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ALS as an Ohio Congressman, signed “J. A. Garfield,” one page, 7.75 x 10.25, July 25, 1868. Addressed from Washington, D.C., a handwritten letter to “Fitch,” presumably his friend, Edward H. Fitch, in full: “I ought to have answered your kind letter long ago, but I have been worked so nearly to death, that I have hardly been [able] to write a letter. Yet it is not too late to thank you for your kind and efficient efforts in my behalf in the late campaign and now I want to say that I shall try to spend a very considerable time in the district – & shall hope to visit you – and my other friends in Ashtabula. I shall send you a copy of the Impeachment Trial as soon as it is published. I shall try to see you before long, but I must get a little rest. I shall get home before the end of the coming week.” In fine condition, with an old tape strip along the back top edge.
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ was initiated by the United States House of Representatives on February 24, 1868, with the primary charge against Johnson being that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act. Specifically, that he had acted to remove Edwin Stanton from the position of Secretary of War and to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas as Secretary of War ad interim. James A. Garfield, a Republican Congressman from Ohio, initially opposed the proposed impeachment of Johnson when Congress convened in December 1866, but supported legislation to limit Johnson's powers.
The political climate and Garfield’s stance shifted after Johnson dismissed Stanton in February 1868. The act was viewed as a breach of the law, and many moderates, including Garfield, became more sympathetic to the idea of impeachment. Garfield ultimately voted in favor of impeachment in 1868, when the House formally passed articles of impeachment against Johnson. When Johnson was acquitted in his trial before the Senate on May 26, 1868, Garfield was shocked and blamed the outcome on the trial's presiding officer, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, his onetime mentor.
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