The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 was one of the most turbulent events in American history.

Johnson, the man who succeeded President Abraham Lincoln, was born in Raleigh, N.C., in 1808. Despite his poor education, he was elected to the Tennessee legislature in 1835 and advanced to the state senate six years later. After serving as governor of Tennessee, he found himself paired with Lincoln on the Republican ticket in 1865.
Johnson was a Democrat who, following Lincoln's death, proposed a series of conciliatory policies that he hoped would help reunite the fractured country. His attempt to follow Lincoln's plan of extending a hand of friendship and reconciliation to the vanquished South fell apart, mainly because of his timidity. Since both houses of the U.S. Congress were controlled by vengeful Republicans, he was soon ensnarled in a political mess.

David O. Stewart, author of the bestseller "The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution," sorts out the little-understood and ill-defined aspects of impeachment as it was in Johnson's era and is in the present. Stewart, a trial lawyer for more than 25 years, clears the legal brush as he reveals that impeachment is an institutional safety value and that it worked as the framers of the Constitution had hoped it would.

With the expertise of a lawyer and the insight of a historian, Stewart brings this incredible period of history into sharp focus. He challenges many of the traditional versions of the event. For example, Stewart is convinced that Johnson wasn't a victim and that his impeachment was probably deserved. He concludes that it produced a peaceful resolution and probably prevented a second Civil War, and since Johnson was eventually acquitted by one vote, it also avoided sapping the power of future presidents.