For all these, or any one of them, Andrew Johnson should have been
impeached and expelled from office. The case required a statement only,
not an argument. Unhappily this was not done. As a petty substitute
for the judgment which should have been pronounced, and as a bridle on
Presidential tyranny in “kicking out of office,” Congress enacted a
law known as the Tenure-of-Office Act, passed March 2, 1867, over his
veto, by two thirds of both Houses.[197] And to prepare the way for
impeachment, by removing scruples of technicality, its violation was
expressly declared a high misdemeanor.
The President began at once to chafe under its restraint. Recognizing
the Act, and following its terms, he first suspended Mr. Stanton from
office, and then, in anticipation of his restoration by the Senate,
made the attempt to win General Grant into surrender of the department,
so as to oust Mr. Stanton and render restoration by the Senate
ineffectual. Meanwhile Sheridan in Louisiana, Pope in Alabama, and
Sickles in South Carolina, who, as military commanders, were carrying
into the pacification of these States the energies so brilliantly
displayed in the war, were pursued by the same vindictive spirit. They
were removed by the President, and Rebellion throughout that whole
region clapped its hands. This was done in the exercise of his power
as Commander-in-Chief. At last, in unappeased rage, he openly violated
the Tenure-of-Office Act, so as to bring himself under its judgment, by
defiant attempt to remove Mr. Stanton from the War Department without
the consent of the Senate, and the appointment of Lorenzo Thomas,
Adjutant-General of the United States, as Secretary of War _ad interim_.