''Mississippi v. Johnson'', 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 475 (1867), was the first suit to be brought against a

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

in the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

. The state of

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

attempted to sue President Andrew Johnson for enforcing

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

. The court decided, based on a previous decision of ''

Marbury v. Madison ''Marbury v. Madison'', 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws and statutes t ...

'' that the President has two kinds of tasks: ministerial and discretionary. Discretionary tasks are ones the president can choose to do or not to do, while ministerial tasks are ones required by his office: those whose failure to perform could leave him in violation of the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

. The court ruled that by enforcing Reconstruction, Johnson was acting in an "executive and political" capacity—a discretionary rather than a ministerial one—and so he could not be sued.

External links

* * United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Chase Court United States separation of powers case law 1867 in United States case law 1867 in Mississippi

Johnson Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...

Andrew Johnson {{SCOTUS-case-stub

See also

Further reading

External links