Impeaching the President
TALKING POLITICS
Catherine Carr
4.7 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2019
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the first of our American Histories series, Sarah Churchwell explains the lessons to be learned for Trump and his opponents from what happened in 1868, when President Andrew Johnson was impeached by Congress and survived his trial in the Senate by a single vote. What are 'high crimes and misdemeanours' anyway?
Talking Points:
What was Reconstruction?
- The period immediately following the Civil War and the first attempt at civil rights in the United States.
- The 14th and 15th amendments gave rights to black men. There were black legislators and black senators.
- There was also pushback, namely from what would become the Ku Klux Klan.
Johnson became president after Lincoln’s assassination: his whole presidency was about overturning the gains of Reconstruction.
- Johnson was a unionist but also a white supremacist: he basically pardoned the entire white South.
- This is the conflict that led to impeachment.
The immediate act that precipitated impeachment was Johonson breaking a law designed to restrain him, the Tenure of Office Act.
- There were 11 articles of impeachment.
- He ultimately survived by 1 vote in the Senate.
- If he had been impeached, he would have been succeeded by Benjamin Wade, a radical Republican. The moderates didn’t like this.
One of the lessons of history is that it’s almost impossible to remove the president.
- Johnson had clearly broken the law and the Senate was hostile.
- Trump has much more favorable circumstances.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Further Learning:
- How impeachment works
- Jill Lepore on the history of impeachment
- Historian Eric Foner on Reconstruction
- What does ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ really mean?
And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, my name is David Runtzman and this is Talking Politics. In the first episode of |
| 0:10.8 | our American History series Sarah Churchill tells the story of the impeachment of President |
| 0:15.8 | Andrew Johnson in the 1860s and the lessons for President Trump today. |
| 0:25.0 | Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London reviewer books. This Christmas |
| 0:30.1 | hits thoughts that counts. Give everyone you know a subscription to the LRB for just |
| 0:35.6 | 1999 and they'll throw in a free 2020 calendar featuring some of the best of their fantastic |
| 0:42.4 | cover art. Find this special festive offer at lrb.me-forward-slash-Christmas. |
| 0:53.8 | Sarah the President we're going to be talking about today the impeached Andrew Johnson. If |
| 0:58.1 | you look at the list of American presidents that sometimes are produced by historians and |
| 1:02.4 | political scientists that rank them from best to worst. Johnson's predecessor Abraham Lincoln, |
| 1:08.1 | the man he succeeded often comes top but Johnson often comes bottom. It's quite a fool |
| 1:12.2 | off. But actually if you look at the list that were produced a couple of generations |
| 1:15.6 | ago he sort of ranked somewhere in the middle and his reputation has fallen. Not so much |
| 1:20.5 | because people have changed their view about him. He was kind of useless but they've changed |
| 1:24.6 | their view about reconstruction and historians have actually shifted on this. So maybe we should |
| 1:28.5 | start with that. Say a little bit about what reconstruction was and what Andrew Johnson's |
| 1:33.2 | relationship was to it. To try to do it briefly is a challenge but we'll do our best. Reconstruction |
| 1:38.4 | is the period immediately following the end of the Civil War in 1865. It's usually held |
| 1:43.3 | to have ended in 1876 or thereabouts and what it was was the really radical first attempt |
| 1:49.7 | at civil rights in the US. I mean it was really after the emancipation of the slaves the |
| 1:54.3 | Republicans took control of state legislatures in the deep south. So we need to remind listeners |
| 2:01.8 | that over the 20th century the meanings of the Republican and the Democrat party reversed. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Catherine Carr, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Catherine Carr and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.