The first impeachment of a U.S. president
On this day · 24 February 1868
On February 24, 1868, the House impeached Andrew Johnson over a fired cabinet member, a first in American history.
On February 24, 1868, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 126 to 47 to impeach President Andrew Johnson — the first time a sitting American president had ever been impeached. The drama had a surprisingly bureaucratic trigger: Johnson had fired Edwin Stanton, his Secretary of War, in apparent violation of the Tenure of Office Act, a law passed over his own veto that barred the president from removing certain officials without the Senate’s consent.
The clash was really about Reconstruction. Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat thrust into office after Lincoln’s assassination, kept colliding with the Radical Republicans who controlled Congress and wanted a harder line on the defeated South.
The Senate trial ran from March to May 1868. When the votes were counted, Johnson survived by a single vote — 35 to 19, one shy of the two-thirds needed to remove him. He kept his office, but his authority was spent.
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