional authority threatened democratic governance itself. The outcome hinged on a handful of moderate Republican senators who feared that removing a president would set a dangerous precedent. Johnson survived by a single vote. Seven Republican senators broke ranks to vote for acquittal, producing a final tally of 35-19 — one short of the two-thirds majority required. Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas cast the decisive vote and saw his political career destroyed as a result. The acquittal preserved presidential independence from congressional control but allowed Johnson to continue undermining Reconstruction, with consequences for Black Americans that would persist for a century.