First impeachment inquiry into Andrew Johnson

[4] On January 7, 1867, Benjamin F. Loan, John R. Kelso, and James Mitchell Ashley each introduced three separate impeachment resolutions against Johnson.

[2] John Evans and Jerome B. Chaffee gave testimony related to Johnson's veto of a bill for the admission of Colorado as a state.

This motion to refer Loan's resolution to the committee already tasked with addressing a prospective impeachment was ultimately agreed to by the House.

Among the matters investigated and for which testimony was taken was the question of whether Johnson played a role in the removal of eighteen missing pages from Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth's personal journal.

He testified that had disclosed to him that Johnson had secret methods for communicating with "his friends in the South" and that she was herself involved in a trade of selling presidential pardons to confederates.

[4][23] The committee investigated whether Johnson had improper connections to southerners that had been sold back railroad assets that had been seized by the Union Army during the Civil War.

[25] At the start of the 40th Congress, Congressman Benjamin Buter unsuccessfully urged the Republican caucus to create a special panel to continue the impeachment inquiry.

[4] On March 7, 1867, the third day of the 40th Congress, Ashley introduced a resolution calling for the impeachment investigation by the Judiciary Committee to be continue.

John Bingham countered Logan's argument by claiming that, in the eight precedents of federal impeachment cases in the United States, all but one had seen the matter referred to the Judiciary Committee, and that the one exception had led to a ridiculous blunder.

[3] John Bingham and James F. Wilson (the chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary) killed this effort by the Radical Republicans.

This would ultimately cause increased Republican anxiety over Johnson's obstruction and lead to the Judiciary Committee reversing their majority stance on impeachment.

However, the attorney general's legal opinions found that the commanders had no power to remove local officials who acted against congressional policies.

The new charge was that Johnson had, allegedly at the request of Lincoln assassination conspirator John Surratt's counsel, given a full pardon to Confederate Stephen F. Cameron.

The resolution also instructed the committee to, in the first week of the second session of the 40th Congress, report evidence to the House on this together with the testimony already collected in the impeachment inquiry.

However, Conservative Republicans, led by Representatives John Bingham and James G. Blaine and Senators Lyman Trumbull and William P. Fessenden succeeded in blocking this effort.

[33] On October 31, James F. Wilson denied rumors that he had written a correspondence declaring favor for sending an impeachment resolution to the full House.

[6][31] The majority approved a resolution which read, "Resolved, That Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors.

After the committee vote became public, Churchill published a lengthy letter in The New York Times explaining the reason for his change of mind,[31] writing in part, The President in the exercise of his constitutional powers, by such changes of military commanders, or such withdrawal of troops from the reconstructed States, or such other acts as should destroy the confidence of loyalists and freedmen in prompt military protection in the exercise of their suffrage, at any time before the new State Governments shall have been established, and shall have set in operation a machinery of their own for the protection of their citizens, would make it impossible to carry a single Southern State in accordance with the views of a majority of Congress.

The report wrote that the primary issue to fault Johnson with was, "the great salient point of accusation, standing out in the foreground, and challenging the attention of the country, is the usurpation of power, which involves, of course, a violation of law."

The New York Times believed that the report actually helped the president by debunking persistent rumors that he had been involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln.

[31][38] The report alleged that Johnson had acted in the interest of empowering the former Southern rebels, By pardoning their offenses, resorting lands, and bringing them back, their hearts unrepentant, and their hands yet red with the blood of our people, into a condition where they could once more embarrass and defy, if not absolutely rule the government in which they had vainly endeavored to destroy.

[19][18] The Republican minority report, written by Wilson, wrote that, while they were against impeachment, they believed Johnson, "deserves the censure and condemnation of every well-disposed citizen."

He made a four-hour presentation, stretched over two legislative days (December 5 and 6, 1867), which historian Michael Les Benedict later described as, "the clearest, most eloquent, and most convincing argument for the liberal view of the impeachment power".

[40] Boutwell argued that impeachment power, "is subject to no revision or control", but is rather solely to be guided by the judgement of the House of Representatives.

[40] Wilson warned that a broad interpretation of impeachment powers, as Boutwell championed, in theory could allow the House to effectively dictate the policy of presidents.

Boutwell had also argued against the minority's stance by characterizing their view as one under which an officer who committed murder in such a manner that they would be outside of United States court jurisdiction would be immune to impeachment.

Michael Les Benedict has opined, "Wilson's blunt analysis of the inconstancies between Boutwell's brilliant speech and William's mediocre report did tremendous damage to the impeachers' case.

In addition to this Democratic partisan electoral successes, it was also alarming to Republicans that Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, and Ohio all rejected propositions to grant African Americans suffrage by large margins.

The New York Times reported that inclusion of those claims would be seen as fatally harming the, "moral and legal effect of the prosecution" in Johnson's impeachment.

[4] The articles of impeachment that were ultimately produced by the committee were narrow in their focus and were legalistic and molded on criminal indictment, likely in direct reaction to the failure of the broad allegations cited in the 1867 effort to persuade the House members.