1. The first congressional impeachment vote against any president occurred in July 1842 and concerned John Tyler. Like Trump, Tyler didn't win the presidency by popular vote. Tyler assumed the presidency when William Henry Harrison died 31 days into his term. Also like Trump ...
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5. ... posted a good piece about that in September.https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/23/he-lies-like-dog-first-effort-impeach-president-was-led-by-his-own-party/ …
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6. Mostly the dispute between Tyler and the congressional Whigs, led by former president John Quincy Adams (who'd entered Congress after leaving office) concerned vetoes against bills supporting a national bank and a new tariff. The articles of impeachment also ...
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7. ... condemned Tyler for removing certain Senate-confirmed officials. It had not yet been accepted that the president could veto any bill he wanted--the first override of a presidential veto also occurred under Tyler--and that he could fire Senate-confirmed officials ...
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8. ... at will. Interestingly, it would be another 140 years before the phrase "executive privilege" entered the lexicon, though the general idea appeared to have taken root well before Tyler. Anyway, the resolution to impeach Tyler failed, in large part because ...
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9. ... nobody seriously believed the Senate would act on it. Nevertheless, Tyler was the first president to become the subject of an impeachment inquiry, and the only president against whom a former president (Adams) voted to impeach. Adams seriously hated Tyler ...
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10. ... in large part because Tyler was a slaveowner, according to Shaffer. More on the Tyler impeachment drama here. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27547533?seq=10#metadata_info_tab_contents …
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11. Tyler, incidentally, didn't win a second term. He couldn't run as a Whig and the Democrats, to whom he'd belonged previously, wouldn't take him back. He tried a third-party run and eventually dropped out and supported Polk in 1844. When the Civil War came ...
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12. ... Tyler, a Virginian, tried to broker peace between north and south and, when he couldn't, joined the Confederate side, the only ex-president to do so. He even got himself elected to the Confederate Congress. The Washington Post's John Kelly argues, not unreasonably ...
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13. ... that these actions made Tyler a traitor. What's indisputable is that the first president ever to become the subject of an impeachment inquiry later joined the government of an enemy nation (though he died before he could take his legislative seat).https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/john-tyler-traitor-well-yes-actually-/2013/02/24/a387eece-7d29-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html …
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