A MAJOR DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

The statue of Andrew Johnson - Greenville Tennessee

 This past past July my wife and I stopped by Andrew Johnson's home in Greenville Tennessee on our way to Virginia. Since impeachment of Donald Trump has been the goal of the Democrat Party from the moment Donald Trump was elected I have thought a lot about the history of impeachment. Johnson had the distinction for many years of being the only president ever impeached. That is until Bill Clinton was impeached in December 1998. Richard Nixon would have been impeached had he not resigned from the presidency in August 1974. Of the four presidents, Clinton and Nixon have more in common since they both committed actual crimes and both were caught red handed. Nixon was a Republican and Clinton was a Democrat. On the other hand Johnson and Trump have more in common. They were impeached because of a major difference of opinion between the two parties regarding policy. Johnson was a Democrat that was impeached by the Republican Party and Trump is being impeached by the Democrat Party. Both Johnson and Trump were framed.

  Andrew Johnson was the only Southern senator to remain loyal to the Union. After Nashville was captured by the Union Army in February 1862 Johnson was appointed military governor of Tennessee by Abraham Lincoln. Johnson had plenty of enemies on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. Although Johnson's loyalty to the Union came at great personal sacrifice, his loyalty in the North was suspect and in the South he was viewed as a traitor. Johnson was a war Democrat and Lincoln expected that the presidential election of 1864 would be a tough fight. So Lincoln picked him as his Vice presidential candidate in an attempt to attract Northern Democrats who had been loyal to the Union war effort.

As it became more and more evident that the South was nearing surrender Lincoln repeatedly expressed his desire that the South should not be harshly dealt with. He told Sherman and Grant to " let em down easy". Lincoln did not want reprisals. It was his desire that Southern leaders like Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee would not be hung for treason. Lincoln just wished that they would leave the country after the war and disappear. As a student of history Lincoln wanted avoid the bloodletting and reprisals that followed civil wars of the past. His main goal, as it was from the beginning, was the restoration of the Union as quickly as possible. Lincoln's reconstruction plan was to allow the Southern states to apply for reentry into the Union if 10% of the male voters who voted in the presidential election of 1860 would swear loyalty to the Union. He also wanted the former Black Union soldiers and the very intelligent Black males to have the right to vote. John Wilkes Booth heard Lincoln say the latter in a speech he made from the balcony of the White House just after the surrender of Robert E. Lee. These words sealed Lincolns fate and he was assassinated a few days later on April 14, 1865.

Andrew Johnson got off to a bad start. He got drunk the night before the inauguration and the following day was suffering from a hangover. In order to calm his nerves he took a few swigs before giving his speech.  Which turned out to be long and rambling. Johnson wasn't a drunk but this incident embarrassed Lincoln and did much damage to his reputation.

Johnson tried to implement Lincoln's soft approach to reconstruction. Most Republicans favored a harsh reconstruction that would not only punish the South but give civil and voting rights to the Black man. Many Republican's also favored harsh land reforms that would confiscate property from Southern planters. This land would be redistributed to the Freedman. Modeled after Sherman's 40 acres and a mule promise. Johnson was not the right person to pull off Lincoln's reconstruction program. Lincoln was a political genius and I think would have met with greater success than Johnson. Even Lincoln, however; would have a huge fight on his hands since both sides were so far apart.

Andrew Johnson was a scholar of the Constitution and a true believer. He believed strongly in the concept of states rights. Johnson pardoned former Confederates that took the oath while Congress was in recess during 1865. By the time Congress returned Johnson had implemented a reconstruction program. The Southern states were beginning to implement Black codes which in essence re-enslaved the Freedman. They were designed to force the former slaves to work on the plantations because with slavery outlawed this created a major labor shortage for the former slave owners. Now that the slaves were free they had no desire to pick the cotton of their former masters or to work on their farms. The Southern states were also keeping many pre-war political leaders.

 When the Republicans returned to Congress they refused to seat any senator or representative from the old Confederacy. They then passed the Civil Rights bill of 1866 which was vetoed by Johnson but overridden by congress. Shortly after this the 14th Amendment was proposed but rejected by every Southern state except Tennessee. It was eventually passed, however; in 1868. The 14th Amendment stated that no state could “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In March 1867 the Republican Congress implemented their own reconstruction plan It placed most of the South under military rule and divided it into five military districts. Since the military was in control of these districts Johnson was not as likely, as Commander -In -Chief, to oversee this harsh reconstruction policy as well as his Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in the eyes of the Republican congress. Stanton was a radical Republican and opposed Johnson's policies. He was also acting as a spy for the radical Republican's within Johnson's cabinet. Stanton was inherited from Lincoln's cabinet.

 In order to protect Stanton's position in the cabinet Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over Johnson's veto. As a student of the Constitution Johnson knew that this law was unconstitutional. The Constitution gives the Senate the power to approve cabinet appointments but a president can fire anyone in his cabinet any time that they want to. Johnson was determined to test the law in court by firing Stanton. While Congress was in recess he asked for Stanton's resignation. When Stanton refused to resign he appointed Ulysses S. Grant as interim Secretary of War. After the Senate reconvened they voted a resolution of non-concurrence and Grant, fearing punitive action chose to resign. Johnson asked him to stay on until he could find a suitable replacement. Grant quit anyway which caused a giant rift between them. Stanton reclaimed his old job as Secretary of War. Johnson frantically searched for a replacement and selected General lorenzo Thomas on February 21, 1868. Stanton, however; barricaded himself in his office and ordered Thomas arrested for violating the Tenure of Office Act. Thomas was released after a few days because he realized that if Thomas sued for his freedom the Tenure of Office Act would probably be declared unconstitutional by the courts. On February 24, 1868 the House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson.

 Johnson escaped removal from office by one vote. Ten Republican Senators voted against conviction but it was the vote Senator Edmund G. Ross of Kansas that became the deciding vote. Every Republican who voted against conviction never again served in political office. Ross is featured in John F. kennedy's book Profiles In Courage. Kennedy portrayed Ross as standing by his convictions and upholding the Constitution by voting against impeachment. There is also evidence that Ross was bribed into voting against impeachment. There is no doubt that the prosecution used bribery in the hopes of changing the votes of the Republican dissenters. Regardless of the motivation for Ross's vote he did the right thing in my view. If Johnson had been removed for no other reason than a political difference of opinion then it would have weakened the presidency and set a horrible precedent. Johnson had the Constitution on his side but I believe his lenient approach to reconstruction only emboldened the former Confederate leaders to attempt to reestablish the old power structure in the South. As I have stated previously I believe that Lincoln was the only person with the genius to pull off a successful reconstruction program. Johnson was not Lincoln, however.

  There are many similarities between the impeachment of Donald Trump and that of Andrew Johnson. In both situations there are opposing political parties that have a major difference of opinion on policy. Johnson and Trump both have the Constitution on their side. There was no Constitutional basis for the Tenure of Office Act. As Commander-in Chief Johnson should have been in charge of Union troops in the South, not the Secretary of War. In Trumps case he has violated no laws. The House has charged him with two articles of impeachment. Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Article Two of the Constitution is clear on the role of the president. He is charged with directing foreign policy along with the advice and consent of the senate. He did not abuse power for asking a foreign leader to gather information on possible criminal activity. As the Chief Executive, or the chief law enforcement officer he has every right to investigate criminal activity, regardless of whether he benefits politically from it or not. Whether or not he held up foreign aid is not a crime according to former law professor Allan Dershowitz and many other legal scholars. It can be documented that he has given more aid to the Ukraine than Obama did. Joe Biden, as Obama's point man on Ukraine, can be heard bragging on videotape that he held up over one billion in aid until Ukraine fired the prosecutor investigating his son on charges of corruption but that is totally ignored by the left.

As far as obstruction of Congress Trump is innocent. The House of Representatives violated procedure by not properly voting on the impeachment process. Secondly they have violated the rule of law and previous impeachment procedure, by hiding the identity of the so-called whistleblower. Trump has not had the opportunity to face his accuser. I found out today that Chief Justice John Roberts will let the whistleblower remain anonymous which in my view is a violation of the Constitution. Trump has argued that the House of Representatives has not properly filed subpoena's and that is one reason that they have not honored them. Additionally the Trump administration is appealing to the courts for a decision on whether they have to answer these subpoena's based on separation of powers. That is not obstruction of Congress. The Trump administration has been very transparent over the last three years. Much more transparent than than the Clinton or Obama administrations ever were.

  The Democrats have been talking about impeaching Trump since at least November 2016. Just days after Trump was elected this was the the opening sentence to an article written in Vanity Fair magazine on November 14th. "Do a LexisNexis search, and you’ll find that Trump and some variant of impeach have already appeared in 37 newspaper headlines". This tells me that has been their intent all along. That is all I have heard for the last three years. The last three years has been an attempt by the Democrat Party to overthrow a legitimately elected president of the United States. Or more bluntly to pull off a coup. There is a so called resistance movement based on pure hatred of Trump and the Electoral College. Because Hillary had more of the popular vote they consider Trump to be an illegitimate president. Democrats hate the Constitution because it stands in the way of their tyranny and quest for power. The only elections they like are the ones that they win. The ones they don't are irrelevant. People who believe in the Constitution would say, I don't like this law so I will work to change it. This is what people did at one time. This is how the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment was passed that ended slavery and granted Black people civil rights. People who wanted an income tax passed the 16th Amendment. The 17th Amendment provided for the popular election of senators. Booze was outlawed by the 18th Amendment and it was legalized again by the 21st Amendment. Women were granted the right to vote by the 19th Amendment.

 Democrats today don't bother to change a law if they don't like it. They use the courts to legislate from the bench. This is how they abolished prayer in school, legalized abortion, same sex marriage, and validated Obamacare, just to name a few things. The courts were not designed to change law or legislate from the bench. The amendment process was designed for that, however. Now the Democrats are using the impeachment process to overturn an election because they do not agree with the Electoral College. This would be like trying to change the rules during a football game because you don't like the score. The Declaration of Independence says "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes" I think that the Founding Fathers would agree with me that a president should not be impeached or removed from office for light and transient causes. To do it simply because you have a major difference of opinion with a president over policy cheapens and undermines the process of impeachment. It should be reserved for treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors. 

 The only impeachment situation that has ever been successful is the forced resignation of Richard Nixon. Although Nixon technically was not impeached, he would have been impeached and probably removed from office had he not resigned. This was a bi-partisan effort to remove him. Nixon was prepared to fight for his job until high ranking Republican's led by Barry Goldwater came to the White House and told him that the Republican's would vote for impeachment. The difference between Nixon and Trump is that Nixon had committed an impeachable offense. He had ordered the CIA to interfere with the F.B.I.'s investigation of the Watergate burglary. Partisan efforts to impeach a president, such as the Johnson and Clinton impeachments have proven not to be successful. Clinton, in essence, had committed the same crime as Richard Nixon. He was obstructing Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against him. In my view Clinton should have been removed from office. There was no Democrat defectors from Clinton like there had been against Nixon. Instead the Democrats and their media circled the wagons around him. Protecting him to the bitter end. That is what Democrats do. They are in it for power and the Constitution be damned.