In February 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first president to be impeached. The impeachment and subsequent trial in the U.S. Senate, in which Johnson was spared conviction and removal from office by a single vote, was the culmination of a bitter partisan struggle for power that pitted the Executive against Congress.
The English-born American sportswriter Henry Chadwick using "Old Chalk" as his "Brooklyn Morning Programme" pen name, used base ball to describe Johnson's impeachment to readers, a tactic often used as early as the late 1860s to explain Washington D.C. politics and society. In the following account, impeachment was a ball game between Johnson of the National Club and Thaddeus Stevens (Radical Republican leader in the U.S. House) of the Constitution Club:
Andy Johnson, who had a fight with Stevens, the pitcher of the nine, not long since and the quarrel has not been made up yet. Johnson, it appears, wanted to play certain points in the game . . . but Stevens wouldn’t pitch as Johnson wanted him to and as the rest of the nine joined Thad. Stevens against Johnson, who is the occupant of the first base in the National nine, of course the game had to be postponed. Finally Johnson tried to organize a new nine for the club, and then the row began. Johnson began by placing Larry Thomas in as catch in place of Ed. Stanton. . . . The rest of the nine then took part with Stevens, and putting Stanton in the nine again, said they had found a man to take Johnson’s place, and boldly announced that they were ready to “Wade” in and “fight it out on that line if it took all the summer.” . . . They charged him [Johnson] with selling the games of the club, and of putting men out purposely on his own side in match games. How the mess will end I can’t tell.
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| Henry Chadwick, an English-born American sportswriter, covered baseball from the 1860s to his death in 1908. |
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