Impeachment. The dreaded "I"-word. It is a term bandied about frequently enough in today's 24/7 news climate to drive one insane, yet whose seriousness has been somewhat diluted in today's partisan political climate, with negative connotations of hyper-partisanship when contemplated by the party not in power. Yet, it has only been brought forward formally three times in our nation's 242 years of existence, making it a rare occurrence. How did this rarely-used mechanism come about? In what contexts were the first three impeachments invoked, and what can these cases tell us about our current moment? Four scholars and journalists (Jeffrey A. Engel, Jon Meacham, Timothy Naftali and Peter Baker) present three case studies in an attempt to answer this question in their 2018 treatise Impeachment: An American History.
We may think that we have a monopoly on moments of national crisis nowadays, but that is hardly true. Often, the contexts in which the three motions of impeachment were passed were similar moments of national vulnerability. The same goes with the circumstances under which impeachment was first devised in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. An overwhelming and understandable distrust of any centralization of power after the Revolutionary War had left the nation no more than a thirteen-part confederacy, with the federal government unable to keep order, collect tax revenues, oversee commerce and the national defense, let alone govern effectively (most everything required three-fourths of the states to agree in order to pass in the legislature). The colonial powers circled around the young United States, sensing weakness in the new republic, adding to the Founders' fears that any potential future leader could be unduly swayed by a foreign power to the detriment of the country.
After much debate, a new constitution was devised, establishing a system of three separate and co-equal legislative, judicial, and executive branches, which had various checks on the others to keep them in line. Embedded into this document was the impeachment mechanism we know today, only to be used in cases when the president was found guilty of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," enough to warrant an expedited remedy rather than waiting for an electoral one in dealing with a potential tyrant (Engel et al., 2018, p. 44). Therefore, to the Founders, a strong executive was needed to govern by enforcing the will of the legislative (and indirectly the judicial) branch, but needn't be tempted to consolidate even more powers from other branches. Together with the checks and balances between the three branches and the safety valve of impeachment, the Founders believed they had found the needed governance model for their new republic to flourish long-term. They hoped that no one would have to use impeachment, but it nevertheless remained an option when electoral and other methods had failed.
To begin with the first case of Andrew Johnson, the nation was just barely emerging from the destruction of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which put the latter's Reconstruction policies in jeopardy. Serving initially as vice-president on Lincoln's Republican ticket in order to shore up support with Southern whites (largely supportive of the then Democratic Party), Johnson's actions and policies (many of them done with racist overtones) as president soon alienated congressional Republicans so much that they brought a case of impeachment formally against him in 1868. This case largely involved technicalities, with Johnson accused of violating a (dubiously) constitutional piece of legislation known as the Tenure of Office Act over a questionable attorney general appointment. The case did not make it past the Senate, however, failing to meet the somewhat subjective bar of "high crimes and misdemeanors" or a pattern of serious criminal activity (Engel et al., 2018, p. 44).
A vague case, void of specifics, largely motivated by political animus rather than specific legal violations, Johnson's case would inform the careful, bipartisan case of abuse of executive powers assembled by the House Judicial Committee chairman, Peter Rodino, between 1972-1974. The largely airtight, detailed case succeeded in pushing Nixon to resign in 1974 when it was revealed that Nixon threw the Constitution underneath the bus in covering up the break-in to the Democratic National Committee's Watergate headquarters. This spectacle of corruption only served to feed the national unease over Vietnam at the time, where both cases seemed to demonstrate an administration mostly concerned with political survival over national well-being.
While the impeachment cases brought against Johnson and Nixon made it only so far as the House and Senate respectively, President Bill Clinton would survive a House vote on impeachment after winning the battle over his sexual misconduct (and his lying about it) in the court of public opinion. Again, like Johnson's case, Clinton's acquittal came about, arguably, over the overtly partisan nature of the proceedings rather than any specific, detailed enumeration of serious corruption. It was reasoned that yes, Clinton's conduct was terrible and lying about it didn't help, but his actions weren't an overt danger to the republic.
What then does this mean for the elephant in the room in President Trump? The erudite and heavily researched Impeachment leaves readers with an uncertain picture, hinting that the success of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation may ultimately hinge on a Rodino-like method of meticulous and bipartisan case-building, clearly connecting the president to serious crimes against the country like corruption, bribery, or even collusion with a foreign power in order to boost his electoral prospects. Can the nation and our representatives assemble the bipartisan trust needed in these kinds of investigations and subsequent (potential) impeachment hearings in today's divided times? Stay tuned.
Works Cited:
Engel, Jeffrey A., Meacham, Jon, Naftali, Timothy, & Baker, Peter. (2018). Impeachment: An American History. New York: Random House.
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