High Crimes and Midemeanors: a Review of The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson
After putting it down and picking it back up off and on for a couple of months, I finally finished The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson by Michael Les Benedict. It began well enough, but soon became technical and dry. It is probably useful for someone undertaking a scholarly study of the impeachment, but it does not make exciting casual reading (even for a dry, technical, scholarly sort of fellow like me). Besides, I did not care for the author's thesis. The short version of the author's thesis: Andy Johnson had it coming.
The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson argues that although Johnson's impeachment did not succeed in removing him from office, it was a justified step. According to Benedict, Johnson's obstruction of Reconstruction and his political removal of certain presidentially appointed officers (most significantly Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton) demonstrated his willingness to ignore the laws passed by Congress, and thus violated his role as chief executive. Johnson's viewpoint was that he should not enforce unconstitutional laws and that if Congress could interfere with his removal and appointment of officers, it was an unjustifiable intrusion upon the powers of the executive branch by the legislature. Furthermore, his supporters said that impeachment was only for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that differing interpretations of the Constitution or on how to implement Reconstruction were political rather than legal questions.
Because the justifiable (in his opinion) impeachment failed to remove Andrew Johnson, Benedict concludes (in early 1972) that no president will ever be forced to be accountable for his actions or be removed from office. A footnote tries to explain why he could never have predicted the Watergate scandal that arose between the completion of his manuscript and its publication. He was proven wrong again by Clinton's impeachment (although the fact that it failed to remove Clinton from office might prove Benedict right, although Clinton's impeachment was at least as political and Johnson's, if not more so, despite real instances of perjury).
Overall, I do not recommend the book except to someone undertaking a serious scholarly study of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and even then there may be more exhaustive (it is under 200 pages in length) and up-to-date works.
The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson argues that although Johnson's impeachment did not succeed in removing him from office, it was a justified step. According to Benedict, Johnson's obstruction of Reconstruction and his political removal of certain presidentially appointed officers (most significantly Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton) demonstrated his willingness to ignore the laws passed by Congress, and thus violated his role as chief executive. Johnson's viewpoint was that he should not enforce unconstitutional laws and that if Congress could interfere with his removal and appointment of officers, it was an unjustifiable intrusion upon the powers of the executive branch by the legislature. Furthermore, his supporters said that impeachment was only for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that differing interpretations of the Constitution or on how to implement Reconstruction were political rather than legal questions.
Because the justifiable (in his opinion) impeachment failed to remove Andrew Johnson, Benedict concludes (in early 1972) that no president will ever be forced to be accountable for his actions or be removed from office. A footnote tries to explain why he could never have predicted the Watergate scandal that arose between the completion of his manuscript and its publication. He was proven wrong again by Clinton's impeachment (although the fact that it failed to remove Clinton from office might prove Benedict right, although Clinton's impeachment was at least as political and Johnson's, if not more so, despite real instances of perjury).
Overall, I do not recommend the book except to someone undertaking a serious scholarly study of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and even then there may be more exhaustive (it is under 200 pages in length) and up-to-date works.