Johnson Impeached: First President Faces Trial in 1868

The Senate opened impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson on March 13, 1868, after the House voted 126-47 to impeach him on eleven articles, primarily for violating the Tenure of Office Act by removing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat who had been placed on Lincoln's ticket as a unity gesture, clashed bitterly with the Radical Republican Congress over Reconstruction policy. He vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, and attempted to return power to former Confederates across the South. The Senate trial lasted from March to May 1868. Johnson avoided removal by a single vote: 35 to 19, one short of the required two-thirds majority. Seven Republican senators broke party ranks, believing removal would set a dangerous precedent of congressional supremacy over the executive. The trial established that impeachment requires more than policy disagreements, effectively defining 'high crimes and misdemeanors' as constitutional offenses rather than political ones.