Donald Trump and Andrew Johnson

For John, BLUF:  A review, and comparison, with the first Impeachment.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Trump and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

From the Blog Chicago Boyz, posted by Mr Michael Kennedy, 29 May 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

I think I see some similarities between the Democrats’ apparent efforts to try to impeach President Trump and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.

Andrew Johnson was a “war Democrat,” meaning that he was a Democrat who supported the Union.  He was Governor of the border state of Tennessee.  Lincoln considered the border states critical in saving the Union.

“I hope to have God on my side,” Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said early in the war, “but I must have Kentucky.”  Unlike most of his contemporaries, Lincoln hesitated to invoke divine sanction of human causes, but his wry comment unerringly acknowledged the critical importance of the border states to the Union cause.  Following the attack on Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s call for troops in April 1861, public opinion in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri was sharply divided and these states’ ultimate allegiance uncertain.  The residents of the border were torn between their close cultural ties with the South, on the one hand, and their long tradition of Unionism and political moderation on the other.

My thought is that while Impeachment of President Donald Trump might be good for Republicans, it would be bad for the nation as a whole.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff