What if Andrew Johnson was innocent because Ben Wade was guilty of being his successor?
April Fool's day, 1815
The eighteenth President of the United States Henry Bowen Anthony (pictured) was born in Coventry, Rhode Island.
A newspaperman and political figure associated with the Whig Party, he served as the editor and later part owner, of the Providence Journal.
Later, he was the 21st Governor of Rhode Island before his election as a Republican Senator from Rhode Island in 1859.
In 1868, upon the sudden death of Benjamin Wade, he was elected President Pro Tempore, the next in line under the Presidential Succession Act of 1792. With the electoral arithmetic dramatically changed at the outset of impeachment proceedings, this event led directly to his own six month occupation of the White House, in which he served out the remainder of Andrew Johnson's term of office.