WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee abruptly postponed a historic vote late Thursday on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, shutting down a divisive 14-hour session that dragged with sharp partisan divisions but had been expected to end with the charges being sent to the full House for a vote next week.

Approval of the charges against the president is still expected early Friday in the committee. But the sudden turn punctuated the sharp partisan split in the Congress, and the nation, over impeaching the president. The committee, made up of some of the most strident Democrats and Republicans in Congress, clashed for all day and into the night as Republicans insisted on lengthy debate on amendments designed to kill the two formal charges with no hope of winning votes from the majority Democrats.

Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the committee would resume the session at 10 a.m.

Trump is accused, in the first article, of abusing his presidential power by asking Ukraine to investigate 2020 rival Joe Biden while holding military aid as leverage, and, in the second, of obstructing Congress by blocking the House’s efforts to probe his actions.

Trump is only the fourth U.S. president to face impeachment proceedings and the first to be running for reelection at the same time.

He insists he did nothing wrong and blasts the Democrats’ effort daily as a sham and harmful to America.

Republican allies seem unwavering in their opposition to expelling Trump, and he claims to be looking ahead to swift acquittal in a Senate trial.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi sounded confident Thursday that Democrats, who once tried to avoid a solely partisan effort, will have the votes to impeach the president without Republican support when the full House votes next week. But she said it was up to individual lawmakers to weigh the evidence.

“The fact is we take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Pelosi told reporters. “No one is above the law; the president will be held accountable for his abuse of power and for his obstruction of Congress.”

The outcome poses potentially serious political consequences for both parties ahead of the 2020 elections, with Americans divided over whether the president conducted impeachable acts and if it should be up to Congress, or the voters, to decide whether he should remain in office.

The president has refused to participate in the proceedings, tweeting criticisms as he did Thursday from the sidelines, mocking the charges against him in the House’s nine-page resolution as “impeachment light.”

But Pelosi said the president was wrong and the case against him is deeply grounded.

Democrats note that the investigations go back to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of the 2016 election that put Trump in the White House.

And they say his dealings with Ukraine have benefited its aggressive neighbor Russia, not the U.S., and he must be prevented from “corrupting” U.S. elections again and cheating his way to a second term next year.

The Judiciary Committee session drew out over two days, with both sides appealing to Americans’ sense of history — Democrats describing a sense of duty to stop what one called the president’s “constitutional crime spree” and Republicans decrying what one said was the “hot garbage’’ impeachment and what it means for the future of the country.

Trump, apparently watching the live proceedings on television, tweeted his disapproval of two Democratic women on the panel — Reps. Veronica Escobar and Sheila Jackson Lee, both of Texas. He called their comments about his actions inaccurate.

As lawmakers dug in for the second day at the stately hearing room in the Capitol, Nadler immediately asked for a full reading of the two articles of impeachment against the president as TV cameras carried the live proceedings.

Then came a long day of fights over amendments, primarily by Republicans trying to stop the impeachment. They were being rejected by Democrats along party lines.

The top Republican, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, called the proceedings a “farce” and said they should be halted until his side was provided a chance for its own hearing.

The request was denied, with the chairman saying the process was in line with the impeachment hearings of Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

First up was an amendment from GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who tried to delete the first charge against Trump.

“This amendment strikes article one because article one ignores the truth,” he declared.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., argued there was “overwhelming evidence” that the president with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, in pushing Ukraine to investigate rival Biden, was engaged in an abuse of power “to corrupt American elections.’’

Debate on that one amendment lasted for hours before it was defeated, 23-17, on a party-line vote.

Another amendment, from Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., sought to replace part of the article that says Trump “corruptly solicited” Ukraine to launch an investigation into Biden with his reference to Biden’s son Hunter Biden and the gas company in Ukraine where he served on the board.

That, too, was rejected by the panel on party lines.

Others followed.

Thursday’s all-day hearing picked up where Wednesday’s late-night session left off.