A History of the American People

legislation was plainly unconstitutional, but Congress planned to make it efficacious before the
Court could invalidate it.
This program, characteristic of the tradition of American fundamentalist idealism at its most
extreme and impractical, had some unfortunate consequences. In Washington itself it led to a
degree of bitterness and political savagery which was unprecedented in the history of the
republic. In the debates of the 1840s and 1850s, Calhoun, Webster, Clay, and their colleagues,
however much they might disagree even on fundamentals, had conducted their arguments within
a framework of civilized discourse and with respect for the Constitution, albeit they interpreted it
in different ways. And, in those days, Congress as a whole had treated the other branches of
government with courtesy, until the Rebellion, by refusing to accept the electoral verdict of
1860, ruined all. Now the Republican extremists were following in the footsteps of the
secessionists, and making a harmonious and balanced government, as designed by the Founding
Fathers, impossible.
The political hatred which poisoned Washington life in 1866-7 exceeded anything felt during
the Civil War, and it culminated in a venomous attempt to impeach the President himself.
Johnson regarded the Tenure of Office Act as unconstitutional, and decided to ignore it by
sacking Stanton, the War Secretary. Stanton had always been an unbalanced figure, politically,
whom Lincoln had brought in to run the War Department simply because of his undoubted
energy, drive, and competence. But with the peace Stanton became increasingly extreme in using
military power to bully the South. He also, like the President, had an ungovernable temper and
lost it often. Johnson saw him as the Trojan Horse of the Radical Republicans within his own
Cabinet, and kicked him out with relish. The Republican majority retaliated by impeaching him,
under Article I, Sections 1, 2, and 5, of the Constitution. Article II, Section 4, defines as
impeachment offenses `Treason, Bribery or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.' This last
phrase is vague. One school of thought argues it cannot include offenses which are not indictable
under state or federal law. Others argue that such non-indictable offenses are precisely what an
impeachment is for-political crimes against the Constitution which no ordinary statute can easily
define.
The procedure for impeachment is that the House presents and passes an impeachment
resolution and the Senate convicts, or not, by a two-thirds vote. Since 1789, the House has
successfully impeached fifteen officials, and the Senate has removed seven of them, all federal
judges.141 Johnson was the first, and so far only, president to be impeached, and the experience
was not edifying. Johnson was subjected during the proceedings to torrents of personal abuse,
including an accusation that he was planning to use the War Department as a platform for a
personal coup d'etat, and much other nonsense. An eleven-part impeachment resolution passed
the House on February 24, 1868. There was then a three-month trial in the Senate, at the end of
which he was acquitted (May 26, 1868) by 35 to 18 votes, the two-thirds majority not having
been obtained. No constructive purpose was served by this vendetta, and the only political
consequence was the discrediting of those who conducted it.
The consequences for the South were equally destructive. The Acts of March 1867 led to a
new Reconstruction along Republican, anti-white lines. Registration was followed by votes
calling conventions, and these by the election of conventions, the drafting of constitutions, and
their approval by popular vote. But those who took part in this process were blacks, guided by
Northern army officers, a few Northerners, and some renegade whites. This new electorate was
organized by pressure groups called Union Leagues, which built up a Republican Party of the
South. In fact, the state constitutional conventions were almost identical with Republican