History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, by the House of Representatives, and his trial by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors in office, 1868 — John Shaqi
History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, by the House of Representatives, and his trial by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors in office, 1868Ross, Edmund G. (Edmund Gibson)
History
History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, by the House of Representatives, and his trial by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors in office, 1868
Ross, Edmund G. (Edmund Gibson)
Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875 -- Impeachment
This action in regard to Louisiana was accompanied, indeed in some
particulars preceded, by similar action in Arkansas. A Governor was
elected, an anti-slavery Constitution adopted, a State Government duly
installed, and Senators and Representatives in Congress elected, but
were refused admission by Congress. Mr. Sumner, when the credentials
of the Senators-elect were presented, foreshadowing the position to be
taken by the Republican leaders, offered a resolution declaring that
"a State pretending to secede from the Union, and battling against the
General Government to maintain that position, must be regarded as a
rebel State subject to military occupation and without representation
on this floor until it has been readmitted by a vote of both Houses of
Congress; and the Senate will decline to receive any such application
from any such rebel State until after such a vote by both Houses."
A few weeks later, on the 27th of June, 1864, this resolution was in
effect reported back to the Senate by the Judiciary Committee, to which
it had been referred, and adopted by a vote of 27 to 6. The same action
was had in the House of Representatives on the application of the
Representatives-elect from Arkansas for admission to that body.
This was practically the declaration of a rupture between the President
and Congress on the question of Reconstruction. It was a rebuke to Mr.
Lincoln for having presumed to treat the seceded States as still in any
sense States of the Union. It was in effect a declaration that those
States had successfully seceded--that their elimination from the
Union was an accomplished fact--that the Union of the States had been
broken--and that the only method left for their return that would be
considered by Congress was as conquered and outlying provinces, not even
as Territories with the right of such to membership in the Union; and
should be governed accordingly until such time as Congress should see
fit (IF EVER, to use the language of Mr. Stevens in the House) to
devise and establish some form whereby they could be annexed to or
re-incorporated into the Union.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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