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As the Democrats’ impeachment efforts against President Trump continue to blow up in their faces (which is not to say they won’t succeed, given the establishment media’s indefatigable attempts to put a good face on the proceedings), it is useful to recall that we have been here before. No impeachment proceeding against a president has ever been as baseless, vindictive, and politically motivated as the one against Trump now, but the impeachment of Andrew Johnson comes close.
Johnson became president when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and his troubles began almost immediate. Lincoln was a Republican, and the Republicans had majorities in Congress, but Johnson was a Democrat. It was curious, to say the least, to have a Republican president running for reelection with a Democratic vice presidential candidate, but in the political calculus of that tumultuous time, it made perfect sense. Worried about carrying the border states that had remained, albeit precariously, in the Union during the Civil War, the Republicans formed the National Union Party, which was meant to be a big-tent party comprising Republicans and Democrats who wanted to preserve the Union. Johnson’s vice-presidential candidacy was a bid for the votes of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware in an election that most thought would be extremely close.
There is much more.