The only guy who was ever tried in the Senate for removal from the Office of President was Andrew Johnson. He was tried simply because he fired his Secretary of War (now Sec of Defense), hardly what we would call a crime today.
That Congress came very close to impeaching and removing Andrew Johnson from office on the basis they did is widely, in fact almost universally, considered a travesty of unconsitutional action.
The passions at the time were enormously high. The Radical Republicans at the time felt the South should be harshly treated after its defeat in the Civil War. The southern former slaveowners should be made to pay severely, in part to fund and make room for rising up the slaves they had so long oppressed. Andrew Johnson was suspect, having come to office upon Lincoln's assassination rather than having been directly elected to the Presidency. Further, and more ominously, he was from a border state, Tennessee, and entirely too sympathetic to the South. There was a pretext for impeaching him in his technically having committed an illegal act, by violating a law that had been passed to prevent him from removing any officer whom the Senate had voted to confirm, without the Senate's voting to accept the removal. Further, Andrew Johnson's policies were widely viewed as so soft on the South (as Lincoln had started to be before his assissination by Southerners) as to be wholly, and crucially, IMMORAL.
Nonetheless, the Constitutional arguments in the end won out, despite the fact that the Radical Republicans had the votes necessary in their political camp, to easily meet the 2/3 vote needed in the Senate.
Doug |
