The Age of Impeachment: U.S. Constitutional Culture since 1960
FAIN: FA-51587-05
David E. Kyvig
Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL 60115-2828)
The constitutional device of impeachment, previously little used, has been repeatedly employed since 1960. From campaigns during the 1960s to remove Supreme Court Justices to congressional investigations of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, four 1980s judicial impeachments, and the trial of Bill Clinton, impeachment has become a recurring feature of an increasingly strident and impatient political culture. A careful and well-contexualized historical inquiry will illuminate relatively unexamined interconnections and matters of fundamental public importance in evolving U.S. political/constitutional culture.