Michalski and associate director of the leon leave the city of biography which is supported by a generous grant from shelby white and the leon leavy foundation. The writing of biography is the famously arduous and lengthy process and each year we award for fellowships of a 72000 each to overworking biographers to help them across the finish line. Over the past 11 years we have given out 44 of these grants and our fellows have produced 21 biographies to date. Thanks to a grant from the Sloan Foundation when we added a fifth fellowship also for 72000 which will support biographies about figures in the science and technology and the first winter is working on a biography of oliver sacks, laura snyder. Another new feature of this center is a unique twoyear ma and biography memoir which will train students in our Historical Research interview technique and narrative form as well as the history of biography in memoir and how the forms have evolved over time. Housed jointly in history and a list apartment and directed by historian sarah cummington the program is currently accepting its first class of students who will begin studying in the fall of 2019. One of the ma programs prestigious and awardwinning faculty is tonight main speaker, Brenda Wineapple who is also a former director of the leon leavy center for biography. Wineapple is the author of a remarkable original and stylishly written books a static nation, confidence crisis and compromise, 18481877, a New York Times notable book. White heat, the friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth higginson, finalist for the National Book critics circle award. A biography of janet planner did sister, brother, gertrude and leo stein and hawthorne, a life which received the ambassador award. Pineapple is joined by the Professor Emeritus of history at Columbia University and the author of numerous books on American History including reconstruction, americas unfinished revolution, 18631877 which was a must have when i was in graduate school. The fiery trial Abraham Lincoln and the american slavery. Both winners of the coveted bancroft prize. His latest book the second founding how the civil war and reconstruction remade the constitution will appear in september and tonight in the final event of our Spring Season eric will engage Brenda Wineapple in a conversation about her widely claimed new book be in the impeachers the trial of Andrew Johnson and the dream of a just nation. It may have one or two parallels to the current political situation but i will let our two historians weigh in on that. After words i will pass around the mic to our audience members who would like to ask a question. I should also mention the copies of the features are on sale courtesy of books on call nyc and by Brenda Wineapple will be happy to sign them. Please welcome Brenda Wineapple and eric. [applause] thank you all for coming out this evening. To talk about in here about Brenda Wineapple excellent new book, the impeachers. Its a interesting phenomenon that president ial election of 2016 and whats happened since has rekindled a lot of interest in reconstruction in the time after the civil war. I cannot hear what you said but im sure it was not important anyway. What is my microphone not picking up my voice . All right. Well, there we go. Anyway, reconstruction is on the agenda nowadays issues of that time whether who should be a citizen or who should have the right to vote and things like that are very much on the political agenda now. I will not mention he who must not be named until maybe the very end where this is about history and the first impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868 but to begin i like to ask brenda how she got interested in this subject and anyone whos written a book knows that it takes quite a few years to do so so she did not just run into the archive when the motor report appeared and then sure i did. [laughter] i presume it originated when president obama was in office and not too many people were talking about impeachment so what was it that interested you about this . First of all, thank you for the lovely introduction. Thank you. Its a pleasure to be here with eric, of course, because as dad suggested and i will be a force eric really wrote the book on reconstruction and many of the views that our current today really come out of his groundbreaking research so having said that let me go back to erics question that yes, i do not start the book yesterday or even last year and in fact, when i started the book he who should not be named was Andrew Johnson and when people would ask me what i was working on and i would say the impeachment of Andrew Johnson a couple things would happen. One is either they left immediately and bolted and headed for the door or they thought Andrew Jackson and said Andrew Jackson had been impeached and no one knew johnson was and cannot remember. Or be assumed that this was probably more troubling than having people run away from me was that the impeachment process and impeachment of johnson had been a preposterous mistake and that intrigued me. To go back to erics question i began the book six years ago deep into the Obama Presidency and i was not prescient and if anyone was prescient it was my publisher, basically and i was interested because in the previous book i had written as dad mentioned was a static nation covers a very large time in American History during and after the civil war. Rather ridiculously ambitious project but when i was working on that particular book it seemed to me strange that the first ever impeachment of an american president which occurred in 1868 was an event that seem to make peoples eyes glaze over and it seems that most people who knew and this was not eric of course but generally the public or whatever that we went from lincoln to grant without stopping so that in the fact that a static nation working in that time whether it was in hawthorne to deal with reveals to me it was such a crucial and important time and i said what would it be like to be alive in 1865, the war is barely over and you have your first ever president ial assassination. Assassination of lincoln and you have over a hundred 50000 people that and your putting the country back together and enter Andrew Johnson and turn around and then it impeachment. That got me started about what happened and why did it happen and who were involved in it and why did we not know more about it. Those were my questions. Well, youve done a great job in answering your questions. Thats all very good. Different countries have different ways of trying to get rid of people who are either president s, prime ministers, whatever and we were just talking to theresa may in england has been booted out in a coup detat or something by the conservative party and no voter has anything to say about that in england. Here we have a different process and the people who wrote the original constitution did put in the process of impeachment for a rather ambiguous place, high crimes and misdemeanors. Treason and even treason with some discussion now about what treason is and treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors and even if you assume you know what treason is in no bribery when you see it what are high crimes and misdemeanors. That really is a fuzzy terminology because theoretically i think it was said of stevenson a misdemeanor could be stealing a chicken and would you be impeached for that, probably not. As eric says the idea of impeachment and the process for it the conditions which he just named what happens after words if the officer, namely the president , in this case is impeached the trial goes to the senate and i found it to this probably had this experience people dont really entirely understand that its a twopronged process. That is why impeachment is the accusation right . Right, like an indictment. To be impeached is not mean youre connected. Or moved from office. That itself is interesting and that is what is outlined in the constitution and what is interesting there is that there isnt a procedure theres no procedures you should be tried in the present will be tried in the senate and the chief justice shall preside and to be removed from office you need to have two thirds vote of the senate but thats it. That doesnt tell us much about how to that particular trial and its really up for grabs and it really was in 1868. Do you think the people who wrote the constitution saw impeachment more as a criminal kind of process or a political process and do you have to have committed an indictable crime to be impeached or is impeachment just whatever a majority of the house of representatives says it is . If they want to get rid of the president that way they have the right to impeach and have a trial of some kind before the senate. That is still debated now. I read there are a couple books that came out on impeachment about constitutional lawyers in the 70s and around the time of nixon because of clinton and they were arguing that it had to do legal action and im not sure im entirely agree with what i think there was ambiguity built in to the constitution because in the federalist papers Alexander Hamilton says and Impeachable Offense can be an abuse of power. In that particular sense that is not a narrow definition and thats not a legalistic definition that really does have abuse of power significance that is not technical difference and the interesting thing about we talk about the past to make a point clinton was impeached on a narrow perjury. He perjured himself. No one would deny that. But acquitted because of a broader interpretation which is to say whatever he did to not interfere with the way he conducted affairs of state. Well, yeah, no pun intended. Thank you. This is a biography in the book is not a biography although Andrew Johnson is very central to which and his entire life and career but it does have its a very broad cast of characters with a very helpful little, you know, summaries but look, what about Andrew Johnson . As you said hes not exactly a household name. But now he will be. [laughter] his reputation, i guess, like many figures of our history has gone up and down over the years and the original on reconstruction did not like him very much. They thought he was inept and did not understand what the country needed after the civil war and in the 1920s becomes the heroic as the radical republicans declined in reputation he becomes the heroic defender of the constitution in today its like a stock market taking back down again plus your book and other books and widely seen as the worst or possibly next to the worst president and in American History and other contenders now. [laughter] but johnson is way down there. What is your view . Even though there were all sorts of Andrew Johnsons out there in this historical literature is he just an inept politician or is he a shrewd steamer or is he just a guy whos a racist, and it blinded him to anything else . What is your take on Andrew Johnson before he gets to be impeached . Its interesting the three things you sort of enumerated, inapt is, strategic, blinded by his racism and in a certain sense, i would say all three. We may have shared that view he was the only senator from the south. He represented tennessee who stood up against the secessionists in the winter of 1860, 61. Im against secession, for the union. I dont have anything to do with it. We must stay with you. I will fight for the union. From one end of tennessee to the other he was constantly being threatened and his family was threatened with assassination so it was a lonely stand to take and his other views were to say for example on race were not paramount in 60, 61 because of that juncture the idea in the north there were abolitionists certainly who wanted the war to be about Something Else but not a lot of people wanted that. They appointed johnson the military governor of tennessee. So that was in another sense for johnson and the blame game is bringing him closer into the Republican Party and the wind in being very savvy as he was just using johnson because johnson is this upright unionist southern war democrats in a Different Party very committed to the prosecution of the war. So i dont know what you think about the right extent they were behind. Its very murky. I happen to believe he had his finger on the scale. Back then became Vice President was pretty unimportant. Accept from what ive understood, the Vice President , great name, brought nothing except thats named to the ticket. The republicans have to find support in the south and before the war is over, they want to keep the border states happy. Its a smart move whoever was behind the. Is greatly underestimated the number of the unionists. And another miscalculation, lincoln didnt think he was going to die. When i was in graduate school, they wrote a great book which began that generations process of tearing johnson off his pedestal. Just to show you how elevated it has become as you well know, john f. Kennedys profiles which he didnt actually write that he got the Pulitzer Prize for it anyway. They had a lot of spare time and you will see the contributions to the profiles in courage. But anyway, one of the profiles is one of the senators that voted to acquit and that is one of the moments because it saved the presidency from congressional domination and office. By maniacs and fanatics who just wanted to tear down the presidency and Andrew Johnson and voted against his own party because at the time. It was by a juristic purposes. What was he trying to get . I tried very hard to find actual evidence. Theres a lot of smoke but no fire. I could never find about evidence of actual money changing hands. Thats what i can tell you and i do find is plenty of evidence of going to johnson after he cast his vote and asking him constantly consequential to affect them for you for one favor an appointment for this person, appointment for his brother, an assignment here and constantly it is coming back so it is clearly a quid pro quo kind of situation. Hes a fairly weak person and wanted to keep his seat. He needed money for sure from the junior senator from kansas that havent passed any legislation. He was more or less smitten with this young sculptor whose family was very involved in contracts with native americans and as i said, its a lot of smoke but clearly he was asking for quite a lot in favor. Johnson made his reputation in tennessee as the spokesman for the poor white class and wasnt a big slaveowner in fact he denounced. It is so interesting because as they are suggesting he came from nothing and almost less than nothing in a sense a person who started for but then an indentured servant and friend he and his brother ran away from the shop, there was a wanted ad out for him. There was a price on his head which isnt the same as being a fugitive slave, but its pretty horrific when you think about the kind of poverty and ironically and sadly as soon as he did well and they became very successful both in the industry and whatever you want to call it the business and politics. Thats what you did in the south. But it shows how you change classes. One of the mysteries about johnson after he becomes president , lincoln is assassinated and he takes over and very soon after that, he inaugurates his reconstruction policy they set them up in the south and have no voice, no rights and they are free. Anyway, he also says people who own 20,000 worth of property, which is a lot but the big slaveowners are not going to be able to vote or hold office. Johnson seems to assume that therefore they kind of takeover which doesnt happen. He didnt explain why. Do you have any thoughts about why johnsons heart of now begins to align himself with the planters even though at the beginning hes saying we are going to keep them out of this whole process . I think it is part of the same psychology if you will. There was a delegation of Frederick Douglass that came to see him in early 1866 and he was very put off by them and one of the things he said it was so imagined debate hard to imagine a. Im not so sure when he says the socalled farmers were people who didnt restructuring the south away from what had been. I think that was okay to do and it cut with most people that as soon as he got some power again he begins using it almost the same way, now hes making the planters come to him. But so hes got power over these people who call him basically and this was 19th century term poor white trash, now hes saying with his poor right trash now. The mentor his argument was johnson was kind of an outsider. His personality was his problem. One of the problems he was stubborn and didnt listen to anyone and could succumb to flattery. Another way of looking at it is he said outside of it, that he held every Single Office you can hold from older men, statehood assertion, governor, senator, president. He knew the political system. Another way of looking at it is to say look, obviously a Vice President who takes over as to think about how am i going to get reelected and 68 and where is my coalition going to be. Andrew johnson is the first of these white identity politicians fighting for the white man, the republicans are fighting for blacks. I will take that gamble. Now it doesnt work for johnson because all sorts of circumstances, but one might see him as a more calculated petitions than he sometimes appears. The other side of johnsons reputation as the radical republicans, the villains of the peacpiece for decades and decads they were fanatics and vengeful. It was considered a sign of the devil. You take a much more positive view of Thaddeus Stevens into the radical republicans. How do you see them tax its interesting when you think about stevens, for example, who was himself an outsider. Johnson wasnt the only only outsider certainly stevens came from poverty, except his was in vermont and, you know, North Carolina and tennessee. But poverty nonetheless was that kind of poverty did for him in a sense to his mind it was much more empathetic. Much like lincoln. Some makes you empathetic and others you just close it. And it was in a sense the way that i was taught history had nothing to do with that. It was as if i was getting my textbook out of birth of a nation where the character for Thaddeus Stevens was depicted as this awful person with a weird way and was sort of dark and scary and he was going to live in the south it had to come to the ku klux klan to the rescue. And in a sense, that is the history of it and in some sense to a certain extent, notwithstanding still it still exists but on the spielber spied lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens. Youre right. Theres been an effort. I somehow figured to get a postage stamp of Thaddeus Stevens come about hes still blocked by whoever determines these things, so there is a mythology of him as a vengeful genius but what is the positive view of that. What is interesting about that i was reading something today that sort of notion that people like stephen for example the radical republicans all they were interested in his power. And you think well, yes, and this will get to the positive of your question of course they were interested in power. They are interested in power because to them it was the only way to ensure the victory that the north fought for which is to say equal to v. And justice under the law and the eradication not just of slavery because the 14th amendment did that, but that eradication of the effects of slavery which is something worth thinking about because you dont just get rid of the institution and say everything is okay now. Come on back everything is forgotten with moveon. There are effects, 4 Million People whove been deprived of everything, the clothes on their back, all other things come us of comes ofa person like thaddes of course those people were interested in power they are interested in power because they really did believe, and this is what is astonishing, sadly astonishing to me anyway, that this is the 1865 state not even going into the earlier history, these are people like stevens or summer of massachusetts and many others who actually are to my mind a visionary. They see a United States after the war that finally can make good on its promise in the declaration of independence and they are committed to doing that and trying to find the best way so in that sense, thats my take and i think that is very positive they are not perfect, but they really do have to view to give one example about stevens because it is so troubling when he found out the burial plot that he purchased was not in a cemetery that allowed people to be buried there he sold the plot and said im going to be an integrated cemetery because i want to be known for the same values i thought for in life. Now 30 years earlier, talking about power and principle, 30 years earlier, stevens had been a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention 1837 which took the right to vote away from black men in pennsylvania. They had enjoyed it up to the plate. Stevens refused to sign the constitution and walked out. There was no possible political benefit in the team 37 standing up for the rights of people in pennsylvania, quite the opposite. And sumner it was the same thing. The radicals have been fighting for justice and equality long before the civil war, long before the reconstruction. Suddenly as you say it opens up this question of what is going to replace it, what is the country going to look like with 4 Million People suddenly free. Johnson of course has you quote some of the things he said to Frederick Douglass and others about people that were deeply racist and without going through the chronology of events, Congress Tries to work with johnson, he refuses, they pass civil rights legislation, he vetoes it and they propose the amendment, opposes it, tells the south to reject it, finally they get fed up and get rid of the government johnson has created and put into effect what they call radical reconstruction with men now voting in the south for the first time and then johnson opposes that and tries to instruct that so you have two years towards the end of 1865 towards the end of 1867 where therethere is just this acceleg battle between congress and the president over the focus on what rights these africanamerican people are going to have. How does that lead to impeachment if like anything else there isnt that much but everyone who writes about the reconstruction touches on it. Of a different sort of look at it. What is the motivation for impeachment is it just people got fed up with johnson, or they just said look, hes now violated the law the tenure of office act he violated it by kicking out the secretary of the war. What do you see as the motive for the house of representatives eventually to impeach johnson . The interesting thing is that seems to me the motive was growing over time and what i mean by that, and its important to understand that impeachment didnt come overnight. The day had different planes of few. Johnson was her office that was obstructing this idea of this new vision of things and besides, he was Degrading Congress and abusive. The list is very long. They didnt want to do anything fast or precipitous. Starting in 18 to besides when it became clear johnson wasnt going to work with congress and didnt even call them back into session they basically said lets try to work with him and to see what we can do. We dont want to alienate and drive him into the arms of whatever. So they kept trying and then more and more the motives grew as he became more vehement in his language, more clearly supremacist, more abusive and at the same time i should add it was sort of lurching forward and the congress was taking action on the reconstruction but its lurching forward and in other words, did they look at impeachment than it does to the Judiciary Committee. And then the Judiciary Committee investigates and investigates and looks for that tripwire and cant find so they vote not to and then they change their mind because johnson is trying to stop the reconstruction act fros from being executed and so then congress is still slowly marching. It isnt eager to do this and then they are passing other legislation. Something called the tenure of office act was later repealed, sort of a dubious acts but it was there to protect Edwin Stanton the secretary of the war because he was protecting the military coming into the military was protecting blacks and whites in the south who wanted to vote. One of the strange things about the reconstruction policy is that it puts it in the hands of the military command johnson is the commanderinchief of the military and get totally opposed to the policy. When you ask how strategic he is, there are times when he is thickheaded. Why did he stay in office that long . He had inspired him and then the military commission could appoint these generals said he plans them and he hates the generals that he appointed. They are against him and he starts firing them and because of that and the tenure of office and that is finally that is a violation of the law. You want to talk about thumbing your nose at congress. Basically they pass legislation. The chief executive officer of the country is supposed to enact the legislation. The articles of impeachment this is now the spring of 1868, i think that theres 11 of them, but most of them are about the tenure of office. They seem to accept the premise that you have to have a specific violation of the law. The 11th one is kind of a catchall that talks about solving congress and in not just to person and we need to get rid of. They take the speech is included in the articles look at the kind of things hes saying. Hes actually calling for the execution of some of these republicans. Think of that. 1867 it is unheard of to do that and so they are using his language against them and the 11th article is catchall kitchen sink omnibus article. Basically Thaddeus Stevens and ben butler basically put together an 11 impeachment article so that they will have a broad outline of the abusive power in this particular case and so they have got nine technicals having to do with the tenure of office act and they are nontechnical and then the lawyers would house of representatives who prosecute the case against johnson and the lawyers that johnson very wisely hires with the help of the secretary of state one is a Supreme Court justice and they argued this out of the senate the chief justice presides who wants to be president. Even as he has presided over the senate hes trying to get the nomination. Then also he has a funny position. He is next in line for the presidency. And he is considered the most radical of the radicals, has been in the senate for a very long time. For a while, they dont even want him to vote because of the conflict of interest. Imagine in the presidency somebody says he will put Susan Anthony in the cabinet. They had given the speec a sn 1867 saying now that battle between freedom and slavery is over, the next days labor versus capital. Hes the only american quoted in volume one. To remove johnson from office before they go to questions and answers is a very vivid description in the book of the proceedings themselves of the trial because usually what people write about they say he is on trial in the actual what actually happened in the senate is fascinating. You explaiyouve explained thisy well. For the transcripts of the record its kind of law and order. Before they go t we go to the qs let me ask you what do you think the consequences for reconstruction were . Some talk in this building for a long time. He felt that the failure of impeachment weekend at the radicals. Dramatically and undercut the party. And they basically, his lawyer said we people behave himself from now on. Do you think that it weakens reconstruction. Think that helped the reconstruction go forward. I think that the process coming if we didnt even talk about the role of ulysses s. Grant, and the process actually radicalized if we want to use that word but certainly a those that have promised because many of the people even democrats, nobody wanted to touch johnson. Nobody was going to nominate him in 1868. So no one really had much respect and lets say curtailed to a larger extent. But its percolating certainly the 14th amendment and became the way in which the Southern States would be readmitted into the union and that his grants citizenship to process. That is important to and backed doesnt happen under johnson, never could have happened under johnson, so i think that it has greased those wheels and i dont think that it was a mistake. What do you think . Johnson comes back. In 1875, tennessee they sent him back. I dont think theres any i dont think there is any other president in the house and i guess William Howard taft served on the Supreme Court and after being impeached it would be like bill clinton being elected into the senate. Why not, maybe he will. Okay. We are going to open the floor here to questions and then deal with the question situation. My question deals with the tenure of office act. Defend the president to sign that opposite. Fullstop or his veto . He thought everything was passing him over. Good question. Perhaps in the inaugural address he was said to have been inebriated. In his inaugural address that was said that he took a shot or two or more it was indicated by his 19th century cool medicine whatever that might have been a. Defend sumner was wonderful in many ways but wasnt above being catty and said that he saw big cases of bourbon going into johnsons rooms when he left there. The word alcoholic is very strong. Its a kind of 20th century term. Somebody asked in the 19th century if johnson drank and the answer was everybody drank. People would have liked to have attributed and the sad truth is he wasnt. How are the senators that voted to equate, how did they fare in the future elections after the trial they received wisdom as they were all booted out of office and suffered. They said that was true but it wasnt. Some of them just left. Trump stayed in office and switched parties. Several of the men ended up in the liberal movement on the platform of ending reconstruction, it was a symptom of their becoming less enthusiastic about reconstruction even in 1868. Its also where you can start seeing how the Republican Party anthen becomes the Republican Party of now. That takes a while. What is the 1789 definition of high crime and misdemeanor because if we talk about the future impeachment, we have to talk about what the framers meant by the high crimes and misdemeanors and i think that they meant something in English Common law even when they look at the english statutory law, thats the case of Warren Hastings and a lot of different opinions. It was a political determination and i mean that in the best sense of the words possible. You could find a single original intent from this or any other going for them the subject. They have different motivations come in different definitions. So i would forget about what the framers said. The gestures johnson was making, that is an over exaggeration that shows that he was again influential, very influential. Although he tried to keep johnson under control and tell him not to be so crazy in his annunciation. To go along in the amendment. Its a nobrainer really. To what degree is the view of the reconstruction is a popular view had he been removed, we think that this is a triumph, and number two, the historiography of the case, there was a very good book by the american crisis hes for the impeachment and then theres Michael Bennett and they dont y dont get that much attention. What are your thoughts on why that is . Sees an english man who came from a country that doesnt have a written constitution. They claim they have a constitution that if you meet an english man and ask just to show it to me, they will run away. You know, so they have a whole different concept of what does it mean to violate the constitution or two, you know, abused power etc. Hes a good friend of mine, so they think of it in a weird way. Benedict had his own analysis and this was at the time he was writing of impeachment from the point of view of the 1970s. Also i think it is a wonderful book that opened up some discussion, not very much but his analysis which i said is brilliant, the political analysis in the voting records and what their affiliations were a. Of us useful for Something Else a little bit and that was as i said earlier what was it like to be on the ground, what was it like to be one of those people in the south who against whom the clothes were being passed because it seems to b me the kid of analysis is wonderful, but i was interested in that kind of stuff experience that got behind and motivated the impeachment that have to do with the lives of people and the visio divisioe country coming forward. Im curious to what extent was the end a sort of active congressional assertion packs have become used to the very dynamic president s and get at that time you just have jackson in a war president lincoln. Its a very interesting question. Obviously you are coming out of a war where going in thi in is a strong president in many ways that a lot of people particularly in the Democratic Party but even some republicans hated him because they thought that he was usurping a certain amount of power stands and number two, suspending habeas corpus. You could argue that these were more measures, but they kind of shook people up a little bit. The impeachment itself does doel fault of the legislature to stop, and this goes back to the framework one thing i think is clear they are coming off a monarchy and certainly dont want the presidency to turn into that. So, i dont think that its a question of strong president versus the president. It has to do with the fact that countries at this crossroad at this particular time but do have the legislature which is the congress that is supposed to determine the qualifications of its own Members Congress was cognizant of its own powers and even under lincoln was a 13th amendment was finally passed in the house of representatives at the end of january, 65, all the members signed a copy of it. He signed it whereupon the Senate Passed the resolution telling when jim you have no right to sign this and has no role and is gratified by the two thirds of congress and three quarters of the states and they didnt want him signing it. That would be a usurp. So there it went. Could you get a flavor of the trial for the most prominent tht prominent arguments on each side . Gets very complicated. To make it very simpleminded in a certain sense, i think that the best way to make those arguments comprehensible just in a quick question and answer pure code is to say that there was punaro view as i said of the craft view and legalistic view versus the broad view and it would seem that as a prosecutor, the people that wanted johnson out of office would take the broad view because of all of the reasons that enumerated them. The irony is that the johnson defense team, william evers, benjamin curtis, as i said, very brilliant people took the broad view and they will exclude talk about the dignity of the presidency and maintaining the dignity against congress, and the kind of legalistic determination of the tenure of office act, which they said he hadnt violated because the act was worded so ambiguously. So, the managers of the house were arguing in these legalistic terms and lose in that particular sense because they dont really teamed with a broad brush in a particular way. We will probably call this to a halt. What do you think maybe one more question cracks can you summarize why switch from the democratic or the republican side would be happy to see him gone and why . They would be happy. The politics behind it why would they be happy . I think thats what we have been discussing in a certain sense is his vision for the country. Whether your vision was one of those radical progressive whatever you want to call it, republicans whose all the free and just country based inequality he was obstructing that or i order if you were reay sort of a democrat who felt whats keep states rights and president ial power curtailed, the irony is usurping president ial powers and hes supposed to be a democrat who wants to give power back to the states in a particular way so and he had been so difficult in terms of political strategies as i said before. The democrats were saying just go along with the amendment. Just placate these republicans and we can move forward. So the democrats didnt want to have anything to do with him either. Thank you very much. [applause] up next, Pulitzer Prizewinning historian tells the story of early pioneers