Synopses & Reviews
In 1868 Congress impeached President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the man who had succeeded the murdered Lincoln, bringing the nation to the brink of a second civil war. Enraged to see the freed slaves abandoned to brutal violence at the hands of their former owners, distraught that former rebels threatened to regain control of Southern state governments, and disgusted by Johnson's brawling political style, congressional Republicans seized on a legal technicality as the basis for impeachment -- whether Johnson had the legal right to fire his own secretary of war, Edwin Stanton.
The fiery but mortally ill Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania led the impeachment drive, abetted behind the scenes by the military hero and president-in-waiting, General Ulysses S. Grant.
The Senate trial featured the most brilliant lawyers of the day, along with some of the least scrupulous, while leading political fixers maneuvered in dark corners to save Johnson's presidency with political deals, promises of patronage jobs, and even cash bribes. Johnson escaped conviction by a single vote.
David Stewart, the author of the highly acclaimed The Summer of 1787, the bestselling account of the writing of the Constitution, challenges the traditional version of this pivotal moment in American history. Rather than seeing Johnson as Abraham Lincoln's political heir, Stewart explains how the Tennessean squandered Lincoln's political legacy of equality and fairness and helped force the freed slaves into a brutal form of agricultural peonage across the South.
When the clash between Congress and president threatened to tear the nation apart, the impeachment process substituted legal combat for violent confrontation. Both sides struggled to inject meaning into the baffling requirement that a president be removed only for high crimes and misdemeanors, while employing devious courtroom gambits, backstairs spies, and soaring rhetoric. When the dust finally settled, the impeachment process had allowed passions to cool sufficiently for the nation to survive the bitter crisis.
With the dramatic expansion of the powers of the presidency, and after two presidential impeachment crises in the last forty years, the lessons of the first presidential impeachment are more urgent than ever.
Review
"David Stewart's Impeached is as riveting and rollicking as the best Washington novel. There is all kinds of intrigue -- from allegations of bribery by a 'whiskey ring,' to a cabinet secretary barricading himself in his office, to an incoming vice president giving a drunken tirade on Inauguration Day -- all played out at a deadly serious time, with the Union hanging in the balance. Only it's not a novel; it's Stewart's meticulously researched re-rendering of a time in our history that, he argues persuasively, has been distorted to turn a racist and incompetent Andrew Johnson and his anti-impeachment supporters into courageous defenders of Abe Lincoln's legacy." -- Steven Brill, author of The Teamsters and After; founder of The American Lawyer and Court TV
Review
"Anyone who thinks American politics has lately been at a high level of viciousness should read this gripping story of Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial. There are fewer angels than we have thought, and more political hatred and knife work -- all with fundamental underlying issues of justice and race." -- Anthony Lewis, former New York Times columnist and author of Gideon's Trumpet
Review
"Riveting...Stewart vibrantly renders...the poisonous politics, the personal animosities and the unbridled corruption.... Likely to become the standard version of this historic clash between a president and Congress." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred)
Synopsis
David O. Stewart has practiced law in Washington, D.C., for more than a quarter of a century, defending accused criminals and challenging government actions as unconstitutional. He has argued appeals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was law clerk to Justice Lewis Powell of that Court. Having defended an impeachment trial before the United States Senate, Stewart is currently writing a book on the Andrew Johnson impeachment trial of 1868.
Visit the author's website at www.davidostewart.com.
Synopsis
By the author of The Summer of 1787, the bestselling and highly acclaimed account of the writing of the constitution, a dramatic re-creation of the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, which became the central battle of the struggle over how to reunite a nation after four years of war.
Stewart traces the impeachment saga to the social and political revolutions that rocked the South with the end of slavery and the Civil War. As president after Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat, not only failed to heal the nation’s wounds but rubbed them raw, ignoring widespread violence against the freed slaves and encouraging former rebels to resume political control of the Southern states. His high-handed actions were opposed by the equally angry and aggressive Congress, led by rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, an ardent foe of slavery who aimed to rebuild American society on principles of equality and fairness.
The titanic collision between Congress and the president was diverted into a legalistic dispute over whether Johnson could fire his own Secretary of War. Inept lawyering by Johnson’s prosecutors, combined with political deals, saved Johnson by a single vote in the Senate.
Impeached challenges the traditional version of this pivotal moment in American history, which portrays Johnson as pursuing Lincoln’s legacy by showing leniency to the former rebels. Impeached shows the compelling reasons to remove this unfortunate president from office, reveals the corrupt bargains that saved Johnson’s job, and credits Johnson’s prosecutors with seeking to remake the nation to accord with the ideals that Lincoln championed and that the Civil War was fought for.
About the Author
David O. Stewart is the author of the highly acclaimed The Summer of 1987: The Men Who Invented the Constitution and Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Jackson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy.