President Andrew Johnson faced impeachment for attempting to remove Stanton from office. It was ruled unclear whether he violated the act.
No congressman could be removed from office without due process of the law.
The Tenure of Office stated that the president could not remove a government official without the approval of Congress However, President Johnson , claiming the act violated the Constitution, removed the Secretary of War, leading himself into a 3 month impeachment trial and almost getting removed from presidency.
Tenure of Office Act of 1867 made it illegal for the President to fire a cabinet member without the approval of Congress. It was used as grounds for impeaching President Andrew Johnson. It was later declared to be unconstitutional.
The law required approval by the Senate before a cabinet official ,or other officer whose appointment had been confirmed by Senate, could be fired by the President. President Johnson was impeached because he violated this law, when he fired Secretary of War Stanton. In addition the Tenure of Office Act required all Presidential orders to the military commanders be issued through General Grant.
Tenure of Office Act
He tried to fire Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War. This was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act which says the President can not dismiss a member of the cabinet without getting consent from Congress.
The Tenure of Office Act
Tenure of Office Act
The act that prohibited the president from removing federal officials was the Tenure of Office Act.
When Andrew Johnson was impeached in May of 1868 when he removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who had been retained after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The Radical Republicans in an effort to keep Edwin Stanton in office passed the Tenure of Office Act, which required the consent of the Senate for the President to remove a federal official from office. When Johnson removed Stanton from office anyway the impeachment trial began on the grounds that he had broken the Tenure of Office Act, becoming the first President of the United States to ever be impeached. In the end he retained his office, just shy one vote from being removed from office.
False. The Tenure of Office Act was a major factor in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson but was repealed long before Clinton took office.
Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act. He was not removed from office. His defense questioned the constitutionality of the Act which was later rules unconstitutional.
President Johnson challenged the Tenure of Office Act by removing Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War, from his cabinet and appointing Lorenzo Thomas in his place. He argued that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional and violated his powers as President to hire and fire cabinet members. However, this action ultimately led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives.
No congressman could be removed from office without due process of the law.
"Tenure of Office" Act
Andrew Johnson was the first president to be impeached. The official grounds for his impeachment was his violation of the Tenure of Office Act which made it illegal for him to fire his cabinet members without the approval of the Senate. The real reasons were political. Lincoln's cabinet and other leaders did not happily grant him the power of a president and instead did everything they could to run the country their way, particularly in the area of Reconstruction- getting the seceded states back into the union. However, Johnson was not removed from office because the Senate did not confirm the House's impeachment decision.
President Andrew Johnson was impeached over a violation of the Tenure of Office Act by firing Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War. The act stated he could not dismiss a member of his cabinet without the approval of Congress.