The President's own party was in shambles, shattered by a failed war effort and powerless before an ascendant and vengeful opposition majority. The President himself was as obstinate a man as ever "accidentally" came to reside in the White House, and butted heads with Congress over the pace, form, and scope of post-war reconstruction. This increased after mid-term elections gave the opposition even more seats in Congress, and, emboldened, they started drawing lines in the sand. All over the country, people held their breath as the President wielded the veto pen and defied the will and overrides of the legislature, until finally Congress impeached him. The proceedings were spiteful, divisive, and fraught with interpersonal animosity – still, the guys who wanted to get rid of the President only lost by one vote.
Just because something failed doesn't mean you can't learn from it. Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where I've spread a bunch of old issues of Harper's Weekly around on the floor. I've also pointed out some quotes that have a hauntingly familiar ring to them, and a few things we might want to learn from a group of radicals who went after their own Mr. 26%, way back in 1868.
I am pro-impeachment, and have been since before it was cool to say so. I felt then as I do now: that it is simply the right thing to do – our laws and very essence as a democratic republic demand it. I'm not normally one to use the "do it for the children" canard, but in this case, I'll make an exception: As Sulla came before Caesar, so too, will another would-be tyrant rise in the decades after Bush, and use the lessons learned from the earlier experience to make an even larger grab for power.
All that said, I'm not unaware of the political angle in all this. I do feel that Americans are at our best – and tend to do the right thing (at least in the end) – when we're standing on bedrock principles, but it's an inescapable fact that the pursuit of impeachment will result in bitter political fighting, and it will get personal. It happened before, in both examples from American history, but tonight I'll only be concentrating on Andrew Johnson's Trial by Senate, since, well, let's face it: that's the one around which the more earnest and thoughtful debate evolved.
The Situation Is Completely Different!
Yes, it is different, in the sense of the particulars, and if this were a standard History for Kossacks diary, I'd try to maintain a semblance of objectivity and just tell the story. Tonight, though, my goal is to look at the greater debates – the "higher law" stuff, to paraphrase a man of the times – and for that, I'll need to dispense with the elongated context and set the scene with a handy-dandy list of comparisons:
Childhood:
- Johnson Born into poverty in North Carolina; father died young, mom scrubbed tavern floors; ran away from apprenticeship as a teen
- Bush Silver-spoon, old-school Connecticut blueblood; father was President of the United States; never lacked for anything but parental affection
Education & Skills:
- Johnson No formal schooling; apprenticed as tailor; taught self to read; later taught by wife how to write
- Bush various prep schools; BA History, Yale; MBA, Harvard Business School; proficient in the brush-clearing trades; literacy status unknown, but questionable
Business & Early Political Experience:
- Johnson Scraped his way up from the bottom, eventually acquiring enough wealth to purchase an estate in Tennessee complete with slaves; small business owner (tailor); elected to local and state governments, U.S. Representative (1843-1853); Governor of Tennessee (1853-57), U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1857-1862)
- Bush As CEO of small petroleum exploration firm, failed to find oil in Texas; received Texas Rangers baseball team as gift from consortium of father's friends, traded away one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game; Governor of Texas (1994-2001)
What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?
- Johnson As Senator, refused to secede when Tennessee did; remained only member of Congress from a Confederate state after Civil War began; served as military governor of Tennessee (1862-64); chosen as Vice Presidential running mate by Abraham Lincoln in 1864 as a means of appealing to pro-Union Democrats
- Bush Used family connections to secure appointment to a National Guard unit with a low risk of combat deployment; undistinguished (and mutable) service record, with no citations or exposure to adversity of any type
Personality & Politics:
- Johnson Scrappy, obstinate hardass; racist; hated wealthy southern aristocracy as much as he did their slaves; saw self as "man of the people"; undeniably courageous in the upholding of his own principles
- Bush Swaggering, overconfident Platonic Ideal of the Peter Principle; racist (q./v. Kanye West); scion of privileged aristocracy, would likely love to own slaves; sees self as Messiah; undeniably bullheaded in the upholding of those codes he terms "principles."
Rise To Presidency:
- Johnson showed up drunk at VP inauguration, insulted everyone in rambling, ranting, self-congratulatory speech; elevated to Presidency upon assassination of Lincoln (April, 1865); was long dogged (probably unfairly) by accusations and whispers of conspiracy in Lincoln's death; did not have support in Congress and had to deal with active opposition in his own (inherited) Cabinet
- Bush "gave up" drinking when he "found Jesus"; awarded Presidency by court order; long dogged (probably fairly) by accusations of vote-stealing and election-tampering; enjoyed an utterly compliant, rubber-stamp Congress for much of his term
Crises Faced:
- Johnson Post-Civil War Reconstruction, and all that entailed – vast destruction of infrastructure, hundreds of thousands of wounded vets and families shattered by death; questions about how to reintegrate Confederate states into the Union and what was to be the status of emancipated slaves; extremely hostile relations with a Congress that had a veto-proof majority for more than half his term
- Bush The War on Terra, and all that entails – aggressive wars that fall apart in the occupation/colonization phase (with steadily eroding support as a result), thousands of wounded vets and hundreds of thousands of US, Afghan, and Iraqi families shattered by death; numerous scandals related to cronyism, war profiteering, lobbying, and pandering; rebuilding infrastructure across part of the South after a natural disaster; party lost control of Congressional majorities after the off-year elections during his second term
Achievements:
- Johnson Purchased Alaska from Tsar of Russia; oversaw admittance of Nebraska as a state; Amendments XIII and XIV added to Constitution over Johnson's objections during his term
- Bush None
See also: Official White House Bios of Andrew Johnson and George W. Bush
While their personalities do exhibit a few common traits, it's not until we zoom out to the macro level that we start to see a lot of similarities between the Bush and Johnson presidential experiences. Here's the list of charges from the first attempt to impeach Johnson (a January, 1867, maneuver that turned out to be premature – it was voted down by the House that fall):
I charge him with a usurpation of power and violation of law:
In that he has corruptly used the appointing power;
In that he has corruptly used the pardoning power;
In that he has corruptly used the veto power;
In that he has corruptly disposed of public property of the United States;
In that he has corruptly interfered in elections, and committed acts which, in contemplation of the Constitution, are high crimes and misdemeanors:
People were gunning for Johnson for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was unwillingness to compromise on what he felt was right. He truly saw himself as a man of integrity, a defender of the Constitution against extremists who would tear it apart in the name of either vengeance or a caste system – when he was buried in 1875, his body was wrapped in a flag and his head rested upon a copy of the Constitution. Nevertheless, this was not a guy who would have found a home in the modern Democratic Party – he had no objections to slavery, had owned slaves himself, vetoed the Freedman's Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Act, and had no desire to enfranchise the recently-emancipated. This made him the de facto ally of the very Southerners who had hated him the most: the antebellum aristocracy.
His political enemies were the Radical Republicans, a block of the Congressional majority which consisted of ardent abolitionists who burned with a desire to punish the South for what they viewed as treachery of the highest order. Though he stridently opposed being told what to do by these Northerners, Johnson, a Southerner who had sided with the Union during the war, was deeply distrusted by the former rebels – at least until he started loosening the restrictions for states' re-admittance, allowing for the passage of "black codes" to re-oppress the newly freed, and pardoning former Confederate officials and soldiers wholesale.
There are no members of the present Congress who resemble the movers and shakers of old, those Radical Republicans and their idealism-based hatred. This was an era when oration and passion (as opposed to focus groups and "bumper sticker" ideology) were the basis of debate – and people like Johnson and Thadeus Stevens of Massachusetts staked out and publicly defended positions that are today considered too abhorrent for polite conversation. Perhaps that's why Harper's Weekly, the preeminent political rag of the time, was willing to give Johnson a pass during the first stab at impeachment – and the gist of their editorial argument sounds like one I've been hearing a lot of, until recently:
But all this conduct, baffling and annoying as it is, is yet not a violation of his official oath nor inconsistent with the Constitution as he understands it. When he proceeds to thwart Congress by force, when he deliberately and undeniably refuses to execute the laws, when he practically as well as theoretically denies the authority of the people of the United States in Congress, his impeachment would be felt to be a national act of justice and not a partisan measure, and would then be of the highest expediency.
Harper's Weekly, January 26, 1867
Harper's Weekly was the leading national periodical of its day, and both reported on and helped to shape public opinion. It had a circulation of 100,000, with an estimated readership of half a million, and it attracted genuine talent: George William Curtis, editor from 1863-1892, was one of the most respected pundits of the era, and Thomas Nast used Harper's to basically define the American political cartoon. The magazine is a window to the political discourse of the mid- and late 19th century, the same way blog archives will someday be used by historians to get a sense of the political zeitgeist here at the dawn of the 21st.
Those future historioranters will probably wonder at the speed with which the computerized discussion of impeachment went from "porn" to a tactic (for some us, much more than that) worthy of debate. It was the same 150 years ago – check out the same magazine's editorial from a few months later:
The conduct of the President justifies the alarm which we have expressed. He means mischief, and he will be restrained only by his fears. A man in his position, who simultaneously defies his opponents and surrounds himself with those who are known to be his devoted adherents, is a man who intends to resist. His word, even if he gave it, could not be trusted. The law does not restrain him, for he denies the authority which makes it. The real situation at present is that the President asserts his will against the will of the people in Congress, and will probably try forcible conclusions with them.
Harper's Weekly, September 28, 1867
Editor Curtis, while he did support many Radical Republican policies on Reconstruction, did not openly call for the impeachment of the President until the latter violated the Tenure of Office Act in early 1868. Before that:
Curtis discreetly distanced Harper’s Weekly from more acrimonious and extreme Radicals, such as Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Butler, who were early advocates of impeachment. The newspaper held forth the same Radical ideals as Stevens and Butler, but Curtis was more temperate in his rhetoric and, at times, policy recommendations. Instead of overtly criticizing Johnson, as other Radicals were already doing, the editor reminded the President of his own words and the vision of racial equality under the law that they evoked. Instead of berating Johnson, Curtis encouraged the President to do that which in his heart he knew to be just and right.
Harper's Weekly and Andrew Johnson
The Issues
Given the enormous difference between the state of the union during their terms in office, it's perhaps a little surprising that the same words and issues cropped up during the "should we impeach?" phase of Johnson's presidency as they have in Bush's. Here's how Harper's portrayed a few of them:
Reconstruction - the Radicals favored tougher policies for re-admittance to the Union than Johnson, and sought to impose harsh punishments on former Southern leaders. The basic idea was to destroy the Southern planter aristocracy, and start afresh with a "new and improved" Constitution – not entirely unlike the idea of de-Baathification – but the Radicals found that without a specific offense with which to charge the President, impeaching him for just general suckiness was going to be a tough row to hoe:
We are certainly correct in saying that there is no general conviction at present that the President ought to be impeached. That his Presidency is a national misfortune, and that but for him the country would be rapidly returning to a normal condition, is unquestionable. That he is entirely unfitted by natural capacity and training for the office he holds is painfully conspicuous. That he comprehends neither the causes nor the consequences of the war, and is curiously ignorant both of the American people and of the dominant idea of our politics is undeniable. But these, although misfortunes for the country, are not impeachable offenses.
Harper's Weekly, November 3, 1866
Much of the early opposition to impeachment was based on the related principles of "we don't have the evidence" and the "doesn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense" dilemma, but especially after the midterm elections in 1866, more and more effort was dedicated to finding an offense which did.
Pardons - the issue of what to do with former Confederate soldiers and political leaders got wrapped up in the issue of voting rights. This Thomas Nast cartoon rather starkly delineates the problem of allowing pardoned Southerners to vote while denying the same right to the newly-emancipated:
Columbia - "Shall I Trust These Men, And Not This Man?"
Johnson's pardons left the formation of post-war Southern governments in the hands of the same men who had run things in the days before and during the war, and in December, 1865, a gaggle of former rebels (including the Vice President of the Confederacy) showed up in Washington to claim their seats in Congress. Even Johnson (who, remember, hated the southern leadership class) was appalled; he hadn't seen this coming. Still, once his mind was made up, he could assume a remarkably familiar attitude:
While he was making up his mind, Johnson appeared silently receptive to all ideas; when he had made a decision, his mind was immovably closed, and he defended his course with all the obstinacy of a weak man. In December, alarmed by Johnson’s Reconstruction proclamations, Sumner again sought an interview with the President. "No longer sympathetic, or even kindly," Sumner found, "he was harsh, petulant, and unreasonable."
Why They Impeached Andrew Johnson
The same article goes on to describe a proto-conservative argument of specious analogies used by the President to justify his unwillingness to change direction:
"Are there no murders in Massachusetts?" the President asked.
"Unhappily yes," Sumner replied, "sometimes."
"Are there no assaults in Boston? Do not men there sometimes knock each other down, so that the police is obliged to interfere?"
"Unhappily yes."
"Would you consent that Massachusetts, on this account, should be excluded from Congress?" Johnson triumphantly queried. In the excitement of the argument, the President unconsciously used Sumner’s hat, which the Senator had placed on the floor beside his chair, as a spittoon!
Intemperate Speeches - Johnson did not take any of this lying down, and he passionately defended his own actions, sometimes using even the same language as our present First Lady:
And because I stand now as I did when the rebellion commenced, I have been denounced as a traitor. My countrymen here to-night, who has suffered more than I? Who has run greater risk? Who has borne more than I? But Congress, factious, domineering, tyrannical Congress has undertaken to poison the minds of the American people, and create a feeling against me in consequence of the manner in which I have distributed the public patronage.
Cleveland speech September 3, 1866
This kind of "oh-woe-is-me" martyrdom may have appealed to some of the common folk, but Johnson's tendency to call people out (in other words, to violate the common standards of decorum) resulted in a growing feeling of disenchantment among those who initially resisted the impeachment call:
It is unspeakably shameful and humiliating that a President of the United States should be so far lost to all sense of common propriety as to denounce Senators and Representatives by name, to declare that Congress was an unconstitutional body hanging upon the verge of the Government, and to ask whether if he were Judas Iscariot Mr. Sumner were his Christ. These are indecencies so revolting that they seem incredible. They are a disgrace deeper than has ever befallen the Presidential office; and it is common charity to suppose them to have been the result of mingled intoxication and rage. Indeed, could habitual intoxication be proved against the President, it would be ample reason for his impeachment and removal.
Harper's Weekly, March 21, 1868
In the end, though, it turned out not to be a wise move to try to impeach a man simply because he was an ass; Harper's also records that
The House of Representatives did not strengthen in public opinion the indictment against the President by adopting the article offered by General Butler, and reciting the indecencies of speech of which the President was guilty during his disgraceful tour to the grave of Douglas.
ibid., referring to a series of speeches given by Johnson in 1866, as he made his way to Illinois to pay his respects to Steven A. Douglas, whom he had supported against Lincoln in 1860.
New Orleans - Bush isn't the only President to have bungled a reconstruction of New Orleans; Johnson had his own Katrina moment, too. On July 30, 1866, a Republican-organized rally was being held, with pretensions toward being a constitutional convention for Louisiana. The federal troops in the area received no orders, so security for the largely African-American crowd was left up to the Mayor of New Orleans, who wielded his police and fire units like an army:
Thirty-seven Negroes and three of their white friends were killed; 119 Negroes and seventeen of their white sympathizers were wounded. Of their assailants, ten were wounded and but one killed. President Johnson was, of course, horrified by these outbreaks, but the Memphis and New Orleans riots, together with the Black Codes, afforded a devastating illustration of how the President’s policy actually operated.
ibid.
Midterm Losses - Johnson's vetoes of bills supported by the Radical Republicans, his own erratic, obstinate behavior, and a public mood turning increasingly against his vision of "National Unity" led to a wholesale Republican takeover of Congress in the 1866 elections. Even before the ballots were cast, Harper's spelled out for the President what elections mean:
But we hope sincerely that the President may not only hear but fully understand the result of the elections. He has constantly asserted his faith in the people, and certainly he has now heard from the people. But as the spiritual medium always insists when the experiment fails that the conditions are not favorable, so the President may contend that "the people" means the whole voting population of the country at the South as well as at the North. If, however, he plants himself upon that ground, he should remember that even then the majority of an entire Congress must be held to indicate the popular will, and that that has decided against him.
Harper's Weekly, October 27, 1866
Harper's advised caution to the fire-breathing impeachment types, too, and warned of making the issue a litmus test of true Radicalism:
And as for the droll effort to make adhesion to the wisdom of impeachment, without further knowledge, the test of Radicalism? in the sense of the true national policy? it is just as wise and will prove just as successful as the attempt during the war to make contempt and distrust of Mr. Lincoln the measure of patriotic fidelity.
Harper's Weekly, January 26, 1867
The Set-Up - The 1867 attempt at impeachment, based as it was upon generalities and not specific offenses, died in the House for want of evidence. Congressional leaders knew they needed an actual violation of an actual law in order to successfully prosecute, so they set about creating a situation designed to provoke a showdown. This was similar to a suggestion in The Reality of Impeachment, an excellent recent diary on Daily Kos.
They chose as their vehicle the Tenure of Office Act, which aimed to protect the job of Edward Stanton, a holdover from the Lincoln administration and a staunch Radical Republican whom Johnson very much wanted to get rid of. The Act essentially said the President had to consult with Congress regarding the hiring and firing of Cabinet officials (a pretty clear legislative intrusion upon the separation of powers), and Johnson had no intention of ceding so much Presidential power to Congress. He vetoed the Tenure of Office Act, but as increasingly became the case as 1867 wore on, Congress simply overrode the veto and the law went into effect anyway.
Johnson's two attempts at firing Stanton led to such comical scenes as the Secretary of War barricading himself inside his office to avoid being canned (shades of Rummy?), but when all was said and done, it couldn't be denied that Johnson had violated a law which had been enacted in accordance with the established rules. He knew impeachment would be the result, and so he elected to base his defense on the personal and partisan nature of the proceedings.
Charges - Though it was the technical violation of the Tenure of Office Act that got him impeached, Johnson's detractors made it pretty clear what the case was really about when the trial began in March, 1868 (an election year, btw, and one in which the impeachers were most unwilling to "run out the clock"):
Not to dislodge them is to leave this country a prey to one of the most hateful tyrannies of history. Especially is it to surrender the Unionists of the rebel States to violence and bloodshed. Not a month, not a week, not a day should be lost. The safety of the Republic requires action at once. The lives of innocent men must be rescued from sacrifice.
From the Opinion of Hon. Charles SUMNER
he has long since been indicted and found guilty in the judgment and conscience of the American people of a giant apostasy to his party--the party of American nationality and progress--and of a long series of atrocious wrongs and most daring and flagrant usurpations of power, and for three years has thrown himself across the path of the country to peace and a restored Union, and in all his official acts has stood forth without disguise, a bold, bad man, the aider and abettor of treason, and an enemy of his country
From the Opinion of Hon. Richard YATES
and perhaps most devastating of all, House Manager John Bingham's closing:
"May God forbid that the future historian shall record of this day's proceedings, that by reason of the failure of the legislative power of the people to triumph over the usurpations of an apostate President, the fabric of American empire fell and perished from the earth!...I ask you to consider that we stand this day pleading for the violated majesty of the law, by the graves of half a million of martyred hero-patriots who made death beautiful by the sacrifice of themselves for their country, the Constitution and the laws, and who, by their sublime example, have taught us all to obey the law; that none are above the law;... and that position, however high, patronage, however powerful, cannot be permitted to shelter crime to the peril of the republic."
from Manager John Bingham's closing, via law.umkc.edu
Counter-Charges - The overheated rhetoric going back and forth between Johnson and the Congressional leadership worked against the latter, which is something we impeachment supporters need to be aware of as we move forward in our efforts to recapture our democracy from BushCo. In the end, Johnson's position wound up looking the more reasonable one, and allowed his defenders to base their arguments on their personal interpretations of what was going on:
The power of impeachment of all the officers of the Government, vested in the Senate of the United States, is the highest trust reposed in any branch of our Government. Its exercise is indispensable at times to the safety of the nation, while its abuse, especially under political excitement, would subordinate the executive and the judiciary to the legislative department. The guards against such a result are in the love of justice inherent in the people who would not tolerate an abuse of power, and also in the solemn appeal each of us have made to Almighty God to do impartial justice in this cause. We dare not for any human consideration disregard this oath, but guided by conscience and reason will, no doubt, each for himself, render his verdict upon these charges according to the law and the testimony, and without bias from personal, political, or popular influence. This done we may disregard personal consequences and leave our judgment and conduct in this great historical trial to the test of time.
From the opinion of Hon. John SHERMAN
Endgame - Harper's and others in the pro-impeach camp fought against arguments like Sherman's with a "will of the people" argument, but in the end, the decision fell to a handful of Senators who had played their cards close to their chests throughout the proceedings. When the time finally came to tally the votes:
"Twenty-four 'Guilties' have been pronounced and ten more certain are to come. Willey is almost sure and that will make thirty-five. Thirty-six votes are needed, and with this one vote the grand consummation is attained, Johnson is out and Wade in his place. It is a singular fact that not one of the actors in that high scene was sure in his own mind how his one senator was going to vote, except, perhaps, himself. 'Mr. Senator Ross, how say you?' the voice of the Chief Justice rings out over the solemn silence. 'Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged in this article?' The Chief Justice bends forward, intense anxiety furrowing his brow. The seated associates of the senator on his feet fix upon him their united gaze. The representatives of the people of the United States watch every movement of his features. The whole audience listens for the coming answer as it would have listened for the crack of doom. And the answer comes, full, distinct, definite, unhesitating and unmistakable. The words 'Not Guilty' sweep over the assembly, and, as one man, the hearers fling themselves back into their seats; the strain snaps; the contest ends; impeachment is blown into the air.
David Dewitt law.umkc.edu
In the end, there wasn't much left to report but the recriminations:
the Republican Senators who vote according to their convictions are infamous scoundrels who have been bought with money; or with the Philadelphia "boys in blue," to resolve that "James W. Grimes, William P. Fessenden, and Lyman Trumbull, purporting to represent the loyal people of the United States, as well as Iowa, Maine, and Illinois, prompted by malice, jealousy, disappointment, and perhaps baser motives which we blush to name, have conspired together to place the Government, which we have saved from her armed foes, absolutely in control of its rebel enemies: that such a crime is far more heinous than the surrender of an outpost to the enemy, and no punishment would express our utter detestation of the three recreants who are today branded with an infamous notoriety: and that it is far better to have died, as Senator Howard was willing to do, rich in the esteem of his countrymen than to live a degraded outcast and friendless like James W. Grimes, William P. Fessenden, and Lyman Trumbull."
< snip >
We observe that Ex-Governor Israel Washburne, of Maine at a meeting in Portland, in speaking of Mr. Fessenden, asked—with perfect courtesy, however—whether it might not be possible that one man was wrong and seveny-five thousand men right? Surely Mr. Washburne upon reflection will see that he has not fairly stated the situation. Is Mr. Fessenden the mouthpiece of seventy-five thousand men of Maine, or is he a sworn judge in a particular case? Is he merely in this matter a representative of the men of Maine who are hostile to the President, or is he a representative of the State under oath to do justice according to the evidence? Does not Mr. Washburne see that when we resolved to resort to impeachment we renounced the removal of the President as a political or party measure, and aimed to accomplish it by judicial methods?
Harper's Weekly, May 30, 1868
Epilogue
Andrew Johnson did not seek his party's (such as it was) nomination for re-election, and the Republicans went on to install US Grant for the next two terms. Johnson was elected Senator from Tennessee once more, but died in 1875, before his term was complete. The Tenure of Office Act was found unconstitutional on several occasions, and was finally excised completely from US law during the FDR administration. Interestingly (and significantly, for those who say impeaching Bush would be a nail in the coffin of our party) all but a couple of the presidents between Johnson and FDR were Republicans.
Still, the people who were after Johnson only lost by one vote, and it did not damage their party's chances in subsequent elections. We can learn from that.
The example set by the Bush administration must not be permitted to become precedent; our allowing his interpretations of our legal code to stand imperils future generations of Americans, citizens not yet born who will find themselves in the grip of some terrible dictatorship, with rights-stripping laws and persecutions justified by Bush Era laws and abuses that we had a chance to stop. Yes, 2008 is important; so will be 2016, 2024, and 2032, but leaving the Bush legacy on the table is like leaving a loaded gun on the kitchen table for your grandkid to play with when he gets tall enough to reach it: there's simply no good that can come of it – assuming, of course, that you'd be as opposed to a tyranny of the left as you would a tyranny of the right.
Historiorant:
Much of tonight's historiorant is cobbled together from two truly excellent websites: HarpWeek and The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, both of which use primary source documents to tell the story of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. The Avalon Project is a collection of documents with little editorializing, but the HarpWeek site assembles over 200 editorials, articles, and early Thomas Nast cartoons related to the impeachment – the above only scratches the surface of what's available in those 1865-1869 issues of Harper's Weekly.
Historically hip entrances to the Cave of the Moonbat can be found at Daily Kos, Progressive Historians, and Never In Our Names