Impeached; The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy

New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Second Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. x, [2], 447, [7] pages. Illustrations. Appendices. Notes. Index. David O. Stewart (born April 2, 1951) is an American lawyer-turned-author who writes historical narratives and lives in Garrett Park, Maryland. His books include Madison's Gift: Five Partnerships That Built America; The Lincoln Deception; American Emperor: Aaron Burr's Challenge to Jefferson's America, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy, and The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution. Stewart's experience in defending a Senate impeachment trial provided the spur to write about the first presidential impeachment in Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy. Stewart's books have shed new light on history and challenged previous views: for instance, Impeached counters the view, once best known from Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy, that the acquittal of Andrew Johnson was a triumph of bravery over politicking. Stewart has countered this view with evidence, some of which had come out in hearings under Representative Benjamin Butler soon after the acquittal, that senators had been led to vote to acquit by offers of patronage and money. Derived from a Kirkus Review: A riveting look at one of American history's most dismal episodes. By the winter of 1868 congressional Republicans, enraged by Andrew Johnson's systematic attempts to thwart Reconstruction, believed they'd finally caught Lincoln's successor in the "crime" necessary to remove him from office. The politically maladroit president had fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, violating the Tenure of Office Act. Stewart critiques the strategies of the House managers and the president's defenders and explains the evidentiary squabbles resolved by presiding Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. Stewart stresses the political nature of impeachment, where developments and outcome depend as much on events and the character and convictions of the protagonists. The author also profiles Benjamin Butler, the prosecution's headstrong manager and Edmund G. Ross, whose deciding vote against impeachment was likely purchased. Stewart vibrantly renders these atmospherics, the poisonous politics, the personal animosities and the unbridled corruption that will leave readers rooting for both sides to lose. Likely to become the standard version of this historic clash between a president and Congress.