The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Andrew Johnson on February 24, 1868. Next it created a committee to draw up the Articles of Impeachment. Impeachment came first, the Articles of Impeachment came next. The Speaker of the House, Schuyler Colfax named the representatives who would draw up the articles. George Boutwell, John Bingham, George Julian, John Logan, Thaddeus Stevens, Hamilton Ward, and James Wilson were appointed. All were Republicans.
Bingham and Wilson were Republican moderates and they had been less than entusiastic about impeachment. They wanted the articles to focus on Johnson’s alleged violation of the Tenure of Office Act, which the first eight articles did. Radicals were unhappy with this focus. They were concerned with Johnson’s failure to protect the civil rights of the freedpeople and his willingness to allow former Confederates to regain power within the Southern states.
Wendell Phillips, the veteran abolitionist, told a Cincinnati audience that; “I do not care whether Johnson has stepped on a statute or not…Impeachment is the refuge of the common sense of the nation, which in the moment of difficulty says to the magistrate, you ought to have known by your common sense, and your moral sense, that this has unfitted you for your office.” [Wineapple, Brenda. The Impeachers (p. 265). Random House (2019).]
A ninth article charged Johnson with telling a general to ignore Ulyssses S. Grant and take orders from the president instead. A tenth article, which originated with Stevens, charged that Johnson’s conduct during several public speeches had disparaged Congress and disgraced the office of the president. Stevens and Wilson wrote an eleventh article charging Johnson with failing to follow the Military Reconstruction Act and otherwise showing himself to be unfit for office.
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