The situation between the U.S. president and…

The situation between the U.S. president and his secretary of war finally becomes so untenable that Johnson tries to remove Stanton from office to provide a court test of the constitutionality of the Tenure-of-Office Act, passed in 1867 by the Radicals in Congress over the president's veto.

The stubborn secretary refuses to be dismissed, claiming that the Act protects his official position.

The Radical-dominated House of Representatives, unsympathetic to the president's persistence, on February 24, responds with a House resolution, 126 to 47, calling for the impeachment of the president—the first such occurrence in U.S. history—on eleven charges, among them violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act and high misdemeanor.