James S. Robbins: Democrats should promise not to abuse the impeachment power
[James S. Robbins author of Last in Their Class: Custer, Picket and the Goats of West Point. Robbins is also an NRO contributor.]
Imagine, if you will, a Republican president late in his second term, with low popular approval ratings and a recently elected Democratic Congress with its blood up. The Democrats’ are on a payback mission for the Republican-led impeachment of the current president’s Democratic predecessor. One pro-impeachment editorial goes on at length about the incumbent’s shortcomings:
"This man [has] no more fitness for the chief magistracy than any one of the fifty men you can see on the street any day of the week…. His cabinets have been composed of obscure men utterly incapable of rendering the assistance his own lack of intelligence makes necessary.…He has made the statesman everywhere subservient to the solider. He has made the national capital into a military camp. He has assumed the functions of a dictator and acts accordingly. At the end of his first term he was so wanting in modesty as to ask for a second, although the country was disgusted with his tyranny and selfishness."
This is the kind of thing one could find today in any Angry Left journal. But in this case the year was 1876, and the President was Ulysses S. Grant.
The impeachment issue has gained recent attention because of the possibility that the Democrats will take control of the House in the fall. Rep. John Conyers, who would likely become head of the House Judiciary Committee should the Democrats prevail, has already introduced H.R. 635, “creating a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.” The resolution has 36 co-sponsors. He has also introduced H.R. 636 and 637, which would censure the president and vice president for lying about the justification for war in Iraq.
Naturally, Republicans have responded by making the possibility of impeachment in the new House a fall election issue. The Democrats, not wanting to allow Republicans to shape perceptions during the campaign, have stated that impeachment is not high on their list of priorities. Prospective Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stated somewhat clumsily, “I don't see us going to a place of impeachment." Conyers himself had an op-ed in the Washington Post saying there was no rush to remove Bush.
Can we believe them? This is why Grant’s second term is so interesting. The Republican party had been in firm control of Congress in the years following the Civil War. It made sense—Lincoln’s party had led the fight, and the southern, largely Democratic states had not yet emerged from Reconstruction. However, in the 1874 congressional race—the midterm race in Grant’s second term—the situation changed dramatically. Between the 43rd and 44th Congresses, the Democrats gained 94 seats, and the GOP lost 96. The Democrats went from a 111-seat deficit to a 79-seat majority. Within two weeks of this victory, the Democratic-leaning New York Herald was speculating on the probability of Grant’s removal. Democrats frequently invoked Andrew Johnson’s impeachment six years earlier, insisting that Johnson had done nothing that would rise to that level. A familiar refrain.
The Democrats proceeded quickly to make life difficult for Grant. The subpoena power was used liberally, and hearings became a constant on the Washington scene. Crédit Mobilier, the Whiskey Ring, Black Friday, the Sanborn Contracts, the Navy Contracts, Emma Silver Mine—these were the buzzwords of the day. Perhaps the highest profile take-down was Secretary of War William W, Belknap who was impeached on bribery charges in the summer of 1876. By then Belknap had already resigned his post, but the Democrats were determined to impeach him (it being an election year) and went ahead with it anyway. The Senate failed to convict Belknap, but he was a ruined man and the hearings and trial implicated others in the Grant administration, not always fairly.
The Democrats went after Grant at the very end, during the lame-duck period following the disputed 1876 election. Grant had made a public statement backing Republican Rutherford B. Hayes against the Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, which they charged was interference in the process. They proposed articles of impeachment, and called for removing half of Grant’s Cabinet for good measure. Ironically, Grant was saved when southern Democrats failed to support the move, and Tilden himself let it be known that he opposed the scheme.
If power in the House shifts this fall it will not swing as far as it did in 1874. The Republican margin of control is slim, and a Democratic House would likewise have a slender hold. But authorization for an impeachment inquiry (the first step in the process) only requires a majority vote, and even if President Bush is not formally impeached, the inquiry itself would be a brutal process. Rep. Conyers has suggested a select committee meet before the process begins to conduct a further investigation. His promise of “no rush” to impeachment leads one to believe he seeks to stretch the process out for as long as possible. And President Bush would not be the only subject of this type of investigation. If the Grant precedent is any indication, any high-ranking members of the administration would be fair game.
The greatest difference of course is that while many public officials in Grant’s day were in fact guilty of crimes like bribery and embezzlement, today’s Democrats seek to criminalize what are essentially policy differences, particularly over conduct of the war on terrorism....
Read entire article at National Review Online
Imagine, if you will, a Republican president late in his second term, with low popular approval ratings and a recently elected Democratic Congress with its blood up. The Democrats’ are on a payback mission for the Republican-led impeachment of the current president’s Democratic predecessor. One pro-impeachment editorial goes on at length about the incumbent’s shortcomings:
"This man [has] no more fitness for the chief magistracy than any one of the fifty men you can see on the street any day of the week…. His cabinets have been composed of obscure men utterly incapable of rendering the assistance his own lack of intelligence makes necessary.…He has made the statesman everywhere subservient to the solider. He has made the national capital into a military camp. He has assumed the functions of a dictator and acts accordingly. At the end of his first term he was so wanting in modesty as to ask for a second, although the country was disgusted with his tyranny and selfishness."
This is the kind of thing one could find today in any Angry Left journal. But in this case the year was 1876, and the President was Ulysses S. Grant.
The impeachment issue has gained recent attention because of the possibility that the Democrats will take control of the House in the fall. Rep. John Conyers, who would likely become head of the House Judiciary Committee should the Democrats prevail, has already introduced H.R. 635, “creating a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.” The resolution has 36 co-sponsors. He has also introduced H.R. 636 and 637, which would censure the president and vice president for lying about the justification for war in Iraq.
Naturally, Republicans have responded by making the possibility of impeachment in the new House a fall election issue. The Democrats, not wanting to allow Republicans to shape perceptions during the campaign, have stated that impeachment is not high on their list of priorities. Prospective Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stated somewhat clumsily, “I don't see us going to a place of impeachment." Conyers himself had an op-ed in the Washington Post saying there was no rush to remove Bush.
Can we believe them? This is why Grant’s second term is so interesting. The Republican party had been in firm control of Congress in the years following the Civil War. It made sense—Lincoln’s party had led the fight, and the southern, largely Democratic states had not yet emerged from Reconstruction. However, in the 1874 congressional race—the midterm race in Grant’s second term—the situation changed dramatically. Between the 43rd and 44th Congresses, the Democrats gained 94 seats, and the GOP lost 96. The Democrats went from a 111-seat deficit to a 79-seat majority. Within two weeks of this victory, the Democratic-leaning New York Herald was speculating on the probability of Grant’s removal. Democrats frequently invoked Andrew Johnson’s impeachment six years earlier, insisting that Johnson had done nothing that would rise to that level. A familiar refrain.
The Democrats proceeded quickly to make life difficult for Grant. The subpoena power was used liberally, and hearings became a constant on the Washington scene. Crédit Mobilier, the Whiskey Ring, Black Friday, the Sanborn Contracts, the Navy Contracts, Emma Silver Mine—these were the buzzwords of the day. Perhaps the highest profile take-down was Secretary of War William W, Belknap who was impeached on bribery charges in the summer of 1876. By then Belknap had already resigned his post, but the Democrats were determined to impeach him (it being an election year) and went ahead with it anyway. The Senate failed to convict Belknap, but he was a ruined man and the hearings and trial implicated others in the Grant administration, not always fairly.
The Democrats went after Grant at the very end, during the lame-duck period following the disputed 1876 election. Grant had made a public statement backing Republican Rutherford B. Hayes against the Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, which they charged was interference in the process. They proposed articles of impeachment, and called for removing half of Grant’s Cabinet for good measure. Ironically, Grant was saved when southern Democrats failed to support the move, and Tilden himself let it be known that he opposed the scheme.
If power in the House shifts this fall it will not swing as far as it did in 1874. The Republican margin of control is slim, and a Democratic House would likewise have a slender hold. But authorization for an impeachment inquiry (the first step in the process) only requires a majority vote, and even if President Bush is not formally impeached, the inquiry itself would be a brutal process. Rep. Conyers has suggested a select committee meet before the process begins to conduct a further investigation. His promise of “no rush” to impeachment leads one to believe he seeks to stretch the process out for as long as possible. And President Bush would not be the only subject of this type of investigation. If the Grant precedent is any indication, any high-ranking members of the administration would be fair game.
The greatest difference of course is that while many public officials in Grant’s day were in fact guilty of crimes like bribery and embezzlement, today’s Democrats seek to criminalize what are essentially policy differences, particularly over conduct of the war on terrorism....