Impeachment Of President Andrew Johnson example essay topic

Behind the current Clinton scandal stands the specter of Watergate. That it should be there is understandable. The bungled burglary at the Democratic Party national headquarters occurred twenty-six years ago this past summer. Next August will see the twenty-fifth anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation as President of the United States. Watergate then is still very much a part of living memory, and living memory is the type of history most relevant to the general public because it is the history with which they are most familiar. Consequently, Watergate has come to exert a powerful influence on the terms of reference by which people understand the Clinton scandal.

Some analogies to Watergate are admittedly quite apt. Monica Lewinsky's stained cocktail dress was a 'smoking gun,' providing definitive proof the President lied in denying a sexual relationship with the intern. Clinton's August 17 confession also was a quintessential 'modified limited hangout. ' However, much of the use of Watergate analogies distorts the meaning and significance of the Clinton case.

Some of the distortion is merely irritating. For instance, a lot of journalists and politicians seem to have the ambition of becoming the Howard Baker of the scandal. Lately, there have appeared too many strained variations on his classic line, 'What did the President know, and when did he know it?' However, the Watergate-isms forced on the Clinton scandal are not all the product of awkward attempts to paraphrase Howard Baker or the temporal proximity of Watergate. There also has been a conscious attempt by some Clinton opponents to emphasize Watergate in order to make Bill Clinton's misdeeds seem more serious than they are in reality.

While these efforts are understandable politically, they are questionable historically. Of greater disappointment to this historian has been the temporal myopia in the search for insight into the Clinton scandal. Watergate was not the first serious attempt to impeach a president. Seldom mentioned in the discussion of the troubles of William Jefferson Clinton is the impeachment of his fellow Southerner, Andrew Johnson. In May 1868, Johnson came closer than any president did in American history to involuntary removal from office. At his trial in the U.S. Senate that spring, he avoided conviction by only one vote.

The neglect of the case of Andrew Johnson is unfortunate. Johnson's impeachment provides more insight into the current travails of Bill Clinton than Watergate, and suggests the ultimate resolution of the impeachment proceedings soon to get underway in the U.S. House of Representatives. However, since the Johnson's impeachment exists outside living memory, it will be necessary to discuss the background of the case at some length. Andrew Johnson became President of the United States after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. As a Southerner and a Democrat, Johnson was an unlikely president in 1865. He owed his nomination as Vice-President to wartime politics.

As Lincoln struggled for reelection in the tight 1864 campaign, he was forced to reach out to marginal constituencies. Such minor voting blocs included white Southerners who had stayed loyal to the United States after the formation of the Confederacy. Lincoln also hoped to gain the votes of Democrats who favored a continuation of the Civil War. (Lincoln's Democratic opponent, George McClellan, called for an armistice and convention of the states to restore the Union by peaceful means.) Prominent among these Southern unionists and War Democrats was Andrew Johnson. Johnson was the only U.S. Senator from a seceded state that did not resign and join the Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil War. During the conflict, he served as the governor of Union-occupied Tennessee, his home state.

Hence, Johnson owed his nomination as Vice-President in 1864 to Lincoln's effort to persuade Southern unionists and War Democrats to vote for his reelection. Indeed, bringing Johnson aboard the ticket required Lincoln to repackage the Republicans that year as the 'National Union' party because his running mate was a Democrat. Johnson became President as the Civil War was rapidly coming to a close. Hence, the issue on the mind of the nation as the Tennessean entered the White House was not the conduct of the war, but the status of the postwar South. Johnson, like his predecessor, Abraham Lincoln, favored a lenient peace in which all but the highest-ranking Confederates would be restored to their full rights as U.S. citizens, and normal state government quickly reestablished in the South.

Johnson demanded only two substantial concessions before the Southern states regained their full status within the union: that they repudiate Confederate government debts and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which ended slavery. The Southern states quickly acceded, and by the end of 1865, Johnson believed that the process of reconstruction essentially was complete. However, in his rapid reintegration of the South into the union, Johnson made enemies of an influential faction in the Republican Party, the Radicals. The Radicals believed that Johnson had thrown away a golden opportunity to impose fundamental reforms on Southern society. In particular, the Radicals wanted African Americans to be accorded full citizenship and black men given the right to vote. When Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights bill in early 1866 that provided for the citizenship of African Americans the Radicals began to advocate openly his impeachment.

They believed that unless the President could be removed from office, he would be in a position to frustrate their ambitions for interracial government in the South. Moderate and conservative Republicans initially resisted the calls for impeachment. Moderate Republicans had joined the Radicals in supporting the Civil Rights bill because they recognized that black citizenship and suffrage were the only means of sustaining a politically viable Republican Party in the South. Having provided a basis for a Southern Republican Party moderates felt they could compromise with the President on other Reconstruction-related legislation.

However, Andrew Johnson imprudently rejected their overtures. For example, Johnson refused a compromise on the Freedmen's Bureau bill, which sought to extend the life of the federal agency assisting former slaves in the transition to freedom. Many Republicans also were offended by the extreme generosity with which Johnson issued pardons to former high-ranking Confederates. Still, while Johnson's actions alienated moderate and conservative Republicans and forced them to cooperate with the Radicals in the formulation of Reconstruction policy, impeachment was too extreme a measure for non-Radicals to support in 1866.

Over time though, Andrew Johnson's character defects played into the hands of his Radical Republican enemies. He was not undermined by an unchecked libido, but by an uncompromising self-righteousness. When Johnson became convinced that he was right and his enemies were wrong nothing could persuade him to accommodate the beliefs of his opponents. The President was especially unyielding on one particular issue. Like virtually all white Southerners in the 1860's, Johnson took for granted that black people were an inferior race and, consequently, he strongly supported white supremacy. Hence, he had vetoed the Civil Rights bill because Johnson believed that the settlement of racial issues in the South should be left to white Southerners, without federal interference.

Johnson supported the Black Codes passed by southern legislatures following the war, which severely restricted the activities of African Americans and reduced their status to a state of quasi-slavery. In short, on the issue of white supremacy and the ability of white Southerners to decide alone the nature of Southern society after the war, Johnson would not budge. It was the intransigence of the President about white supremacy that ultimately resulted in his downfall. Like the Clinton saga, congressional elections played a notable role in the outcome of Johnson's case. The Republican Party scored a smashing success in the congressional elections of November 1866, winning a two-thirds majority in the House and a three-quarters majority in the Senate.

This put them in a position to override Andrew Johnson's vetoes at will. Congress did not wait long after the election to take control of Reconstruction policy from the President. Over the Johnson's veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867 early that year. This legislation set up a mechanism for replacing the state governments created under Johnson's lenient policies and put the South under military authority, pending state constitutional conventions that would organize new civilian governments, in which African Americans would have full rights of suffrage and political participation. Still, despite the enormous Republican majority in Congress, Johnson remained defiant.

He vetoed congressional actions that he opposed and was regularly overridden. His intransigence played into the hands of the Radicals, spurring moderate and even conservative Republican support for the Radical vision of Reconstruction. Yet he remained a thorn in the side of the Radicals. His executive authority allowed him to interfere in the application of congressional reconstruction in the field.

Particularly troublesome was Johnson's position as commander-in-chief of the military. As it was the army that implemented congressional policies in the South, the President was still in an excellent position to obstruct the Radicals. Of special concern to Congress was Johnson's Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. Stanton was a holdover from the Lincoln administration, and had over time shifted politically toward the Radical wing of the Republican Party.

While most Republicans had quit Johnson's cabinet by 1867, Stanton remained and was the most powerful and influential Radical in the executive branch. Understandably, the decision of Congress in early 1867 to take over Reconstruction policy made the Secretary of War vulnerable. Johnson knew that he could not expect Stanton's support in hamstringing the implementation of congressional reconstruction. For those same reasons, congressional Republicans, especially the Radicals wanted to keep Stanton as Secretary of War. He would be an excellent agent of Congress in bypassing the President.

To keep Stanton in office and protect other congressional supporters still in the executive branch, Congress passed, in March 1867, the Tenure of Office Act. This legislation extended the power of the U.S. Senate in its role to 'advise and consent. ' Heretofore, the Senate had had the authority to accept or reject presidential appointments. The Tenure of Office Act expanded that power by giving the Senate the right to accept or to reject the dismissal of presidential appointees. Under this law, the president could not remove incumbents in the executive branch while the Senate was in session without a majority vote in favor of the action. When the Senate was not in session, the president could suspend an official and appoint a temporary replacement.

However, the new officeholder's job would not become permanent until the Senate returned and confirmed the replacement. If it declined to do so, the old officeholder returned to their post. Johnson vetoed the Tenure of Office Act when the bill initially reached his desk, believing it to be an unconstitutional invasion of presidential powers. The Republican super-majority in Congress quickly overrode the veto.

If the Tenure of Office Act was meant to cow Andrew Johnson, it was not a success -- although the President did not immediately challenge the law. Instead, he made the utmost use of his remaining executive authority. During the summer of 1867, while Congress was in recess, Johnson suspended Edwin M. Stanton under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, replacing him with the commanding general of the U.S. army, Ulysses S. Grant. He also removed from their commands, army generals like Phillip Sheridan and Daniel Sickles, who sympathized with the Radicals. Still, the suspension of Stanton and the removal of Sheridan and Sickles did not precipitate an immediate crisis.

While Johnson's actions angered the Radicals even further, they still could not get other Republicans to agree to recall Congress for impeachment proceedings because Johnson had not violated the Tenure of Office Act and he had been entirely within his authority as commander-in-chief to relieve army officers. Non-Radicals also resisted calls for impeachment because Johnson remained useful to them on political issues unrelated to Reconstruction. In particular, many Non-Radical Republicans found common ground with Johnson on such important matters as monetary and fiscal policy. The final impeachment crisis began with the state and local elections in the fall of 1867. Democrats reduced Republican majorities in the state legislatures throughout the North. Johnson interpreted these election results and the defeat of drives to give African Americans suffrage in the Northern states as a popular mandate to increase his resistance to the Radicals.

The decisive failure of an impeachment vote forced by the Radicals on the House of Representatives in December 1867 by a vote of 57 to 108 also encouraged the President to be more defiant. He resumed replacing generals in the South whom he perceived as being too supportive of Congress. Still, because Johnson was commander-in-chief, moderate and conservative Republicans continued to refuse to change their mind about impeachment despite the additional removals. It was Ulysses S. Grant who, in January 1868, finally prompted Andrew Johnson to go too far in his attempts to obstruct congressional reconstruction. Grant, the leading Northern Civil War general, had served Johnson as acting Secretary of War since the suspension of Stanton in August of the previous year.

General Grant also was the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 1868. However, to win the presidency, he would need to unite the Republican Party and gain the support of the Radicals, many of whom opposed his candidacy. Having accepted Johnson's appointment out of a sense of loyalty to the nation rather than the President personally, on January 13, 1868, Grant resigned as acting Secretary of War. Instead of surrendering his post to Johnson, in act calculated to win the gratitude of the Radicals, Grant surrendered it to Stanton. Bolstering Grant's decision to surrender his office to Stanton was a Senate resolution made the previous month (December) that rejected Johnson's suspension of Stanton and demanded his reinstatement. The prospect of having Stanton back as Secretary of War proved intolerable to Andrew Johnson.

He dithered for a month over whether to suspend Stanton again and find a replacement that Congress would accept, or dismiss Stanton outright. Encouraged by the second failure of the Radicals to push through an impeachment bill on February 14, a week later, on February 21, 1868, Johnson formally fired Edwin M. Stanton in defiance of the Tenure of Office Act. Stanton's dismissal led to a bizarre standoff that the current twenty-four hour media would have loved to cover. After Grant's resignation, Stanton had reoccupied his old office. Upon receiving his termination notice from Johnson, he refused to recognize its legality. However, Stanton became afraid that if he left his office that he might never be able to get back in.

Hence, the Secretary of War literally camped out at the War Department building from February 21 until mid-April, when he finally felt secure enough to go home at night. Andrew Johnson had not meant to prompt his own impeachment when he fired Edwin M. Stanton. Rather, Johnson felt he was finally in a secure enough position to challenge what he perceived was a blatantly unconstitutional law. In sacking the Secretary of War, the President believed he was merely asserting his constitutional authority against an illegal attempt by Congress to invade the prerogatives of the executive branch. Johnson wanted to initiate a Supreme Court case and not impeachment proceedings. There also was uncertainty whether the Tenure of Office Act covered Stanton since Lincoln had appointed him Secretary of War years before its passage.

In dismissing Stanton, however, the President seriously miscalculated the response of Congress. Not only the Radicals, but also moderate and conservative Republicans believed Johnson's action to be a blatant challenge to Congress' legitimate authority to make laws. Hence, the result of Stanton's firing was a third and successful impeachment vote in the House. On February 24, 1868, Johnson was impeached by a vote of 128 to 47 (with fifteen members abstaining).

The vote was strictly on party lines. After the successful impeachment vote, Johnson's case was bound over for trial in the Senate. In the haste to impeach Johnson, the eleven articles of impeachment were drafted only after the impeachment vote in the House. The articles dealt with his violation of the Tenure of Office and related events. The trial of the President in the Senate commenced in March 1868, and positions of the prosecution and defense were predictable. U.S. Representative Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts, acting as the chief prosecutor, presented the evidence that Johnson had violated the Tenure of Office Act.

Former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis, representing the President, emphasized that Andrew Johnson had been within his rights under the Constitution in firing Stanton and questioned whether Stanton was even covered under the statute. The basic implication of Curtis was that Johnson could not be removed because he had not committed a crime. Radicals in the Senate countered that even if Johnson had not committed criminal acts he could still be removed for political reasons. With delays caused by the illness of some of the important participants, the trial dragged on for eleven weeks into May 1868. It was not until May 16, 1868, that the Senate began voting on the eleven articles of impeachment. With thirty-five senators voting for guilt, Johnson failed to be removed by one vote, thirty-six votes -- a two-thirds majority -- being needed to convict.

Twelve Democrats and seven Republicans voted for acquittal. Scholars agree that Andrew Johnson was safe from conviction from the start. Enough Senate Republicans had pledged they would vote to acquit if necessary to prevent the two-thirds majority necessary for conviction because they feared that removing a president over what was essentially a policy disagreement would set a dangerous precedent for the future. So what does the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson have to do with the Clinton scandal?

First, it mus be admitted that there are considerable differences in both cases. The Johnson impeachment, the Clinton scandal, and Watergate for that matter, took place in significantly different historical contexts. The Johnson case occurred in the aftermath of the bloodiest war in American history, during a painful period of social, economic, and political recovery and reorganization. Watergate played out in the midst of significant domestic discord created by Vietnam, a weak economy, and weariness with the Cold War. The Clinton scandal is taking place during a period of domestic prosperity, tinged with worry over foreign economic crisis and lurking dangers in various locations around the world in the wake of the Cold War. The event underlying each impeachment is also quite dissimilar.

Congress impeached Johnson over his violation of a constitutionally questionable law. It forced Nixon's resignation over his cover up of illegal activities, not limited to the Watergate break-in, that challenged constitutional government and the integrity of the democratic process. Clinton is in trouble for having an extramarital relationship with a low-ranking subordinate, lying about it to the entire nation, and possibly committing criminal acts in concealing the affair. Yet the simple fact is, that despite the overwhelming use of Watergate as the main historical parallel, the Clinton scandal has much more in common with the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. These similarities can be divided into two types. First, there are the parallels of the two cases thus far.

Second, there is what the Johnson case suggests about the ultimate outcome of the Clinton impeachment proceedings. The parallels in the history of the travails of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton are surprisingly strong. For starters, both Clinton and Johnson became the nemesis of extremist ideologues bent on using Congress to remake American society. As previously indicated, Andrew Johnson clashed with the Radical Republicans, who wished to use congressional power to create interracial government in the South. While the Radical's plan may seem appropriate to late twentieth-century Americans, in the 1860's it struck many white Americans as extreme and impractical. Similarly, Bill Clinton has jousted for most of his presidency, but especially since 1994, with the Republican right.

Led by Newt Gingrich, these conservative Republicans took control of Congress in early 1995. In their 'Contract with America' they proposed a major shift in federal policy, and attacked the legacy of the Democratic Party's Great Society and the New Deal. Gingrich and his supporters wanted to reduce the size and power of the federal government, shifting money and responsibility for many federal functions to the states. They also demanded a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, and pushed for legislation enacting significant tax cuts, time limits on welfare eligibility, cuts in entitlement programs, the elimination of some cabinet departments and federal agencies created under the Great Society, and a social agenda to satisfy their supporters coming from the Christian right -- especially greater restrictions on abortion.

More moderate Republicans went along with the conservatives, at least initially, because the latter group had come up with the political vision responsible for finally ousting the Democrats from their control of Congress after forty years. Both Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton became the archenemy of these political revolutionaries, in part, because of their ability to frustrate them. Clinton undoubtedly proved more skillful politically in blocking the ideologues. He cast himself as the champion of centrists in both parties alienated by Republican and Democratic extremists, the strategy that his political advisor Dick Morris dubbed 'triangulation. ' Following triangulation, Clinton emerged as the clear victor from the government shutdown during the winter of 1995-96, which effectively sapped the 'Republican Revolution' of its momentum and put the President on the road to reelection in 1996.

Andrew Johnson, of course, proved much less adept in his dealings with Congress, alienating non-Radical Republicans and getting overridden more than any other president in American history. Nonetheless, he continued to obstruct the Radicals through his use of executive power to hamper the implementation of congressional reconstruction in the South. However, Johnson and Clinton also became archenemies of the ideologues of their time because of their background and reputation. Both men elicited a deep hatred among their enemies almost defying comprehension. Clinton became a lightening rod for the anger of conservative Republicans upset about having lost the White House in 1992.

To these hard-liners, Bill Clinton was a draft-dodging, pot-smoking, wife-cheating hypocrite, exuding false empathy, who utterly lacked the requisite character necessary for the oval office. Clinton also had an intelligent, aggressive, and career-oriented spouse, who provided social conservatives with an emotional outlet for their anxiety over the increasingly prominent role of women in American society. The Radicals of the late 1860's felt that Andrew Johnson, as a Southerner, Democrat, and former slaveholder, was of unfit character to be president in the wake of the Civil War. At a time when Republicans learned they could energize Northern voters by 'waving the bloody shirt' (that is, connecting the Democrats to Southern treason), Johnson was a tempting target, especially because of the leniency he had extended to his fellow Southerners and his unbending self-righteousness. Hence, believing that the president in question was unsuited to be in office and as an effective opponent of their agenda, the drumbeat for impeachment began among the frustrated Republican extremists in both the 1860's and 1990's.

There was private talk of impeaching Johnson among the Radicals as early as the autumn of 1865, about half a year into his presidency. This sentiment for impeachment, as has been discussed, broke into the open with Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights bill in early 1866. Likewise, within a year of taking office in January 1993, an 'Impeach Clinton' movement began among Republican conservatives. Some very extreme conservatives went even farther. In late 1993, an advertisement appeared in the classified pages of William F. Buckley's National Review, selling bumper stickers stating 'Impeach Him Hell - Get a Rope. ' More to the point, the zeal to remove an unfit, obstructionist president fueled wide-ranging investigations led by political enemies of both Johnson and Clinton, looking for impeachable offenses.

The probes of Bill Clinton, of course, hardly bear repeating. They began with an investigation of the failed Whitewater project, and came to include Clinton's alleged harassment of Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey, alleged improper firings of White House travel office personnel, the alleged misuse of FBI background files, the suspicious death of Vince Foster, alleged violations of campaign finance laws by the 1996 Clinton / Gore reelection operation, and last but not least, the probe into the relationship between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. There also developed a cottage industry of investigative activity by conservatives-the so-called 'right-wing conspiracy' -- that purported to tie Clinton to drug trafficking, and even murder and treason. Less commonly known are the wide-ranging investigations of Andrew Johnson. If Bill Clinton's principal b^eye noir has been Kenneth Starr, Andrew Johnson's arch-nemesis was James M. Ashley, a Radical member of the House of Representatives from Ohio. (The concept of a special prosecutor or independent counsel had not yet been devised.) Using the mantle of the House Judiciary Committee and employing private detectives, Ashley probed Johnson's pardons of high-ranking Confederates, the manner in which President made political appointments, his personal finances, and -- in an investigation worthy of Vince Foster -- whether Johnson had had any role in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

To the disappointment of the Radicals, Ashley's investigations failed to find any hard proof of wrongdoing on Andrew Johnson's part. These failed investigations, by the Radical Republicans in the 1860's and the conservative Republicans of the 1990's initially foiled the ideologues in their efforts to impeach the president. In both cases, more moderate members of Congress refused to start impeachment proceedings without plausible proof of criminal activity. The reluctance of non-Radicals to impeach Andrew Johnson can be seen by two unsuccessful impeachment votes in the House of Representatives prior to the successful third vote. As long as Johnson did not violate the Tenure of Office Act, moderate and conservative Republicans refused to join the Radicals in voting for impeachment. Likewise, there was reluctance among many Republicans in the Clinton case to begin impeachment proceedings without some hard evidence of wrongdoing by the President.

Indeed, it was not until the Lewinsky scandal broke that all but the most extreme right-wing Republican members of Congress would seriously entertain actual impeachment proceedings. Those persons castigating Henry Hyde, the present chair of the House Judiciary Committee, for his lack of fairness would do well to remember that in November 1997 (two months before the Lewinsky scandal broke), Hyde refused to act on a request by Representative Bob Barr of Georgia and seventeen other House Republicans that the Judiciary Committee open an impeachment inquiry against Bill Clinton. Hence, for both Johnson and Clinton, calls for impeachment by extremists in Congress were blocked by the refusal of more moderate members to act without reasonable evidence of impeachable crimes. Still, in both the 1860's and in the present case, the character defects of the president in question provided their enemies with the ammunition needed to overcome the reluctance of moderates and ignite impeachment proceedings.

Clinton, of course, has been undone by his sexual proclivities. His womanizing reputation was well known by the public that elected him, but the unstated assumption seemed to be that the President had promised to be on his best behavior while he was in the White House. Breaking that implied pledge and continuing to deny the affair until faced with physical evidence alienated support even inside his own party. Johnson's fatal flaw, as previously indicated, was his rigid self-righteousness and absolute unwillingness to compromise on a matter of principle.

By vetoing Reconstruction legislation in order to protect white supremacy in the South and then using his executive power to obstruct its implementation, Johnson alienated potential allies and increased the power of the Radicals in the Republican Party. As long as he stayed within acceptable bounds of executive power, moderate and conservative Republicans refused to join the Radicals in supporting impeachment. It took Johnson's violation of the Tenure of Office Act to convince the non-Radical Republicans in the House that the President merited removal from office. That finishes the summary of the similarities of the Johnson and Clinton cases thus far.

So what does the experience of Andrew Johnson with impeachment suggest about what is in store for Bill Clinton in the weeks and months to come? To put it in a nutshell, if the similarities of the men's situations continue, Clinton can expect to be impeached in the House, but not to suffer removal from office. By saying this, I am going out on a limb, but another distinct parallel in these two cases suggests that Clinton can expect to meet a similar fate to Andrew Johnson. Like the Republicans of the late 1860's, the Republican Party of the late 1990's is divided between moderate and hard-line factions.

In truth, this division is more of a continuum, and even the Republican right is split between social and economic conservatives. Still, it is these divisions that probably will be as decisive a factor in deciding Bill Clinton's fate as they were for Andrew Johnson, 130 years ago. That is, the resolution of the Clinton case will stem from the Republican efforts to maintain peace within its divided ranks. Keeping harmony within the Republican Party, of course, will not be the only matter under consideration in its handling of this matter, but this factor has been often overlooked in recent weeks as the press has stirred up excitement about the 1998 midterm elections, by attempting to turn them into a referendum on the future of the Clinton presidency. However, this emphasis by the press has ignored the fact that Republicans have thus far proven largely indifferent to public opinion in launching the impeachment inquiry.

They went ahead with the inquiry because of the recognition that many of the people polled do not vote, and that an impeachment proceeding energizes conservative Republicans to go to the polls. Unless the November elections go badly against them, it is likely that the Republican leadership will continue to forge ahead with impeachment proceedings to please the right wing of their party. In other words, the need to maintain Republican unity, like in the Johnson case, makes an impeachment vote in the full House likely. Hard-line Republicans will demand this vote and moderates, for the sake of peace in the party and from a sense of genuine revulsion at Clinton's behavior, will go along with the conservatives.

Given the approbation that would attach to any Republican not voting to impeach and the likely Republican majority in the next Congress, I predict that Bill Clinton like Andrew Johnson will be impeached in the House. This vote probably will be on party lines or close to it, with Republicans voting for impeachment and Democrats against. Thus, since only a simple majority is required for a successful impeachment, Clinton can expect to lose in the House. Few Republicans there will risk the wrath of the party's conservative, Clinton-hating wing, by voting against impeachment. Indeed, in impeaching Clinton, the Republican majority will submit the President to a form of humiliation far preferable to them than censure or some other lesser punishment. Preserving unity in the Republican ranks also makes a Senate trial, like in the Johnson case, a distinct possibility.

Republican hard-liners will not be satisfied with merely the humiliation of impeachment. Their goal all along has been to force Bill Clinton out of office. While the two-third majority in the Senate necessary for conviction makes the President's removal from office unlikely, Republican conservatives will pressure moderates against a plea bargain with the President after he is impeached. The Republican right will see a Senate trial as their final opportunity to foment public outrage or expose some new offense by Clinton that might convert enough Democratic senators to make conviction possible.

Moderate Republicans, depending on poll numbers, their estimation of the President's remaining political strength, and the need to main party unity, might very well go along with conservative's demands for a Senate trial. However, like their counterparts in the Andrew Johnson case, I believe the Republican Senate leadership will do everything in its power to prevent an actual Senate conviction of Bill Clinton. For them, a weakened President Clinton will be preferable to allowing Al Gore the opportunity of campaigning for President in 2000 from the oval office. In fact, just as practical Republicans want to keep a weakened Bill Clinton in office, their counterparts in 1868 voted to acquit Andrew Johnson, in part, to block the presidential ambitions of Benjamin Wade.

Elected from Ohio, Wade was the President pro them of the Senate in 1868. Because Johnson had no Vice President, under the rules of presidential succession at the time, Wade would have replaced the President had the Senate voted to convict Johnson. As an arch-Radical, more moderate Republicans did not want Wade succeeding Andrew Johnson and enjoying the powers of presidential patronage which would have made him a formidable rival to U.S. Grant in the race for the Republican Party presidential nomination that year. In short, for the moderate Republicans of the present day, House impeachment and no Senate conviction best serves their interests: it subjects the President to the most painful form of political humiliation possible short of removal from office, preserves party unity, and keeps the Al Gore from an advantageous position from which to rehabilitate Democratic Party fortunes. Is this scenario inevitable? -- of course not. No historical situation is ever quite the same.

In fact, I hope I am wrong in my predictions, since impeachment proceedings in the House and a Senate trial will distract the nation from attention to important domestic and international concerns, and will increase partisan bitterness for years to come. Still, I present these remarks in the hope that people will stop talking quite so much about Watergate and little more about Andrew Johnson when looking to understand the Clinton case. While the Johnson and Clinton cases are admittedly apples and oranges, people have been comparing apples and tomatoes (the tomato being Watergate) without really realizing it. Let me close by making two final points. First, the Johnson case set an important precedent.

By not removing Andrew Johnson from office, the U.S. Senate determined that a President should not be removed simply for a political disagreement with the legislative branch. The case established that criminal activity would be necessary to justify the extreme step of overturning a presidential election. In fact, President Nixon resigned in 1974 because his own tapes proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had committed crimes. The Clinton case, if it ends in the manner I expect, with Clinton impeached, but not removed, should set another precedent. That the crimes committed by a president -- and there is still disagreement about whether he did commit crimes -- must reach a certain threshold of seriousness, in the opinion of a true bipartisan coalition, to merit removal from office. Second, if Clinton is impeached do not expect him to slip quietly into political oblivion: Andrew Johnson did not.

Seven years after his impeachment, in 1875, Andrew Johnson once again won a seat in the U.S. Senate, the body that had come so close to removing him from the presidency. Bill Clinton also seems inclined to political non-retirement. Perhaps the 'comeback kid' will win a seat in the House of Representatives like another ex-president, John Quincy Adams. There he can continue to bedevil the Republican right, and demonstrate that like Andrew Johnson political redemption is only an election away.