Splash Biography

Before he was a President, John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize for the book "Profiles in Courage." The book presented a collection of accounts of acts of political courage displayed by several U.S. Senators who lived and served in Congress at different times in history and who faced different important issues, but each of whom took strong stands in politics based on the dictates of their conscience. One chapter discusses the courageous acts of Edmund Ross, a Senator from Kansas during the 1860's who went against his party's will and the will of his constituents by voting against the impeachment of the incredibly unpopular and arguably incompetent President Andrew Johnson in 1868. Ross didn't like the President, and he didn't want to lose the respect of his fellow colleagues and supportive voters, but the Senator felt that circumstances such as those pertaining to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson were foul and wrong; he felt that if the Senate were able to remove the President on the charges Johnson was accused of (and they were flimsy charges) then the respect that people in the country had for the office of president would be severely damaged. Ross could not in good conscience support the removal of President Johnson. Because of Ross' vote in the Senate, Johnson was not impeached, Ross' supporters abandoned him, and he wasn't elected to the Senate again. History has shown, however, that Ross did the country a service by understanding that removing Johnson would have sullied the office of the Presidency, hurting the nation in the long run. My class will be spent explaining at greater length who Senator Ross was, what the issues of President Johnson's impeachment included, how Senator Ross reached the conclusion he made to vote against impeachment and how he saved Johnson’s presidency. Also, I will speak of how Ross was ostracized from politics for a time because of his vote, but how we owe him a debt of gratitude for what he did to retain the dignity of the office of the Presidency when so many others would have had it ruined. On a level that will affect students more closely, I will show how Senator Ross serves as a model for what a person of courage does when conflicts of conscience come between doing what one feels is right and following the will of others. I will talk of the importance of Senator Ross' choice to vote against impeaching the President in comparison to everyday experiences when ordinary people are met with similar conflicts.