Compare And Contrast Clinton And Johnson

There have been only two presidents throughout American History that have been impeached. These two presidents were William (Bill) Clinton and Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson was the vice president and shortly became the 17th president in 1865 after the assassination of Lincoln. Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd president in 1992, after being the governor of Arkansas. Both of these impeachments were different in several ways. Andrew Johnson was the first president in U.S. history to be impeached. He was a disliked by many people in the north because he favored the south and because of his pro-slavery views. After the Civil War, Johnson was stubbornly against any laws that would aid the slaves in any way or any laws that would penalize men that fought for the confederacy. Johnson didn’t get along very good with the congress. He vetoed many bills that the congress tried to pass. The congress shortly passed the “Tenure of Office Act,” which made it so Johnson couldn’t fire cabinet members he didn’t like without the senates approval. Johnson eventually broke the law and

A couple years after Clinton took office, a girl by the name of Monica Lewinsky began her job as the White House Intern. Clinton soon began having sexual relationships with her. The relationship lasted about 2 years. After Clinton ended the sexual relationship he soon became re-elected president. A couple months later, Lewinsky’s agent has, Linda Tripp tap the phone conversations between her and Clinton. They find valuable information from doing this. When Clinton is asked about the relationship he simply tells everyone that he never did anything with Monica Lewinsky, but when he is asked about the relationship in front of the grand jury he says it was true. With Clinton previously lying about his relationship he got impeached. The House impeached Clinton on a vote of 258 to 176. Clinton violated 4 articles that he was impeached