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Social Studies 5: Impeachment 1011 Views
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Description:
No, this isn't a terrible new mint-peach bubble gum flavor...though it does tend to leave a bad taste in people's mouths.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Coop and Dino singing]
- 00:14
Most people would agree that being the President of the United States is an exciting job.[President waving his hand]
- 00:18
You get to travel the world...
- 00:20
Meet foreign diplomats...
- 00:22
And most importantly, hang out with Beyoncé and Jay Z. [President with Beyonce on stage]
Full Transcript
- 00:26
But there's one thing that every president would prefer be as boring as possible – and
- 00:31
that's the end of their presidency.
- 00:32
There are two exciting ways to end the Presidency and neither one is very fun. [Boy jumps off see-saw and girl falls to the floor]
- 00:37
The first is impeachment, which is when the House of Representatives votes to force the
- 00:43
President out of office.
- 00:44
And the second is by assassination, which, well, need we say more? [Gravestone of President of the USA]
- 00:48
Believe it or not, both of those things nearly happened back-to-back in the 1860s.
- 00:53
First came the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, but we're not talking about that
- 00:57
today.
- 00:58
Today’s focus is the attempted impeachment of President Andrew Johnson three years later,
- 01:04
in 1868. It all started with Thaddeus Stevens, the
- 01:07
leading Radical Republican in the House of Representatives that led the floor's fight [Thaddeus speaking in House of Representatives]
- 01:11
against the President.
- 01:12
So what'd Johnson do to make old Thaddeus so mad? Did he pick him last for his kickball
- 01:17
team, or something?
- 01:18
Well, not quite. The Republicans felt that Johnson had violated something called the
- 01:22
Tenure of Office Act when he fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. [Edward Stanton and Johnson approaches]
- 01:27
The Tenure of Office Act basically said that the President wasn't allowed to remove certain
- 01:31
people from office without approval from the Senate.
- 01:34
But here's the thing. They just said that was the reason they wanted to impeach him.
- 01:38
In reality, they really wanted to get rid of him because he kept getting in the way
- 01:42
of enforcing the Reconstruction Acts passed by Congress to help freed slaves. [Slave approaches door and door slams]
- 01:47
The Reconstruction Acts basically tried to divide and reshape the South in order to secure
- 01:52
equal rights for African Americans, and apparently Johnson wasn't too happy about this. But guess [Johnson and Congress in a boxing fight]
- 01:57
what? Congress wasn't too happy with him either. So they drafted up an impeachment document
- 02:01
which included the violation charge, along with a statement that Johnson had brought
- 02:05
“disgrace, hatred, ridicule, contempt, and reproach to the Congress of the United States.” [Congress man hands Johnson impeachment document]
- 02:11
Them's fightin’ words right there
- 02:13
Hearings went on for two weeks and then the trial in the Senate went on for eleven – during
- 02:18
which Johnson desperately tried to make peace with some of the more moderate Republicans.
- 02:22
Ultimately, the impeachment decision came up one vote short, allowing Johnson to remain [Man holding up guilty and note guilty vodes]
- 02:27
President.
- 02:27
How crazy is that?
- 02:29
Just goes to show that one person really can make a difference. [Judge bangs the gavel]
- 02:31
Especially if that one person is Beyoncé.
- 02:33
…Or, you know, a U.S. Congressman.
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