Replies

woodpusher: "President Johnson was not guilty of any violation of law. Lincoln was. Trumbull did not defend Lincoln's unlawful acts. You still do."

You have it exactly backwards. The truth is that President Andrew Johnson was accused and impeached for violating an actual law, but RINO Trumbull voted against conviction because he personally thought the law itself was unconstitutional.
Trumbull put his own opinions above the law itself.
In the case of Lincoln, no actual law was violated, no accusations were made, outside the fantasies of crazy Roger Taney.
But RINO Trumbull seemed mesmerized by arguments of traitorous Democrats and so refused to indemnify Lincoln for saving the United States from Democrats' efforts to destroy it.

For what purpose do you invoke the Tenure of Office Act, an Act notoriously known to be unconstitutional?

How could President Andrew Johnson violate a "law" which was unconstitutional and null and void ab initio?

Trumbull was right, beyond any reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. So was President Andrew Johnson, and more recently, President Donald J. Trump.

The knowledge that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitution is notorious. For what ridiculous purpose do you raise it from its grave and support it?

woodpusher: "Trumbull was not willing to ignore violations of the laws and the Constitution.
You are willing to make believe Lincoln's acts have some viable defence, even if you are incapable of articulating what it may be."

I'm no lawyer, but the defense here is simple: no laws were broken in this matter.

Whatever makes you feel the compulsion to say that you are not a lawyer?

Argument based upon the Tenure in Office Act, notoriously known to be unconstitutional, makes that clear.

What is it with your strange penchant for unconstitutional acts?

woodpusher: "For what purpose do you invoke the Tenure of Office Act, an Act notoriously known to be unconstitutional?
How could President Andrew Johnson violate a "law" which was unconstitutional and null and void ab initio?"

First of all, "null and void ab initio" was not used in any report I've seen, instead parts of the Tenure of Office Act were said (in 1926 in dicta) to be "invalid".

So, you claimed that Lincoln broke the law and Johnson didn't when the truth is just the opposite: Johnson broke an actual law but Lincoln didn't.
Yes, SCOTUS declared, in dicta, 59 years later, parts of the law Johnson broke to be "invalid", but that was never Trumbull's call to make.

woodpusher: "Trumbull was right, beyond any reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty."

Nonsense, Trumbull assumed for himself the authority of the Supreme Court to overturn precedent and declare a law "unconstitutional".

woodpusher: "So was President Andrew Johnson, and more recently, President Donald J. Trump."

Both the law and precedent were different in 1868 than today.
At the time precedent was the SCOTUS Marbury vs. Madison decision and Tenure was the law.

woodpusher: "The knowledge that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitution is notorious.
For what ridiculous purpose do you raise it from its grave and support it?"

Because you lied about it!
At the time it was the law and Johnson broke it.
By stark contrast Lincoln broke no laws and yet you constantly lie about that too.

woodpusher: "Whatever makes you feel the compulsion to say that you are not a lawyer?
Argument based upon the Tenure in Office Act, notoriously known to be unconstitutional, makes that clear."

I'm a citizen and student of history.
I notice that the 1867 Tenure in Office Act was amended for President Grant in 1869, then repealed entirely in 1887.
In 1926, Chief Justice (former President) Taft wrote for the 6-3 majority that a similar law was unconstitutional, also referring back, in dicta, to parts of the 1867 Tenure act as "invalid".

Sure, all that is well and good, some 59 years later, but at the time, in 1867 the precedent, as pointed out by Brandeis in 1926, was Marbury vs. Madison which:

"...assumed, as the basis of decision, that the President, acting alone, is powerless to remove an inferior civil officer appointed for a fixed term with the consent of the Senate; and that case was long regarded as so deciding." "

Indeed, McReynolds in 1926, also dissenting from Taft studied the Constitutional Convention notes and said that,

"he found no language in the Constitution or in the notes from the Convention intended to grant the President the 'illimitable power' to fire every appointed official, 'as caprice may suggest', in the entire government with the exception of judges."

Of course, I agree with Taft that the President can "at pleasure" fire confirmed executive branch officials, but at the time the Tenure of Office Act simply stated what had been assumed as Founders Intent since at least 1803.
The Act was valid and Johnson broke it, but Trumbull on his own authority declared it "unconstitutional".

By stark contrast Lincoln broke no law and was eventually authorized by Congress to suspend habeas corpus as necessary.

woodpusher: "What is it with your strange penchant for unconstitutional acts?"

What is it with your strange penchant for hatred of and lying about Lincoln?