Four experts on the American presidency examine the three times
impeachment has been invoked--against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and
Bill Clinton--and explain what it means today.
Impeachment is a double-edged sword. Though it was designed to check
tyrants, Thomas Jefferson also called impeachment "the most formidable
weapon for the purpose of a dominant faction that was ever contrived."
On the one hand, it nullifies the will of voters, the basic foundation
of all representative democracies. On the other, its absence from the
Constitution would leave the country vulnerable to despotic leadership.
It is rarely used, and with good reason.
Only three times has a president's conduct led to such political
disarray as to warrant his potential removal from office, transforming a
political crisis into a constitutional one. None has yet succeeded.
Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for failing to kowtow to
congressional leaders--and, in a large sense, for failing to be Abraham
Lincoln--yet survived his Senate trial. Richard Nixon resigned in August
1974 after the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of
impeachment against him for lying, obstructing justice, and employing
his executive power for personal and political gain. Bill Clinton had an
affair with a White House intern, but in 1999 he faced trial in the
Senate less for that prurient act than for lying under oath about it.
In the first book to consider these three presidents alone--and the one
thing they have in common--Jeffrey A. Engel, Jon Meacham, Timothy
Naftali, and Peter Baker explain that the basis and process of
impeachment is more political than legal. The Constitution states that
the president "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and
Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,"
leaving room for historical precedent and the temperament of the time to
weigh heavily on each case. This book reveals the complicated motives
behind each impeachment--never entirely limited to the question of a
president's guilt--and the risks to all sides. Each case depended on
factors beyond the president's behavior: his relationship with Congress,
the polarization of the moment, and the power and resilience of the
office itself. This is a realist view of impeachment that looks to
history for clues about its potential use in the future.
