The first Article of Impeachment stated that President Johnson was “unmindful of the high duties of his office, of his oath of office, and of the requirement of the Constitution that he should take care that the laws be faithfully executed, did unlawfully, and in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States, issue and order in writing for the removal of Edwin M. Stanton from the office of Secretary for the Department of War.” In the first article, the letter that Thomas gave to Stanton from the President was included as evidence. Johnson’s removal of Stanton and his violation of the Tenure of Office Act constituted the foundation of nine out of the eleven Articles of Impeachment. Another thing to point out is that several of the articles are identical to each other and differ only by a few words.…
A grand jury returned indictments against seven of President Nixon’s White House staff members and political supporters of the President for violation of federal statutes in the Watergate affair,. The President on the other hand was named as an un-indicted co-conspirator. The Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski filed a motion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure - Rule 17 for a subpoena duces tecum, a court summons ordering the President to appear before the court and produce tapes, documents and other tangible evidence relating to precisely identified conversations and meeting between President Nixon and his aides. The District Court initially treated the subpoena material as presumptively privileged, but then concluded that the Special Prosecutor made sufficient showing to justify a subpoena for production before trial. The District Court then issued an order for an in camera examination of the subpoenaed material, rejecting President Nixon’s contentions that the judiciary lacked authority to review his assertion of absolute executive privileged and the dispute between him and the Special Prosecutor was nonjusticiable as an “intra-executive” conflict.…
The main point of excerpt 1, is that Senator James W. Grimes does not wish to destroy the Constitution because of Andrew Johnson. Grimes understands the urgency of impeachment from Congress, however, he does not deem it necessary to go against the Constitution to get rid of him. He believes that despite the obvious conflict between the branches, a Government cannot function without all branches working together. That means legislative, executive, and the judicial branch must…
Burrs trial obviously exposes many weaknesses within the legal structure of the United States. Burr committed an obvious act of treason against the United States government by taking it upon himself to seize territory for himself. Chief Justice Marshall found Andrew Burr to be not guilty while the jury is believed to have thought different but Burr was still let off. The legal structure and government cannot work under one mans decisions in a democracy, nor can it survive with others believing…
Should Andrew Jackson stay or be removed from the twenty dollar bill? To qualify to be on the American twenty dollar bill,you have to be dead. Andrew Jackson was the 7th president of the United States and is currently on the twenty dollar bill. Jackson was responsible for things such as the Indian Removal Act and the Spoils System. Andrew Jackson should be removed from the U.S twenty dollar bill because he passed the Indian Removal Act,caused the panic of 1837, and created the Spoils System.…
Andrew Johnson should not have been convicted because you can't throw out a president just because you dislike the president and don't agree with his policies. If you could convict a president because of those reasons, we would be going through presidents left and right.…
The Election of 1800 or “The Bloodless Revolution” marked a watershed in U.S. history. This non-violent transfer of power from the Federalists to President Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican party signified a fundamental change in U.S. politics. In the beginning of his first term as president, Jefferson made it clear that he would do anything to uphold the Republican principles he held dear in his heart. Jefferson believed that the preservation of the Constitution was essential if Americans wanted to live in a “harmonious and solid country.” Unlike the…
“Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft.” Plunkitt defines honest graft as using your political office to…
This was an office that Johnson considered unconstitutional. The real reason for his impeachment was his stubborn defiance of Congress on Reconstruction. This impeachment by the House didn’t remove him office, it was more like a grand jury indictment…
President Andrew Johnson was charged with breaking the Tenure of Office Act, which was the law put in place by Congress that stated a president may not replace a government official who was appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate without the Senate’s approval (Ladenburg, 2007). Johnson wanted to fire Secretary of War Edwin Stanton who was appointed by Abraham Lincoln and vigorously disagreed with the president over Reconstruction being a Radical Republican at the time. There seem to be two ways that this incident could have gone, depending on which side one is on when dealing with the impeachment process. One side would be the case to acquit based on that Stanton was a member of the cabinet during Lincoln’s administration and could be fired by…
result in an appointment to an office even today; however, I do not agree with his methods. I do not believe the constitution is a “mere dead letter”, and I do not believe anyone, in particular politicians, should make promises they have no intention of…
It is a common mistake that people assume that Bill Clinton was impeached based solely on the fact that he had an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Some people believe that Clinton was impeached for political reasons, not for constitutional reasons (billofrightsinstitute.org), despite documentation and facts that state otherwise. For some it may remain a mystery. For others who have to live with the burden and guilt of these events, thy know the truth. These people know what they did and exactly how it hurt…
The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson was a dramatic event in politics for the United States. It was a long battle between the Southern Democrat and the Republicans. On February 24, 1868 he was impeached in the House of Representatives on eleven articles detailing his high crimes and misdemeanors. The Tenure of Office Act that was passed by congress a year before was the primary charge. He removed Edwin M. Stanton the Secretary of War and replaced him with Ulysses S. Grant. On March 2 the house agreed to the articles and the trial began three days later in the senate. The final tally of votes was one fewer than the two thirds needed. The trial ended in an acquittal which means President Johnson was not guilty of the crime he was accused of.…
In assessing the important role of Lyndon Baines Johnson in the battle for civil rights, the opinions of scholars and politicians differ enormously. Among his advocates he is viewed as “the foremost practitioner of civil rights to ever occupy the White House.” (“Civil Rights 116) Their appraisal is reasonably based on the legislative victories accomplished during his five-year presidency. His opponents on the other hand tend to question…
The trial that I am going to tell you about is very different than most other trials. In a way it is 3 or 4 different trials. First there was the Paula Jones case in which Paula Jones sued President Clinton for sexual harassment, and Clinton ended up paying an out of court settlement of $850,000. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jones) Then there was the Monica Lewinski scandal with the infamous blue dress. Based on these two scandals The House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton on 4 articles of impeachment, 2 of them passed. Then there was the Senate trial, where most of the normal trial things the I will be talking about took place. In the end the Senate fall 17 votes short of removing Mr. William Jefferson Clinton from office (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton). This was only the second time that a president has ever been impeached, the other president to be impeached was Andrew Johnson and he was only one vote short of being removed from office. Contrary to popular belief Richard Nixon was not impeached because of the Watergate Scandal, but he knew he faced near certain impeachment and most likely would also be removed from office, so he resigned before he was impeached. It is still not certain when he found out about the scandal. Since the only other time a president was impeached was in 1868 (http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/impeach/impeachmt.htm), the Congress was in a very difficult situation because nothing this had ever happened so the had very few guidlines to base everything off of.…