It was a century-and-a-half ago, March 5, 1868, when the U.S. Senate first convened as a court to hear charges against an American president. The House of Representatives had already voted to impeach a North Carolina native, President Andrew Johnson, on 11 counts of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The trial was followed closely in New Bern and much of the rest of the country as yet another round of relentless drama resulting from the recently-concluded War Between the States (1861-1865). Johnson was bitterly opposed by rival “radicals” within his own Republican party who had helped foment the war and now groused that the President, a Southerner, was being too lenient in “reconstructing” the defeated Southern rebels. Johnson’s supporters argued angrily that the impeachment was a farce; no less than an attempted coup d’état.
Born into a penniless Raleigh family, Johnson never went to school. Self-taught and a gifted orator, he prospered in business and government. His successes culminated in his election as Abraham Lincoln’s vice president and his ascension to the highest office upon Lincoln’s murder in April 1865. The finer points of impeaching Johnson began to percolate soon thereafter.
The New Berne Times of Oct 12, 1866 carried an article saying his enemies fanaticized that, should articles of impeachment be ratified, Johnson could be arrested on the spot, stripped of power and held in custody until his trial. Under the heading “The Wrecklessness of Politicians,” the Times article read: “Professed politicians – those who make politics a trade and live upon their ill-gotten gains – are a curse to the country. They are already discussing the probability of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States … as though they consider it to be a foregone conclusion that action would actually be instituted against him.”
Despite the long list of obscure charges summoned up 19 months later by the House of Representatives, in the end, the effort failed by a single vote and Johnson remained in office for another year.
by Edward Ellis, Special Correspondent
Eddie Ellis is the author of New Bern History 101 and other works about Craven County’s rich heritage. He can be reached at flexspace2@aol.com.
More at edwardellis.com