Remember Henry Raymond? Of course you don't, unless you are a history buff with a particular interest in the founders of great American newspapers. But that's not the topic of this Beltway Confidential post, is it?

The Voyeur Nightclub scandal afflicting the Republican National Committee and its chairman, Michael Steele, is sparking calls for his ouster. If Steele is ousted, he will be the first RNC chairman thus deposed since the founder of The New York Times, Henry Raymond, got himself tossed way back in 1866.

Over at Andrew Breitbart's Big Government blog, Michael Zak has the true story of Raymond's removal, occasioned by his support of Lincoln's Vice President, Andrew Johnson, in an effort to start a third American major political party. It happened a bare two months before the 1866 mid-term elections.

When all the smoke had cleared, the GOP actually picked up more congressional seats. Go here for the whole story from Zak.