David O. Stewart speaks to the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia about his book: "Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy"  on December 8, 2015, at the Fort McNair Officers' Club in Washington D.C.
Questions and answers follow the presentation.
A copy of the PowerPoint to his presentation is available by clicking HERE or at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W8TI-00DHcztf73p3irnbP59szexBqY2/view

 TOPIC: 
The Impeachment of President Johnson

About The Topic:  
In 1868 Congress impeached President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the man who had succeeded the murdered Lincoln, bringing the nation to the brink of a second civil war. Enraged to see the freed slaves abandoned to brutal violence at the hands of their former owners, distraught that former rebels threatened to regain control of Southern state governments, and disgusted by Johnson's brawling political style, congressional Republicans seized on a legal technicality as the basis for impeachment - whether Johnson had the legal right to fire his own secretary of war, Edwin Stanton. The fiery but mortally ill Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania led the impeachment drive, abetted behind the scenes by the military hero and president-in-waiting, General Ulysses S. Grant. The Senate trial featured the most brilliant lawyers of the day, along with some of the least scrupulous, while leading political fixers maneuvered in dark corners to save Johnson's presidency with political deals, promises of patronage jobs, and even cash bribes. Johnson escaped conviction by a single vote.

David Stewart, the author of the highly acclaimed The Summer of 1787, the bestselling account of the writing of the Constitution, challenges the traditional version of this pivotal moment in American history. Rather than seeing Johnson as Abraham Lincoln's political heir, Stewart explains how the Tennessean squandered Lincoln's political legacy of equality and fairness and helped force the freed slaves into a brutal form of agricultural peonage across the South. When the clash between Congress and president threatened to tear the nation apart, the impeachment process substituted legal combat forviolent confrontation.  Both sides struggled to inject meaning into the baffling requirement that a president be removed only for "high crimes and misdemeanors," while employing devious courtroom gambits, backstairs spies, and soaring rhetoric. When the dust finally settled, the impeachment process had allowed passions to cool sufficiently for the nation to survive the bitter crisis."  With the dramatic expansion of the powers of the presidency, and after two presidential impeachment crises in the last forty years, the lessons of the first presidential impeachment are more urgent than ever.


About The Speaker:  
After practicing law for many years, David O. Stewart began to write history, too.  His first book, "The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution," was a Washington Post bestseller and won the Washington Writing Award as Best Book of 2007. 

Two years later, Mr. Stewart published "Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy," which was called “by all means the best account of this troubled episode” by Professor David Donald of Harvard. 

Mr. Stewart's third book "American Emperor, Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America," an examination of Burr’s Western expedition, which shook the nation’s early foundations, was awarded The Society of the Cincinnati History Prize in 2013. 

"The Lincoln Deception," an historical mystery about the John Wilkes Booth conspiracy, was released in late August 2013.  Bloomberg View called it the best historical novel of the year, while Publishers Weekly said it was an “impressive debut novel.”

"Madison’s Gift:  Five Partnerships That Built America," was released in February, 2015.  The Washington Post called it a portrait “rich in empathy and understanding” by “an acknowledged master of narrative history.”

Mr. Stewart's second historical novel, "The Wilson Deception," set at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, was released in late September, 2015.  Publishers Weekly said of it that “Stewart deftly depicts the mood of an era and the colorful figures who shaped it.”  David received the Prescott Award for excellence in historical writing from the National Society of Colonial Dames of America. 

Mr. Stewart also is President of the Washington Independent Review of Books, , which hosts a nonprofit website dedicated to book reviews and writing about the world of books, at http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/


For a full bio, visit: http://davidostewart.com/about-david/   
______________________________________________

For information about the Round Table and to apply for membership, see the Tab above marked "About Us/ Membership Information" or click HERE
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)