On this day, on the floor of the U.S. House, James Mitchell Ashley stated that there was sufficient evidence to require the Judiciary Committee to take up an investigation into the necessity of impeaching the president for "high crimes and misdemeanors," including the corruption of executive power in appointments, pardons, and the veto. The body voted 107 to 39, with 45 abstentions to send the matter to the Judiciary Committee. The Thirty-Ninth Congress was soon to expire and the work of the committee was continued into the next Congress. After eleven months, the examination of eighty-nine witnesses, and the publication of twelve hundred pages of testimony, the Committee reported for impeachment on a narrow five to four vote. The Congress, however, citing the lack of specific crimes outlined in the report, on December 7, 1867, voted 57 to 108 to take no action at the moment. (By John Osborne)
Edmund Gibson Ross, History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: President of the United States by the House of Representatives and his Trial by the Senate ... (New York: Burt Franklin,1896), 46-50.
