1867 All Over Again?

Congressional arrogance is timeless

Nothing says progress like recycling the problems of 140 years ago. I knew when the utter and complete non-scandal of the U.S. Attorney firings bubbled to the surface that it sounded vaguely familiar. And I don’t mean because it called to mind the “Saturday Night Massacre” of Watergate, or the 1993 wholesale firings of 93 federal attorneys by the Clintons. When the Senate passed a resolution prohibiting the Executive branch from firing any additional U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval, the resonance became even stronger.

Where had I read this story before? Ah, yes…I remember….I flashed back to my High School American History class….

At the end of the Civil War, after the assassination of President Lincoln, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as President. Johnson was faced with the enormous question of what to do with the defeated South and its millions of former slaves. Following Lincoln’s tendencies, he preferred a conciliatory approach, seeking to reconstitute the South rather than to punish it.

This approach was complicated by the fact that the “Radical Republicans” had by this time gained ascendance in the House and Senate. The chief things they were radical about were the desire to punish the South and to push for genuine equality for former slaves. As they were quite literally driven by religious fervor they were not much in the mood to compromise with President Johnson’s conciliatory approach. Given that Andrew Johnson was himself an ornery and stubborn old cuss, nothing but trouble could come of their policy impasse.

Congress passed law after law taking various powers away from the President and unto themselves, and President Johnson vetoed them as they were passed. The radicals had some allies in the Johnson administration, and to ensure they were protected, Congress in 1867 passed the Tenure of Office Act which prohibited the firing of any appointed government official without Congressional approval. President Johnson properly vetoed this clearly unconstitutional act, but that vetoed was overridden.

When President Johnson removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in 1868 with no effort to seek Congressional concurrence, Congress responded by impeaching him. The Senate came one vote short of convicting him.

Lovely history lesson, eh? But what does that have to do with modern times? Well, the dynamics are eerily similar.

Let’s start with the President. I thoroughly disagree with those who say that President Bush is “arrogant.” He is nothing of the sort. I suspect he is actually very humble and keenly aware of his human shortcomings. But he is stubborn. And he has strong principles. Those who decry these traits as “arrogant” are generally doing nothing more than lamenting that he does not tailor his views to fit the progressive fashions of the day. If failure to bow to liberal demands and arguments is a sign of arrogance, well, color me arrogant too! But he is stubborn, and he is protective of the Executive Branch’s prerogatives.

On the other side is the newly elected Democrat House and Senate who are behaving as if they are – to quote Elwood Blues – “on a Mission From God.” Although they are Democrats and President Johnson’s foes were Republicans, the progressives running the Congressional asylum are remarkably similar in style and attitude to the Radical Republicans of the 1860s. The Radical Republicans were utterly certain of the moral rightness of their cause to eliminate the evil of slavery and to punish the slaveholding culture. Although elected into the majority by razor-thin margins, today’s Democrats seem equally certain that they are morally obligated to rid the world of the evil of George W. Bush. This does not shock me. The liberal/progressive self-image does not lack for self-esteem. They see themselves as the natural rulers of the country/world/universe and conservatives – even compassionate ones – as lowbrow interlopers. The Texan Bush is viewed much like the Confederates in defeat – a continuing threat to be stepped on and rendered harmless.

So they seek out confrontation at all opportunities, including arrogating unto themselves powers that the Constitution does not give them, creating their own version of the Tenure of Office Act.

I don’t for a minute think the current situation will head towards impeachment. The Dems are too weak. But I also believe that if the Democrat political position was stronger they wouldn’t hesitate.

One of the foundational conservative principles is that human nature doesn’t change. It can’t change. There is a strange satisfaction in seeing the Democrats proving this principle once again. The Information Age doesn’t stop folks from acting just a foolish as they did in the mid-19th Century. Welcome to 1867 + 140.

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