Common Sense

The first Presidential impeachment trial in American history, that of Andrew Johnson, a white supremacist, raised familiar issues. 

The defenders of Johnson tried to claim that a President could be impeached only if he had committed a serious crime. That rejected claim is today being advanced by the grifters defending Gen. Heelspurs. They are arguing that, yes, Heelspurs behaved badly but what he did was legal.

Thaddeus Stevens,  a famously anti-racist member of congress, presented another view in the tenth article of  Johnson impeachment. Stevens argued that Johnson had disgraced the office of the President when he had made crude speeches and threatened members of congress. In an eleventh article Stevens charged Johnson with obstruction of justice etc.  At the time, Wendell Phillips wrote that “Impeachment is the refuge of the common sense of the nation” when dealing with someone unfit for the office.