Socialist Action /February 1999
The First Impeachment Trial: Andrew Johnson in 1868
By ROLAND SHEPPARD
For the second time in United States history there is an impeachment
trial in the Senate.
The defenders of President Clinton, including the Congressional Black
Caucus, argue that Clinton is not guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors."
They state that Clinton is the victim of partisan politics just like
Andrew Johnson was over 130 years ago.
They equate today's Republicans with the Radical Republicans of 1868
who tried to impeach President Andrew Johnson.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a disservice to Thadeus
Stevens and the rest of the Radical Republicans, and the historical record,
that this is being done.
The Radical Republicans were fighters for racial equality. Their position
was that the former slaves (freedmen), who were homeless, landless, and
not educated had to be rewarded for their loyalty to the union and needed
to be made whole in order to have equality.
They tried to enforce the Confiscation Act of July 1862. This act included
giving land to the former slaves ("40 acres and a mule"). They
also set up the Freedmen's Bureau, designed to provide education, health,
and welfare for Black people in the transition from slavery to freedom.
President Johnson defended the Southern slavocracy and violated the law
of the land as passed (over Johnson's veto) by the Radical Republicans in
Congress. Johnson's argument was that Congress was illegal, for it did not
include the former Confederate states.
Johnson ended the Freedmen's Bureau and opposed all actions to give freed
male slaves the right to vote. He refused to enforce the law when former
slaves were prevented from exercising their rights by force and violence
by the Southern police forces and/or the Ku Klux Klan, which was formed
in 1865.
Johnson also supported the Black Codes passed by several Southern states.
These codes said that unemployed Blacks were vagrants, who could be arrested
and hired out to the highest bidder and forced to work for that person for
a prescribed time.
Employers were also given the right to physically punish these workers.
These codes also made it illegal for Blacks to bear arms.
To thwart Johnson's refusal to enforce the laws of the land, the legislature
passed the Tenure of Office Bill-over Johnson's veto. This was done to protect
the remaining cabinet officers and government officials that had been appointed
by Lincoln and who tried to carry out the laws that Congress had passed.
When Johnson violated this law, even the moderate Republicans were for
impeachment.
If Johnson had been impeached, Benjamin Wade would have become President.
Wade was an advocate for land reform ("40 acres and a mule"),
Black and women's suffrage, and radical Reconstruction.
February is Black History month. An important part of Black history is
the destruction of Reconstruction and the establishment of Jim Crow and
racial segregation. Those who today support the fact that Johnson was not
impeached are, in reality, giving backhanded support to the establishment
of Jim Crow.
In present circumstances, the radical Republicans of the 1860s and advocates
of Black civil rights would be advocating the impeachment of Clinton for
the unconstitutional bombing of Afghanistan, the Sudan, and Iraq!
Socialist Action /February 1999 |