Every Impeachment In American History

Mr. Beat goes through every federal impeachment in American history.

Produced by Beat Productions, LLC and Matt Beat. All images and video by Matt Beat, used under fair use guidelines, or found in the public domain. Music by DJ Freedem and Gunnar Olsen.

Here's an annotated script with footnotes:

Sources/further reading:

Corrections
03:03 The Chief Justice presides over presidential impeachment trials. The Vice President presides over all other impeachment trials.
21:03 Trump actually got impeached on December 18, 2019.

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#impeachment #politicalscience #politicalhistory

Here is a list of all the impeachment trials in American history, along with their dates:

William Blount - July 7 to January 14, 1799
John Pickering - January 2 to March 12, 1804
Samuel Chase - December 7, 1804 to March 1, 1805
James H. Peck - May 3 to January 31, 1831
West H. Humphreys - May 26 to June 26, 1862
Andrew Johnson - March 5 to May 26, 1868
Mark Delahay - January 4, 1873, to January 14, 1873
William Belknap - March 3, 1876, to August 1, 1876
Charles Swayne - December 13, 1904 to February 27, 1905
Robert Archbald - July 9 to January 13, 1913
Harold Louderback - March 2 to March 3, 1933
Halsted Ritter - April 17 to June 3, 1936
Harry E. Claiborne - July 7 to September 10, 1986
Alcee Hastings - March 16 to October 20, 1989
Walter Nixon - November 28, 1989 to November 3, 1990
William Jefferson Clinton - December 19, 1998 to February 12, 1999
Samuel Kent - June 15, 2009, to June 19, 2009
Thomas Porteous - September 14, 2010, to December 8, 2010
Donald John Trump - January 16 to February 5, 2020 and February 9 to 13, 2021

Article Two, Section Four of the United States Constitution:
“The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

While impeachment may happen at the state level, in this video we’re just going to focus on every impeachment in American history at the federal level.

The House of Representatives are the only ones who have the power to impeach. First, a U.S. Representative must introduce an impeachment resolution. ANY member of the House of Representatives may do this against ANY federal public official. Not just the President, Vice President, members of the Cabinet, and other federal officials in the executive branch, but also judges and even members of Congress! The resolution is then referred to a committee- usually the House Judiciary Committee, which investigates the charges against the public official and decides whether or not to recommend ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT. If they do, it goes to the entire House of Representatives for a vote. If a majority of the House votes in favor of ANY of the articles of impeachment, that official is impeached.

[iammrbeat]

Who should be impeached next?

Corrections:
03:03 The Chief Justice presides over presidential impeachment trials. The Vice President presides over all other impeachment trials.
21:03 Trump actually got impeached on December 18, 2019. September 24, 2019 was when the formal impeachment inquiry was announced.

Also, don't forget the sponsor and stuff:
Morgan & Morgan, for real.

[Thegreepest]

Now hold on, you’re telling me they put all of these presidents inside of a PEACH??

[GOFLuvr]

Fun fact about Trump's second impeachment: Donald Trump became the President to have the most US Senators from his own party vote in favor of conviction.

[Spiderfisch]

Featuring
The guy who isnt a crook
The guy who didnt have a sexual relationship with that woman
And a stable genius

[MinisDunyasi]

That evil laughter was something I never thought I’d hear from Mr. Beat.

[SoughtAnarchy]

Mario is going to be so devastated when he finds out all these government officials have been in Peach

[TheDrexLord]

You should do the worst scandals of each presidential

[rino]

Mr. Beat needs to do a piece on Senate censures and everyone who received it.

[shirtless]

I am a lawyer, and I met Alcee Hastings at an NAACP event in Tampa when he was still a Judge of the United States District Court of the Southern District of Florida. He was drunk.

[richy]

22:04 “And we say bye bye!” Was totally unexpected and killed me 😂

[detectivesunshine]

I love how you are straight forward with history and facts without dramatizing or conflating things, thanks for the quality work and providing great videos for people to learn from

[PaultheAlien]

Do you think anyone has ever been literally KICKED out of office. I can imagine a criminal as they’re leaving office being physically kicked by people as they leave the room

[nicoamatullo]

As a history buff, you are one of my favorite channels of all time. Thank you Mr.Beat

[NickSmith-felp]

As someone who graduated from the Blue Valley School District, every time I watch one of your videos, I get more sad that I never had you as a teacher. Keep up the great videos!

[alwillk]

How Reagan wasn’t impeached for Iran/contra was baffling. He went in tv and even admitted to being guilty.

[NonstickMilk]

Fun fact. In 1976, I was impeached while serving as my 6th grade class president. What was my offense? I threw a football inside the cafeteria during lunch. The person I was passing to missed the pass which ended up hitting a fire alarm. Yeah, no one appreciates a fire alarm during lunch.
The impeachment didn't mean much since I didn't lose my position as class president. I think Mr H was just teaching us how the impeachment process works. This happened to be the same year as the bicentennial when we had a lot of fun in History.

[ivyy]

Hi Mr Beat I’m currently taking AP Government and whenever I struggle I always come to your videos, even my boyfriend loves watching you with me. You make learning history so fun and easy AND MEMORABLE! Thank you for the content

[chickennoodsoup]

I really appreciate these videos. In school I had a hard time paying attention to history classes. The way you present the information is captivating and digestible. I definitely wish I could’ve been in your classes. It feels nice to finally catch up on and comprehend US history.

[TheBigRedskull]

I can’t wait for the “Every President’s Prior Job/Elected Office” video. I know it’s coming soon 👀

[alonkatz]

A few fun facts:
1. In his impeachment trial, Andrew Johnson was represented by Benjamin R. Curtis. Curtis was a former Supreme Court Justice who resigned from office in protest of the Dred Scott decision. Because of his work on both cases, I believe he is an overlooked figure in American history.

2. Trump may have been the only person to be impeached twice by Congress, but there were 2 others who survived 2 impeachment attempts: one was Andrew Johnson, who, before he almost got kicked out of office, was charged with "high crimes and misdemeanors". Basically, the radical Republicans really didn't like him. He survived that impeachment by a large majority in the House.
The other person to survive 2 impeachment trials was Supreme Court Justice William Douglas. He was charged the first time for delaying the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (which was justified imo, even though Julius actually was a communist spy, I guess even McCarthy was right twice a lifetime). The next attempt to impeach Douglass was for not recusing himself from obscenity cases, since he had previously written articles for porn magazines. In other words, House minority leader Gerald Ford really wanted him out of office for political reasons.

3. James Buchanan was charged with corruption, but wasn't impeached by the House. The House did say that his administration was the most corrupt in American history, but I suspect they spared him because it was mid-1860 and he was a lame duck anyway...