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https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Impeachment_Johnson.htm
Johnson proved to be an independent thinker. This was most evident following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States, when Southern states began to secede. While the secession convention met in Charleston, South Carolina, Johnson addressed the Senate and proclaimed his allegiance to the Union. Tennessee seceded, but Johnson remained in Washington. In March of 1862, President Lincoln rewarded Johnson’s loyalty with appointment as military governor of Tennessee. When Lincoln sought a second presidential term in 1864 and needed the support of “Union Democrats,” he chose Johnson as his running mate. Johnson became vice president on March 4, 1865. Forty-two days later, he was president of the United States.
The initial response to a Johnson presidency was optimistic. Even the so-called Radical Republicans, who would pursue impeachment proceedings three years later, supported the new president. “By the Gods,” proclaimed Senator Ben Wade of Ohio, “there will be no trouble now in running this government.” Such good relations quickly soured, however, as Johnson's views on Reconstruction surfaced. Within weeks, Johnson opposed political rights for freedmen and called for a lenient reconstruction policy, including pardoning former Confederate leaders. The president looked for every opportunity to block action by the Radical Republicans. He had no interest in compromise. When Johnson vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau bill in February of 1866, he broke the final ties with his Republican opponents in Congress. They responded with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, promising political rights to African Americans. In March of 1867 they also passed, over Johnson’s presidential veto, the Tenure of Office Act which was designed to limit the president’s ability to shape his cabinet by requiring that not only appointments but also dismissals be approved by the Senate.
By mid-1867, Johnson’s enemies in Congress were repeatedly promoting impeachment. The precipitant event that resulted in a third and successful impeachment action was the firing of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a Lincoln appointee and ally of the Radical Republicans in Congress. Stanton had strongly opposed Johnson's Reconstruction policies and the president hoped to replace him with Ulysses S. Grant, whom Johnson believed to be more in line with his own political thinking. In August of 1867, while Congress was in recess, Johnson suspended Stanton and appointed Grant as secretary of war ad interim. When the Senate opposed Johnson’s actions and reinstated Stanton in the fall, Grant resigned, fearing punitive action and possible consequences for his own presidential ambitions. Furious with his congressional opponents, Johnson fired Stanton and informed Congress of this action, then named Major General Lorenzo Thomas, a long-time foe of Stanton, as interim secretary. Stanton promptly had Thomas arrested for illegally seizing his office.
Sensational in every detail, the trial ended in a dramatic fashion. Johnson’s fiercest opponents in the Senate maneuvered a vote on only 3 of the 11 articles of impeachment, believing those 3 offered the greatest chance to gain conviction. On May 16, 1868, in a dramatic call of the roll, 35 senators voted to convict the president of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” while 19 senators voted to acquit. A clear majority voted against the president, but the tally fell one vote short of the necessary two-thirds majority to convict. Ten days later, when the Senate voted on articles 2 and 3, the result was the same. Notable among the 19 senators who voted to acquit were seven “Republican Recusants” who defied their party to save the impeached president. “I cannot agree to destroy the harmonious working of the Constitution,” concluded recusant senator James Grimes of Iowa, “for the sake of getting rid of an Unacceptable President.”