The attempt to remove the President from office was the only part of the radical program that failed, and this by the narrowest of margins. During the spring and summer of 1866 there was some talk among politicians of impeaching President Johnson, and in December a resolution was introduced by Representative Ashley of Ohio looking toward impeachment. Though the committee charged with the investigation of "the official conduct of Andrew Johnson" reported that enough testimony had been taken to justify further inquiry, the House took no action. There were no less than five attempts at impeachment during the next year. Stevens, Butler, and others were anxious to get the President out of the way, but the majority were as yet unwilling to impeach for merely political reasons. There were some who thought that the radicals had sufficient majorities to ensure all needed legislation and did not relish the thought of Ben Wade in the presidency. ¹ Others considered that no just grounds for action had been found in the several investigations of Johnson's record. Besides, the President's authority and influence had been much curtailed by the legislation relating to the Freedmen's Bureau, tenure of office, reconstruction, and command of the army, and Congress had also refused to recognize his amnesty and pardoning powers. ¹ Senator Wade of Ohio was President pro tempore of the Senate and by the act of 1791 would succeed President Johnson if he were removed from office. But the desire to impeach the President was increasing in power, and very little was needed to provoke a trial of strength between the radicals and the President. The drift toward impeachment was due in part to the legislative reaction against the Executive, and in part to Johnson's own opposition to reconstruction and to his use of the patronage against the radicals. Specific grievances were found in his vetoes of the various reconstruction bills, in his criticisms of Congress and the radical leaders, and in the fact, as Stevens asserted, that he was a "radical renegade." Johnson was a Southern man, an old-line State Rights Democrat, somewhat anti-negro in feeling. He knew no book except the Constitution, and that he loved with all his soul. Sure of the correctness of his position, he was too stubborn to change or to compromise. He was no more to be moved than Stevens or Sumner. To overcome Johnson's vetoes required two-thirds of each House of Congress; to impeach and remove him would require only a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate.