TENNESSEE Senator DAVID T. PATTERSON Voted to Acquit Pres. Johnson Father-in-Law
$ 10.56
Description
TENNESSEE Senator DAVID T. PATTERSON Voted to Acquit Pres. Johnson Father-in-Law. His father-in-law Andrew Johnson had succeeded as President of the United States following Lincoln's assassination the year before. Johnson was impeached by the United States House of Representatives in February 1868, which caused Patterson personal conflict. Offered here is a signed sheet, 4 3/4" x 1 1/2", signed "David T. Patterson Tennessee.". Slightly irregular top edge, light toning-- very good overall. DAVID TROTTER PATTERSON (1818 – 1891) was a United States Senator from Tennessee at the beginning of the Reconstruction period. A staunch Union supporter (as were most of his fellow East Tennesseans), he was elected by the Tennessee General Assembly to the U.S. Senate when Tennessee was readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866, the first state of the former Confederacy to do so. He presented his credentials to the Senate on July 26, but they were challenged; he was not permitted to take the oath of office until July 28. A Unionist from East Tennessee, Patterson was elected by the Tennessee General Assembly to the U.S. Senate when Tennessee became the first Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866. His father-in-law Andrew Johnson had succeeded as President of the United States following Lincoln's assassination the year before. Johnson was impeached by the United States House of Representatives in February 1868, which caused Patterson personal conflict. According to the U.S. Constitution, the Senate had the duty to try Johnson on the charges, and did so from March to May 1868. Their vote was one short of the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority for conviction. Patterson believed that his father-in-law was not guilty and that the charges against him were contrived. In the decades since the impeachment, historians generally have agreed to a consensus with the same conclusion, but some disagreed. Patterson retired from public life when his Senate term expired on March 3, 1869. He returned to East Tennessee to manage his relatively vast agricultural interests. On November 3, 1891, Patterson died in the small community of Afton. He was interred with the Johnson family in the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in Greeneville.
