[97] Due to a court case, he was absent on February 24, 1868, when the House impeached Johnson, but gave a speech aligning himself with Thaddeus Stevens and others who sought Johnson's removal shortly thereafter.[94] Garfield was present on March 2 and 3, 1868, when the House voted on specific articles of impeachment, and voted in support of all 11 articles.[98] During the March 2 debate on the articles, Garfield argued that what he characterized as Johnson's attempts to render Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and William H. Emory personal tools of his demonstrated Johnson's intent to disregard the law and override the Constitution, suggesting that Johnson's trial perhaps could be expedited to last only a day in order to hasten his removal.[99] When Johnson was acquitted in his trial before the Senate, Garfield was shocked and blamed the outcome on the trial's presiding officer, Chief Justice Chase, his onetime mentor.[94]
By the time Grant succeeded Johnson in 1869, Garfield had moved away from the remaining radicals (Stevens, their leader, had died in 1868). By this time, many in the Republican Party wanted to remove the "Negro question" from national affairs.