As the result of the great victory over the President in the political
contest of 1866, and of his stubborn maintenance of a hostile attitude,
the ardent and extreme men of the Republican party began, in the autumn
of that year, to discuss the propriety of ending the whole struggle by
impeaching Mr. Johnson and removing him from office. They believed
that his contumacious and obstinate course constituted a high crime
and misdemeanor, and the idea of Impeachment, as soon as suggested,
took deep root in minds of a certain type. When Congress came together
in December the agitation increased; and on the 7th of January (1867),
directly after the holidays, two Missouri representatives (Loan and
Kelso) attempted in turn to introduce resolutions in the House
proposing an Impeachment, but each was prevented by some parliamentary
obstruction. At a later hour of the same day Mr. James M. Ashley of
Ohio rose to a question of privilege and formally impeached the
President of high crimes and misdemeanors. "I charge him," said Mr.
Ashley, "with an usurpation of power and violation of the law: in
that he has corruptly used the appointing power; in that he has
corruptly used the pardoning power; in that he had corruptly used the
veto power; in that he has corruptly interfered in elections and
committed acts which in contemplation of the Constitution are high
crimes and misdemeanors."
Mr. Ashley's charges were very grave, but they created slight
impression upon the House and did not alarm the country. Every one
present felt that they were gross exaggerations and distortions of
fact, and could not be sustained by legal evidence or indeed by
reputable testimony of any kind. They were however referred in due
form to the Judiciary Committee, with full power to send for persons
and papers, to administer the customary oath to witnesses, and to make
in all respects a thorough investigation. Nothing was heard from the
committee until the 2d of March, when on the eve of the expiration of
Congress they reported that many documents had been collected, a large
number of witnesses examined, and every practicable thing done to
reach a conclusion of the case; but that not having fully examined all
the charges preferred against the President, they did not deem it
expedient to submit any conclusion beyond the statement that sufficient
testimony had been brought to the committee's notice to justify and
demand a further prosecution of the investigation. They therefore
passed the testimony they had taken into the custody of the Clerk of
the House, as a notification to the succeeding Congress that inquiry
into the matter should be pursued. The report was made by Mr. James
F. Wilson of Iowa, chairman of the committee, and concurred in by all
the Republican members. Mr. Rogers, a Democratic member from New
Jersey, made a minority report, stating that he had carefully examined
all the testimony in the case; that there was not one particle of
evidence to sustain any of the charges which had been made; that the
case was entirely void of proof; and that most of the testimony taken
was of a secondary character, such as could not be admitted in any
court of justice. He objected to continuing the subject and thereby
keeping the country in a feverish state. No action was taken by the
House except to lay both reports upon the table.
There was on the part of conservative Republicans a sincere hope that
nothing more would be heard of the Impeachment question. If a
committee industriously at work for sixty days could find nothing on
which to found charges against the President, they thought that
wisdom suggested the abandonment of the investigation. But Mr. Ashley,
with his well-known persistency, was determined to pursue it; and on
the 7th of March, the third day after the new Congress was organized,
he introduced a resolution directing the Judicial Committee to continue
the investigation under the same instructions as in the preceding
Congress, with the additional power to sit during the recess. Mr.
Ashley expressed the hope that "this Congress will not hesitate to do
its duty because the timid in our own ranks hesitate, but will
proceed to the discharge of the high and important trust imposed upon
it, uninfluenced by passion and unawed by fear." He was answered
with indignation by Mr. Brooks and Mr. Fernando Wood of New York, and
the question becoming a party issue Mr. Ashley's resolution was
carried without a division after an ineffectual attempt to lay it on
the table,--a motion which was sustained by only thirty-two votes.
The committee proceeded in their work during the recess of Congress,
and reported the testimony on the 25th of the ensuing November (1867).
Some ninety-five witnesses had been examined, and the report of
testimony covered twelve hundred octavo pages. Much of the evidence
seemed irrelevant, and that which bore directly upon the question of
the President's offense fell far below the serious character assigned
to it by previous rumors. This was especially true in regard to the
testimony given by General Grant. There were secret and ominous
intimations that General Grant had been approached by the President
with the view of ascertaining whether, if it should be determined to
constitute a Congress of Democratic members from the North and rebel
members from the South (leaving the Republicans to come in or stay out
as they might choose), the Army could be relied upon to sustain such
a movement. There is no doubt that many earnest Republicans were so
impressed by the perverse course of President Johnson that they came
to believe him capable of any atrocious act. They gave credulous ear,
therefore, to these extravagant rumors; and in the end they succeeded
in making a deep impression upon the minds of certain members of the
Committee charged with the investigation into the President's official
conduct.
The persons who were giving currency to these rumors never seemed to
realize that General Grant, with his loyalty, his patriotism, and his
high sense of personal and official honor, could not for a moment have
even so much as listened to a proposition which involved an attack
upon the legitimacy of the Congress of the United States, and
practically contemplated its overthrow through means not different from
those by which Cromwell closed the sessions of the Long Parliament.
Nothing can be more certain than the fact that if President Johnson had
ever made such an intimation to General Grant, it would have been at
once exposed and denounced with a soldier's directness; and the
President would have been promptly impeached for an offense in which
his guilt would not have been doubtful.
It was not surprising, therefore, that by General Grant's testimony,(1)
the entire charge was dissipated into thin air, and proved to be only
one of the thousand baseless rumors which in that exciting period were
constantly filling the political atmosphere. It was perhaps the
intention of the Committee in examining General Grant on this point,
to give him an opportunity in an official report to stamp the current
rumors as utterly false. It can hardly be possible that a single
member of the Committee believed that General Grant had silently
received from the President a deliberate proposition to revolutionize
the Government. When the essential truth of the matter was reached, it
was found that General Grant had never heard any thing from the
President, on the question of organizing Congress, at all different
from the premises he had assumed in the series of disreputable
speeches delivered by him in his extraordinary tour through the
country the preceding year.
There was a marked divergence of views in the recommendations from
the Judiciary Committee. The majority, Messrs. George S. Boutwell of
Massachusetts, Francis Thomas of Maryland, Thomas Williams of
Pennsylvania, William Lawrence of Ohio, and John C. Churchill of New
York, reported a resolution directing that "Andrew Johnson, President
of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors."
Mr. Wilson of Iowa and Mr. Frederic Woodbridge of Vermont, submitted
a minority report, with a resolution directing that "the Committee on
the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of the proposed
impeachment of the President of the United States, and that the subject
be laid upon the table." The two Democratic members of the committee,
Mr. Marshall of Illinois and Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin, while agreeing
with the resolution submitted by Mr. Wilson, desired to express certain
views from the Democratic stand-point. They therefore submitted a
separate report, reviewing the entire proceeding in language more
caustic than Mr. Wilson and Mr. Woodbridge had seen fit to employ.
The effect of Mr. Boutwell's report was seriously impaired by the fact
that the chairman of the committee and another Republican member had
refused to concur, and it was at once evident from the position in
which this division left the question, that the House would not sustain
an Impeachment upon the testimony submitted. By an arrangement to
which only a few members objected, the discussion of the reports was
confined to two speeches, one by Mr. Boutwell and one by Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Boutwell's was delivered on the 5th and 6th of December, and Mr.
Wilson's reply immediately after Mr. Boutwell had concluded on the
second day. Both speeches were able and positive, holding the
attention of members in a marked and exceptional degree. A large
majority of the House desired the vote to be taken as soon as Mr.
Wilson had concluded; but some dilatory motions kept off the decision
until the succeeding day (December 7, 1867), when amid much excitement,
and some display of angry feeling between members, the resolution
calling for the impeachment of the President was defeated by an
overwhelming majority,--_ayes_ 57, _noes_ 108.(2) The affirmative vote
was composed entirely of Republicans, but a larger number of
Republicans were included in the negative; so that apart from any
action of the Democratic party the advocates of Impeachment were in the
minority.
By this decisive vote the project of impeaching the President was in
the public belief finally defeated. But those best acquainted with
the earnestness of purpose and the determination of the leading men,
who had persuaded themselves that the safety of the Republic depended
upon the destruction of Johnson's official power, knew that the closest
watch would be kept upon every action of the President, and if an
apparently justifying cause could be found the project of his removal
would be vigorously renewed. It is difficult to understand the
intensity of conviction which had taken possession of certain minds
on this subject--difficult to understand why the same causes and the
same reasons which operated so powerfully on certain Republicans in
favor of Impeachment, should prove so utterly inadequate to affect
others. Why should Mr. Boutwell be so decidedly on one side and Mr.
Dawes with equal firmness on the other? Why should General Schenck and
William Lawrence vote for impeachment and General Garfield and John A.
Bingham against it? Why should Thaddeus Stevens and Judge Kelley vote
in the affirmative and the four Washburns in the negative?
Geographically there was a traceable division in the vote. In New
England, usually so radical, only five members favored Impeachment.
New York gave but two votes for it and Pennsylvania gave but six.
The large majority of those who exhibited such an earnest desire to
force the issue to extremes came from the West, but even in that
section the Republicans who opposed it were nearly equal in number to
those who favored it. The vote led to no little recrimination inside
the ranks of the party--each side regarding the other as pursuing an
unwise and unjustifiable course. The advocates of Impeachment were
denounced as rash, hot-headed, sensational, bent on leading the party
into an indefensible position; while its opponents were spoken of as
faint-hearted, as truckling to the Administration, as afraid to strike
the one blow imperatively demanded for the safety of the Republic. But
outside of this quarrel of partisans the great mass of quiet citizens
and more especially the manufacturing, commercial, and financial
communities, were profoundly grateful that the country was not, as
they now believed, to be disturbed by a violent effort to deprive the
President of his great office.
The prophets of Peace were disappointed in their hopes and their
predictions. A train of circumstances, not unnaturally growing out of
the political situation, led in the ensuing month to the renewal of
the scheme of Impeachment because of the President's attempt to
appoint a new Secretary of War. The President himself narrates what
he had done to secure the resignation of Mr. Stanton: "I had come to
the conclusion that the time had arrived when it was proper for Mr.
Stanton to retire from my Cabinet. The mutual confidence and general
accord which should exist in such a relation had ceased. I supposed
that Mr. Stanton was well advised that his continuance in the Cabinet
was contrary to my wishes, for I had repeatedly given him to
understand by every mode short of an express request that he should
resign." On the fifth day of August (1867), the President addressed
Mr. Stanton a brief note in these words: "Public considerations of
a high character constrain me to say that your resignation as Secretary
of War will be accepted." Mr. Stanton replied immediately,
acknowledging the receipt of the letter and adding: "I have the honor
to say that public considerations of a high character, which alone have
induced me to continue at the head of this Department, constrain me
not to resign the Secretaryship of War before the next meeting of
Congress."
Not acting with angry haste, but reflecting for a week upon the
situation resulting from Mr. Stanton's refusal to resign, the President
on the 12th of August suspended him from the Secretaryship of War under
the power conferred by the Tenure-of-office Act, and added in a note
to him: "You will at once transfer to General Ulysses S. Grant, who
has this day been authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War
_ad interim_, all records, books, papers and other public property
now in your custody and charge." Mr. Stanton replied to the
President: "Under a sense of public duty I am compelled to deny your
right under the Constitution and laws of the United States, without
the advice and consent of the Senate and without legal cause, to
suspend me from the office of Secretary of War, or the exercise of any
of the functions pertaining to the same; but inasmuch as the General
commanding the armies of the United States has been appointed _ad
interim_ and has notified me that he has accepted the appointment, I
have no alternative but to submit, under protest, to superior force."
It is evident that General Grant and his legal advisers saw no force
in Mr. Stanton's denial of the President's power to suspend him from
office. The General's acceptance of the Secretaryship of War was
plain proof that he recognized the President's course as entirely
lawful and Constitutional. General Grant's willingness to succeed Mr.
Stanton was displeasing to a certain class of Republicans, who thought
he was thereby strengthening the position of the President; but the
judgement of the more considerate was that as Mr. Johnson had
determined in any event to remove Stanton, it was wise in General Grant
to accept the trust and thus prevent it from falling into mischievous
and designing hands.
By the provisions of the Tenure-of-office Law the President was under
obligation to communicate the suspension to the Senate, with his
reasons therefor, within twenty days after its next meeting. He did
this in his message of the 12th of December (1867), in which he
reviewed with much care the relations between himself and the Secretary
of War. He certainly exhibited to an impartial judge, uninfluenced by
personal or party motives, strong proof of the utter impossibility of
Mr. Stanton and himself working together harmoniously in the
administration of the Government. If the President of the United
States has the right to Constitutional advisers who are personally
agreeable to him and who share his personal confidence, then surely
Mr. Johnson gave unanswerable proof that Mr. Stanton should not remain
a member of his Cabinet. But the Senate was not influenced either by
the general considerations affecting the case or by the special reasons
submitted by the President. The question was not finally decided by
the Senate until the 13th of January (1868), when by a party vote it
was declared that "having considered the evidence and reasons given by
the President in his report of December 12, 1867, for the suspension of
Edwin M. Stanton from the office of Secretary of War, the Senate does
not concur in such suspension." The Secretary of the Senate was
instructed to send an official copy of the resolution to the President,
to Mr. Stanton, and to General Grant.
Upon receipt of the resolution of the Senate, General Grant at once
locked the door of the Secretary's office, handed the key to the
Adjutant-General, left the War-Department building and resumed his post
at Army Headquarters on the opposite side of the street. Secretary
Stanton soon after took possession of his old office, as quietly and
unceremoniously as if he had left it but an hour before. Perhaps
with some desire to emphasize the change of situation, he dispatched a
messenger to Headquarters to say in the phrase of the ranking position
that "the Secretary desires to see General Grant." General Grant did
not like the way in which Mr. Stanton had resumed control of the War
Office. He did not think that he had been treated with the same
courtesy which he had shown to Mr. Stanton when he succeeded him the
preceding August. In fact, he had not expected, nor did he desire, the
restoration of Mr. Stanton, and but for differences that arose between
him and the President might have used his influence against Mr.
Stanton's remaining. He had indeed warmly seconded a suggestion of
General Sherman (who was then in Washington), made the day after Mr.
Stanton's restoration, that the President should immediately nominate
Governor Cox of Ohio for Secretary of War.
The President did not accept the suggestion respecting the name of
Governor Cox. His chief purpose was to get rid of Mr. Stanton, and he
did not believe the Senate would consent in any event to his removal.
He expressed surprise that General Grant did not hold the office until
the question of Mr. Stanton's Constitutional right to resume it could
be judicially tested. A heated controversy ensued a fortnight later on
this point, leading to the exchange of angry letters between the
President and General Grant. Mr. Johnson alleged that the fair
understanding was that General Grant should, by retaining his
portfolio, aid in bringing the case before the Supreme Court of the
United States. General Grant denied this with much warmth, declaring
in a letter addressed to the President that the latter had made "many
and gross misrepresentations concerning this subject." It was
doubtless in the beginning a perfectly honest misapprehension between
the two. General Grant had on a certain occasion remarked that "Mr.
Stanton would have to appeal to the courts to re-instate him," and the
President, hastily perhaps, but not unnaturally, assumed that by this
language General Grant meant that he would himself aid in bringing the
matter to judicial arbitrament. But the President ought to have seen
and realized that such a step would be altogether foreign to the duty
of the Commander of the Army, and that with General Grant's habitual
prudence he never could have intended to provoke a controversy
with Congress, and get himself entangled in the meshes of the
Tenure-of-office Law. The wrath of both men was fully aroused, and
the controversy closed by leaving them enemies for life--unreconciled,
irreconcilable.
The severance of friendly relations between the President and General
Grant was not distasteful to the Republicans of the country. Indeed
it had been earnestly desired by them. Many of those who were looking
forward to General Grant's nomination as the Republican candidate
for the Presidency in 1868, had been restless lest he might become
too much identified with the President, and thus be held in some
degree accountable for his policy. General Grant's report on the
condition of the South in 1865 had displeased Republicans as much as
it had pleased the President. He had created still further uneasiness
in Republican ranks by accompanying the President in 1866 on his famous
journey to Chicago, when he "swung around the circle." His acceptance
of the War Office in 1867 as the successor to Mr. Stanton was naturally
interpreted by many as a signal mark of confidence in the President.
It was said by General Grant's nearest friends that in his position as
the Commander of the Army he was bound in courtesy to comply with the
President's requests; but others maintained that as these requests all
lay outside his official duties, and were in fact political in their
nature, he might decline to respond to them if he chose. It was in
fact known to a few persons that General Grant had declined (though
requested by the President) to accompany Minister Lewis D. Campbell to
Mexico and hold an interview with the officials of the Juarez
Government, in the autumn of 1866. The President, however, did not
insist on General Grant's compliance with his request, and at the
suggestion of the latter readily substituted Lieutenant-General
Sherman, who went upon the mission, with results--according to his
own narrative--more laughable than valuable. General Grant always
believed that Mr. Seward had originated the suggestion, and had
desired him to go upon the mission from some motives of his own not
made fully apparent. The incident did not interfere with the kindly
relations between the President and General Grant, as was shown by
General Grant's acceptance of the War Office ten months after the
Mexican Mission had come to its profitless conclusion.
From all the circumstances of the case, it is not difficult therefore
to understand why the quarrel between the President and General Grant
should be viewed with substantial satisfaction by the Republicans of
the country. The National Convention of the party of 1868 had already
been called, and it might be awkward for its members, while denouncing
President Johnson in the platform, to be reminded that the candidate
of their party was on terms of personal friendship with him, and had
been so throughout his administration. Such a fact would embarrass the
canvass in many ways, and would dull the edge of partisan weapons
already forged for the contest. General Grant as a Presidential
candidate was likely to draw heavily on the Democratic voters of the
Northern States, and Republicans felt assured that his quarrel with
Johnson would cause no loss even in that direction. In every point of
view, therefore, the political situation was satisfactory to the
Republicans--the last possible suggestion of discontent with General
Grant's expected nomination for the Presidency having been banished
from the ranks of the party.
By the Senate's refusal to concur in the suspension of Secretary
Stanton, a confidential adviser under the Constitution was forced upon
the President against his earnest and repeated protest. This action
appears the more extraordinary, because when the Tenure-of-office Bill
was pending before the Senate, the expression of opinion on the part
of the majority was against any attempt to compel the President to
retain an unwelcome adviser. In fact the Senate voted by a large
majority to except Cabinet officers from the operation of the law. The
expressions of opinion by individual senators were very pointed on
this question.
--Mr. Edmunds said it was "right and just that the Chief Executive of
the Nation in selecting these named Secretaries, who, by law and by
the practice of the country, and officers analogous to whom, by the
practice of all other countries, are the confidential advisers of the
Executive respecting the administration of all his Departments, should
be persons who are personally agreeable to him and in whom he can
place entire confidence and reliance; and whenever it should seem to
him that the state of relations between him and any of them had become
so as to render this relation of confidence and trust and personal
esteem inharmonious, he should in such case be allowed to dispense
with the services of that officer in vacation and have some other
person act in his stead."
--Mr. Williams of Oregon sustained the position of Mr. Edmunds, but
added: "I do not regard the exception as of any great practical
consequence, because I suppose if the President and any head of
Department should disagree so as to make their relations unpleasant,
and the President should signify a desire that that head of Department
should retire from the Cabinet, that would follow without any positive
act of removal on the part of the President. . . . It has seemed to me
that if we revolutionize the practice of the Government in all other
respects, we might let this power remain in the hands of the President
of the United States; that we should not strip him of this power,
which is one that it seems to me is necessary and reasonable that he
should exercise."
--Mr. Fessenden said: "A man who is the head of a Department naturally
wants the control of that Department. He wants to control all his
subordinates. . . . In my judgment, in order to the good and proper
administration of all the Departments, it is necessary that that
power should exist in the head of it, and quite as necessary that the
power should exist in the President with reference to the few men who
are placed about him to share his counsel and to be his friends and
agents."
--Mr. Sherman said: "If a Cabinet officer should attempt to hold his
office for a moment beyond the time when he retains the entire
confidence of the President, I would not vote to retain him, nor would
I compel the President to have about him in these high positions a man
whom he did not entirely trust both personally and politically. It
would be unwise to require him to administer the Government without
agents of his own choosing. . . . And if I supposed that either of
these gentlemen was so wanting in manhood, in honor, as to hold his
place after the politest intimation from the President of the United
States that his services were no longer needed, I certainly, as a
senator, would consent to his removal at any time, and so would we all."
Still more significant and conclusive was the action of both Senate
and House on the final passage of the Tenure-of-office Act. That
action was based upon the report of a conference committee, of which
Mr. Sherman was chairman on the part of the Senate, and General
Schenck on the part of the House. It will be remembered that the
Senate had insisted that officers of the Cabinet should be excepted
from the operation of the Tenure-of-office Act, and the House had
insisted that they should not be excepted. A compromise was made by
the conference committee, the result of which was thus explained to
the Senate by Mr. Sherman: "In this case the committee of conference
--I agreed to it, I confess, with some reluctance--came to the
conclusion to qualify to some extent the power of removal over a
Cabinet minister. We provide that a Cabinet minister shall hold his
office, _not for a fixed term, not until the Senate shall consent to
his removal, but as long as the power that appoints him holds the
office_." General Schenck, representing the original House amendment,
said: "A compromise was made, by which a further amendment is added
to this portion of the bill, so that the term of office of the heads
of Departments _shall expire with the term of the President who
appointed them_, allowing these heads of Departments one month longer."
These were the well-considered explanations made to their respective
branches by the chairmen of the committees that composed the
conference. It was upon this uncontradicted, unqualified, universally
admitted construction of the Bill that the House and Senate enacted it
into a law.
It must not be forgotten that if the Senate had consented to the
removal of Mr. Stanton, as was confidently anticipated from the
expressions of opinion above quoted, no new Secretary could have been
installed without the Senate's explicit consent, and that meanwhile
the War Department would remain under the control of General Grant, in
whose prudent and upright discharge of duty every senator had perfect
confidence. The complaint of the President's friends, therefore, was
that senators, while perfectly able to exclude from the control of the
War Department a man in whom they had no confidence, demanded that the
President should retain at the head of that Department an officer in
whom he had no confidence. Hence it was that for the first time in
the history of the United States, an officer distasteful to the
President and personally distrusted and disliked by him was forced upon
him as one of his confidential advisers in the administration of the
Government. In the _prima facie_ statement of this case the Senate
was in the wrong. Upon the record of its votes and the expression of
opinion by its own members, the Senate was in the wrong. The history
of every preceding Administration and of every subsequent
Administration of the Federal Government proves that the Senate was in
the wrong.
The situation in which the President was left by this action was
anomalous and embarrassing. One of the most important Departments of
the Government--especially important at that era--was left under the
control of a man with whom he did not even hold personal relations. If
this could be done in one Department it could with equal justice be
done in all, and the extraordinary spectacle would be presented of
each Executive Department under the control of an officer, who in
matters of personal feeling and in public policy was deadly hostile to
the President of the United States. Even those who insisted most
warmly upon Mr. Stanton's being retained in his position, must have
seen that such a course would contradict the theory of the National
Constitution and be in direct contravention of the practice of the
Federal Government. Every one could see that these circumstances had
brought about an unnatural situation--a situation that must in some way
be relieved. It presented a condition of affairs for which there was
no precedent, and the wisest could not foresee to what end it might lead.
The issue was brought to a head by the President, who informed the
senate on the 21st of February (1868), that in the exercise of the
power and authority vested in him by the Constitution of the United
States, he had that day removed Mr. Stanton from office and designated
the Adjutant-General of the Army--Lorenzo Thomas--as Secretary of War
_ad interim_. The communication was received with great astonishment
by the Senate and with loud expressions of indignation against the
President. With short debate and with little delay the Senate passed
a resolution declaring "that under the Constitution and laws of the
United States, the President has no power to remove the Secretary of
War and to designate any other officer to perform the duties of that
office _ad interim_." The Senate could do nothing more than express
and record this opinion, but it did that promptly, resentfully, almost
passionately.
The House took up the matter in hot temper and in hot haste. A
flagrant offense against the Constitution and the laws had, in the
judgment of a majority of its members, been committed by the President.
In defiance of the letter and spirit of the Tenure-of-office Act he had
removed the Secretary of War from office. He had done this under
circumstances of peculiar aggravation, because the Senate had passed
upon all his reason therefor when the question of Mr. Stanton's
suspension was before that body; and if even the suspension was not
justifiable, how very grave must be the offense of removing the
Secretary from office! These views and the discussion to which they
led engrossed the attention of the House as soon as it was known that
the President had sent a message to the Senate communicating his
action in regard to Mr. Stanton. The Senate had no sooner recorded
its dissent from the Executive power of removal than Mr. Covode of
Pennsylvania, on the same day, rose to a privileged question in the
House and offered a resolution that "_Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors_." The
resolution was referred to the Committee on Reconstruction and the
House adjourned. On the next day (February 22d) Mr. Stevens, chairman
of the Reconstruction Committee, reported the resolution back to the
House with the recommendation that it pass, suggesting that the
question might immediately be taken without debate.
--Mr. Brooks of New York had hoped for time to prepare a minority
report, but contented himself with a long speech earnestly protesting
against the Impeachment. "Suppose," said he, "you succeed. You settle
that hereafter a party having a sufficient majority in the House and
the Senate can depose the President of the United States. You
establish a precedent which all future parties in all time to come will
look to. The curse of other countries, the curse of France, the curse
of the South-American Republics, has been that they followed such a
precedent as you call upon us to establish here to-day--the overthrow
of their Executive, not by law, not by the Constitution, but by the
irregular and arbitrary and revolutionary exercise of power, in order
merely to obtain a temporary possession of the Government."
--Mr. Spalding of Ohio followed Mr. Brooks, earnestly supporting the
Impeachment. There seemed to be an inordinate desire among gentlemen
who had hitherto been conservative on the question, as well as among
those who had been constantly in favor of Impeachment, to place
themselves on record against the President.
--Mr. John A. Bingham said that "the President having criminally
violated the Constitution and the laws, I propose for one to put him
on trial."
--Mr. Farnsworth of Illinois declared that "no student of our
Constitution, no citizen, can doubt that Andrew Johnson has been guilty
of a flagrant violation of our Constitution, which is justly
impeachable."
--Judge Kelley of Pennsylvania warned "those who have spoken on the
other side to-day, that they had better exercise the privilege of
revising their words, and that it will be well for others to pause
before they speak in defense of the great criminal whom the American
people arraign for thousands of crimes."
--General Logan, answering those who feared that Impeachment might
lead to some form of revolution, said "that a country which in time
of war and excitement can stand the assassination of so good and just
a President as Abraham Lincoln, can and will stand the Impeachment of
as bad a President as Andrew Johnson."
--Mr. Ingersoll of Illinois, in the course of his remarks sustaining
Impeachment, read a telegram from Governor Oglesby, declaring his
belief "that the people of Illinois demand the Impeachment of Andrew
Johnson, and will heartily sustain such action by our Congress." Mr.
Ingersoll declared that the telegram from the Governor of Illinois "is
but the voice of the people of the whole country on the question.
There have been grave doubts with regard to the policy and the right
of impeaching the President upon the facts as presented heretofore,
but at the present hour I know of no man who loves his country more
than party who will not pronounce a verdict against the President.
And, sir, I shall for one be grievously disappointed if, within ten
days from this time, honest old Ben Wade (now President of the Senate)
is not President of the United States."
The proceedings were carried far into the night, and their deep
seriousness had been somewhat relieved by amusing effort on the part
of several Democratic members to have Washington's Farewell Address
read in honor of the day. But they failed to accomplish it, because
a resolution to that effect could not take precedence of the privileged
subject which was holding the attention of the House. At a late hour
Mr. Holman of Indiana, unable to secure the reading of the address,
obtained leave to print it in connection with his remarks, and thus
left in the columns of the _Globe_ a somewhat striking contrast--on the
one hand, the calm words of Washington counseling peace and good will
among his countrymen, and warning them of the evils of party spirit; on
the other, the exciting and inflammatory attempt to remove one of
Washington's successors from office by impeaching him of high crimes
and misdemeanors.
The hours of the intervening Sunday did not appease the temper or cool
the ardor of the Republican representatives, now so evidently bent on
impeaching the President. The House had adjourned on Saturday night to
meet at ten o'clock Monday morning, with the declared intention on the
part of the majority to force the resolution of Impeachment to a vote
on that day. Mr. Ashley of Ohio opened the debate with a fierce attack
upon the President, and was followed by Mr. Burton C. Cook of Illinois
in a brief but pointed legal argument to prove that the President had
violated the letter and spirit of the law.
--Mr. Julian of Indiana made a somewhat remarkable speech. "Is it not
most fortunate," said he, "that this single act of lawlessness has
been evoked which so beautifully consolidates into a unit all the
friends of the country in this House and throughout the nation? _It
is true the removal of the Secretary of War is relatively a simple
matter_. It is scarcely a peccadillo when considered beside the
New-Orleans massacre and many other of the wholesale enormities of which
he has been known to be guilty for many months past, _but I believe it
would be regarded as scarcely sufficient ground for this proceeding
if not considered in the light of far greater previous offenses_."
--Mr. James F. Wilson of Iowa said: "I will vote for the pending
resolution to the end that law may be vindicated by the removal of an
unworthy public servant from an official position, which he has
dishonored by his perverse disregard of duty and his unjustifiable
contempt for the supremacy of the law."
--General Butler, after a careful recital of the acts of the President,
said: "For a tithe of these acts of usurpation, lawlessness and
tyranny our fathers dissolved their connection with the government of
King George; for less than this King James lost his throne, and King
Charles lost his head; while we, the representatives of the people,
adjudge only that there is probable cause shown why Andrew Johnson
should be deprived of the office he has desecrated and the power he has
abused, and if convicted by the court to which we shall send him, be
forever incapable of filling that office--the ambition to be again
nominated to which has been the moving spring of all these crimes."
--Mr. Washburne of Illinois said: "In my judgment the safety of the
country, the cause of good government, the preservation of
Constitutional right and public liberty, depend upon the prompt
impeachment of the President of the United States."
--Mr. Woodward of Pennsylvania, a bitter anti-war Democrat, formerly
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of his State, protested earnestly
against Impeachment, on the ground that all the States not being
represented either in House or Senate, there was no competent branch to
impeach and none to try an officer. "If I were the President's
counselor," said he, "I would advise him, if you preferred Articles of
Impeachment, to demur to your jurisdiction and to that of the Senate,
and issue a proclamation giving you and all the world notice that
while he held himself impeachable for misdemeanors in office before the
Constitutional tribunal, he never would subject the office he holds in
trust to the irregular, unconstitutional, and fragmentary bodies who
propose to strip him of it."
--Mr. Boutwell spoke very earnestly and ably in favor of Impeachment.
"I can but indicate," said he, "the plot in which the President is
engaged. He desires first to get control of the War Department, in
order that, as in 1861, the munitions of war, arms and material might
be used for te purpose of enabling him to succeed in his aspirations
to be President of the United States. He knew that if he could corrupt
the leaders of the Army, if he could bend these men to his will, these
ten States were in his control, and that he could send to the
Democratic Convention, to be holden on the 4th of July next, men who
would sustain his claim for the Presidency. Then, upon the allegation
which he could well carry out and which no other man could make good,
that with the Army and his influence among the rebels of the South,
whom he had brought to his support by his previous violations of law,
he could secure the electoral votes of those ten States by excluding
the negroes whom we have enfranchised from all participation in the
election. Succeeding in this, we were to be met next February with the
electoral votes of those ten States given for himself as President of
the United States. If by fortune, as was his hope, he should receive
a sufficient number of votes in the North to make a majority, then,
with the support of the Army which he had corrupted, he had determined
to be inaugurated President of the United States at the hazard of civil
war. To-day, sir, we escape from these evils and dangers."
--Mr. Kerr of Indiana, speaking for the Democrats, said: "I and those
with whom I act in this House had no knowledge whatever of the purpose
of the Executive to do the act for which the movement is again
inaugurated for his deposition. We are therefore free in every sense
to submit to the guidance alone of reason and duty."
Late in the afternoon Mr. Stevens rose to close the debate. He said:
"In order to sustain Impeachment under our Constitution I do not hold
that it is necessary to prove a crime as an indictable offense, or any
act _malum in se_. I agree with the distinguished gentleman from
Pennsylvania, on the other side of the House (Mr. Woodward), who holds
this to be a purely political proceeding. It is needed as a remedy
for malfeasance in office and to prevent the continuance thereof.
Beyond that it is not intended as a punishment for past offenses or
for future example." He made one of his peculiarly pungent speeches,
which for some unexplained reason was scarcely less bitter on General
Grant than upon President Johnson. The whole day's proceedings had
been extraordinary. Never before had so many members addressed the
House on a single day. The speeches actually delivered and the
speeches for which leave to print was given, fill more than two hundred
columns of the _Congressional Globe_. When Mr. Stevens closed the
debate, many members who still desired to be heard were cut off by
the previous question.
The vote on the resolution impeaching the President resulted in _ayes_
126, _noes_ 47, not voting 17.(3) Mr. Stevens immediately offered a
resolution directing the "appointment of a committee of two members
to appear at the bar of the Senate, and in the name of the House of
Representatives and of the people of the United States to impeach
Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, of high crimes and
misdemeanors in office, and to acquaint the Senate that the House will
in due time exhibit particular Articles of Impeachment against him and
make good the same, and that the committee demand that the Senate take
order for the appearance of Andrew Johnson to answer to said
Impeachment." Mr. Stevens further moved that "a committee of seven be
appointed to prepare and report Articles of Impeachment against Andrew
Johnson, President of the United States, with power to send for persons
and papers." The resolutions were adopted by a strict party vote. The
Speaker appointed Mr. Stevens and Mr. Bingham the committee to notify
the Senate of the impeachment of the President, and further appointed
Mr. Boutwell, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Bingham, Mr. J. F. Wilson, Mr. Logan,
Mr. Julian, and Mr. Hamilton Ward of New York, the committee to prepare
Articles of Impeachment against the President.
Five days afterwards, on the 29th of February, Mr. Boutwell, chairman
of the committee appointed to prepare Articles of Impeachment against
the President, made his report. The Articles were debated with
even greater manifestation of feeling than had appeared in the
discussion on the resolution of Impeachment. They were adopted March
2d, by a party vote. The House then proceeded to elect managers of
the Impeachment by ballot, and the following gentlemen were chosen
(their names being given in the order of the number of votes which
each received): John A. Bingham, George S. Boutwell, James F. Wilson,
Benjamin F. Butler, Thomas Williams, John A. Logan, and Thaddeus
Stevens. The votes for the several managers did not widely differ.
The highest, 114, was given to Mr. Bingham; the lowest, 105, to Mr.
Stevens. The latter was failing in health and was considered by many
members unequal to the arduous work thus imposed on him. The Democrats
presented no candidates and took no part in the election of managers.
The aggregate ability and legal learning of the Managers were
everywhere conceded. Mr. Stevens in the period of his active practice
held a very high rank at the bar of Pennsylvania. General Butler was
in the profession of the law, as in all other relations, somewhat
peculiar in his methods, but his intellectual force and his legal
learning were recognized by his friends and his enemies--and he had a
full quota of each. Mr. Bingham, Mr. Boutwell, Mr. Wilson, General
Logan, and Mr. Williams represented the strength of the Republican
party in the House. Each was well known at the bar of his State, and
each was profoundly convinced of the necessity of convicting the
President. The most earnest--if there was any difference in zeal among
the Managers--were Mr. Boutwell and Mr. Williams. Mr. Boutwell, for a
man of cool temperament, thoroughly honest mind, and sober judgment,
had wrought himself into a singularly intense belief in the supreme
necessity of removing the President; while Mr. Williams, who tended
towards the radical side of all public questions, could not with
patience hear any thing said against the wisdom and expediency of
Impeachment. Mr. Bingham and Mr. Wilson were the only Managers who on
the first effort to impeach the President had voted in the negative.
President Johnson was well advised during this exciting period in
Congress and betrayed no uneasiness. He was guarded against the folly
of talking, which was his easily besetting sin, and he sought to
fortify his position by promptly submitting a nomination for Secretary
of War. On Saturday, February 22d, the day following the removal of
Mr. Stanton, he sent to the Senate the name of Thomas Ewing (senior)
of Ohio as his successor. The Senate had adjourned when the
President's Secretary reached the Capitol, but the nomination was
formally communicated on the following Monday. No name could have
given better assurance of good intentions and upright conduct than that
of Mr. Ewing. He was a man of lofty character, of great eminence in
his profession of the law, and with wide and varied experience in
public life. He had held high rank as a senator in the Augustan period
of the Senate's learning and eloquence, and he had been one of the
ablest members of the distinguished Cabinets organized by the only two
Presidents elected by the Whig party. He had reached the ripe age of
seventy-eight years but was still in complete possession of all his
splendid faculties. He had voted for Mr. Lincoln at both elections,
had been a warm supporter of the contest for the Union, and was
represented by his own blood on many of the great battle-fields of the
war. The Lieutenant-General of the army, with his illustrious record
of service, second only to that of General Grant, was his son-in-law.
Of whatever deadly designs Mr. Johnson might be suspected, there was
no man of intelligence in the United States willing to believe that
Mr. Ewing could be tempted to do an unpatriotic act, to violate the
Constitution, or to fail in executing with fidelity the laws of the
land. If the President intended to corrupt the army, as charged by
Mr. Boutwell, he had certainly chosen a singular co-laborer in the
person of Mr. Ewing. Wild rumors had been in circulation that the
President was determined to install General Thomas by military force,
and to eject Mr. Stanton with violence from the War Office which he
refused to surrender. The public uneasiness resulting from these
sensational reports was in large degree allayed, when it was announced
that the President had signified his desire that a grave and
considerate man with long-established reputation for ability and
probity should serve as Secretary of War. The surprise in the whole
matter was that the President should have selected Mr. Ewing, who, as
was known to a few friends, had earnestly advised Mr. Johnson against
removing Secretary Stanton.
The Senate however was in no mood to accept any nomination for the
War Office from President Johnson. The issue was not whether Mr.
Ewing was a judicious and trustworthy man for the vacancy, but whether
any vacancy existed. If Mr. Johnson had removed or attempted to remove
Mr. Stanton from office in an unlawful and unconstitutional manner, the
Senate, in the judgment of those who were directing its action, would
be only condoning his offense by consenting to the appointment of a
successor. Mr. Johnson's right to nominate any one was denied, and
when the name of Mr. Ewing was received it was known by all that a
committee of Representatives might at any moment appear at the bar of
the Senate to present an Impeachment against the President for
unlawfully attempting to remove Mr. Stanton. The course of the Senate
had been fully anticipated by the President and his advisers, and they
had, in their own judgment at least, obtained an advantage before the
public by so complete an abnegation of all partisan purposes as was
implied in the offer to confide the direction of the War Department to
Mr. Ewing.
The formal presentment of the charges against the President at the bar
of the Senate, presided over by the Chief Justice of the United States,
and sitting as a Court of Impeachment, was made on the fifth day of
March (1868), when the House of Representatives, the grand inquest of
the nation, attended the Managers as they came to the discharge of
their solemn duty. Mr. Bingham, the chairman of the managers, read the
Articles of Impeachment against Andrew Johnson. At the conclusion of
the reading the Senate adjourned to the 13th, when the counsel of the
President appeared and asked that forty days be allowed for the
preparation of his answer to the charges. The time was regarded as
unreasonably long, and the Senate voted to adjourn until the 23d of
March, when it was expected that the President's counsel would present
his answer. The President's cause was represented by an imposing array
of ability and legal learning. The Attorney-General, Henry Stanbery,
had from an impulse of chivalric devotion resigned his post for the
purpose of defending his chief. His reputation as a lawyer was of the
first rank in the West, where for nearly forty years he had been
prominent in his profession. But though first named, on account of his
personal and official relations with the President, he was not the
leading counsel. The two men upon whom the success of the President's
cause chiefly rested were Judge Curtis and Mr. Evarts.
Benjamin R. Curtis, when he appeared in the Impeachment case, was in
the fullness of his powers, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. At
forty-one he had been appointed to the Supreme Bench of the United
States at the earnest request and warm recommendation of Mr. Webster,
then Secretary of State. Mr. Webster is reported to have said that
he had placed the people of Massachusetts under lasting obligation to
him by inducing Governor Lincoln, in 1830, to appoint Lemuel Shaw Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, a position which he honored
and adorned for thirty years. Mr. Webster thought he was doing an
equal service to the people of the entire Union when he induced the
President to call Mr. Curtis to the Supreme Bench. But judicial life
had not proved altogether agreeable to Judge Curtis, and after a
remarkable and brilliant career of six years he resigned, in October,
1857, and returned to the practice of the law--his learning increased,
his mind enriched and broadened by the grave national questions
engaging the attention of the court during the period of his service.
Thenceforward during his life no man at the bar of the United States
held higher rank. He was entirely devoted to his profession. He had
taken no interest in party strife, and with the exception of serving
two sessions in the Massachusetts Legislature he had never held a
political office. In arguing a case his style was peculiarly
felicitous--simple, direct, clear. In the full maturity of his powers
and with all the earnestness of his nature he engaged in the
President's defense; and he brought to it a wealth of learning, a
dignity of character, an impressiveness of speech, which attracted the
admiration and respect of all who had the good fortune to hear his
great argument.
William M. Evarts, who was associated with him, was nine years the
junior of Mr. Curtis. He had followed his profession with equal
devotion, and, like his illustrious colleague, had never been deflected
from its pursuit by participation in the honors of political life. His
career had been in the city of New York, where, against all the rivalry
of the Metropolitan bar, he had risen so rapidly that at forty years of
age his victory of precedence was won and his high rank established.
A signal tribute was paid to his legal ability and his character when,
in the early stages of the civil war, the National Government sent him
abroad on an important and delicate errand in connection with our
international relations,--an errand which could be safely entrusted
only to a great lawyer. As an advocate Mr. Evarts early became
conspicuous, and, in the best sense, famous. But he is more than an
advocate. He is an orator,--affluent in diction, graceful in manner,
with all the rare and rich gifts which attract and enchain an audience.
He possesses a remarkable combination of wit and humor, and has the
happy faculty of using both effectively, without inflicting deadly
wounds, without incurring hurtful enmities. Differing in temperament
and in manner from Judge Curtis, the two seemed perfectly adapted for
professional co-operation, and united they constituted an array of
counsel as strong as could be found at the English-speaking bar.
It was expected that Judge Jeremiah S. Black would add his learning and
ability to the President's counsel, but at the last moment before the
trial began he withdrew, and his place was filled by William S.
Groesbeck of Cincinnati. Mr. Groesbeck was favorably known to the
country by his service as a Democratic representative in the
Thirty-sixth Congress, but little had been heard of his legal learning
outside of Ohio. He took no part in the conduct of the Impeachment
case, but his final argument was a surprise to the Senate and to his
professional brethren, and did much to give him a high reputation as a
lawyer.--The counsel for the President was completed by the addition of
a confidential friend from his own State, Hon. T. A. R. Nelson. Mr.
Nelson had been closely associated with Mr. Johnson in the Tennessee
struggles for the Union, had gained reputation as a representative in
the Thirty-sixth Congress, and had acquired a good standing at the bar
of his State.
The answer of the President to the Articles of Impeachment having been
presented on the 23d, the replication of the House duly made, and all
other preliminary and introductory steps completed, the actual trial
began on Monday, the thirtieth day of March (1868), when General
Butler, one of the Managers on behalf of the House of Representatives,
made the opening argument. It was very voluminous, prepared with great
care in writing, and read to the Senate from printed slips. It was
accompanied by a brief of authorities upon the law of impeachable
crimes and misdemeanors, prepared by Hon. William Lawrence of Ohio
with characteristic industry and learning. While every point in the
charges preferred by the House was presented by General Butler with
elaboration, the weight of his argument against the President lay
in the fact that the removal of Mr. Stanton from the office of
Secretary of War was, as he averred, an intentional violation of the
Tenure-of-office Act, an intentional violation of the Constitution of
the United States. This was set forth in every possible form, and
argued in every possible phase, with the well-known ability of General
Butler; and though other charges were presented against the President,
the House of Representatives relied mainly upon this alleged offense
for his conviction.
General Butler in his argument was evidently troubled by the proviso
in the Tenure-of-office Act, that members of the Cabinet should hold
their offices "during the term of the President by whom they were
appointed, and for one month longer." He sought to anticipate his
opponents' argument on this point. "By whom was Mr. Stanton
appointed?" asked General Butler. "By Mr. Lincoln. Whose Presidential
term was he holding under when the bullet of Booth became the proximate
cause of this trial? Was not his appointment in full force at that
hour? Had any act of President Johnson up to the twelfth day of August
last vitiated or interfered with that appointment? Whose Presidential
term is Mr. Johnson now serving out? His own or Mr. Lincoln's? If
his own, he is entitled to four years up to the anniversary of the
murder, because each Presidential term is four years by the
Constitution, and the regular recurrence of those terms is fixed by the
Act of May 8, 1792. If he is serving out the remainder of Mr.
Lincoln's term, then his term of office expires on the 4th of March,
1868, if it does not before."
At the conclusion of General Butler's argument, the Managers submitted
their testimony in support of the charges brought by the House. Some
twenty-five witnesses in all were introduced by the prosecution. Many
of them were merely for the verification of official papers which were
submitted in evidence. The President's speeches defaming Congress were
produced and sworn to by the reporters who took the notes when the
President delivered them. The Managers concluded their testimony on
the fourth day of April and the Senate took a recess for five days.
On the 9th of April Judge Curtis of the President's counsel opened for
the defense. He had no labored introduction, but went directly to his
argument. He struck his first blow at the weak point in General
Butler's strong speech. Judge Curtis said: "There is a question
involved which enters deeply into the first eight Articles of
Impeachment and materially touches two of the others; and to that
question I desire in the first place to invite the attention of the
court, namely, _whether Mr. Stanton's case comes under the
Tenure-of-office Act?_ . . . I must ask your attention therefore to
the construction and application of the first section of that Act, as
follows: 'that every person holding an official position to which he
has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
and every person who shall hereafter be appointed to any such office
and shall become duly qualified to act therein, is and shall be
entitled to hold such office until a successor shall have been in
like manner appointed and duly qualified, except as herein _otherwise
provided_.' Then comes what is 'otherwise provided.' '_Provided_
however that the Secretaries of the State, Treasury, War, Navy, and
Interior Departments, the Postmaster-General and Attorney-General,
shall hold their offices respectively _for and during the term of the
President by whom they may have been appointed and for one month
thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of
the Senate_.'
"The first inquiry which arises on this language," said Judge Curtis,
"is to the meaning of the words 'for and during the term of the
President.' Mr. Stanton, as appears by the commission which has been
put into the case by the honorable Managers, was appointed in January,
1862, during the first term of President Lincoln. Are these words,
'during the term of the President,' applicable to Mr. Stanton's case?
That depends upon whether an expounder of this law judicially, who
finds set down in it as a part of the descriptive words, '_during the
term of the President_,' has any right to add '_and during any other
term for which he may be afterwards elected_.' I respectfully submit
no such judicial interpretation can be put on the words. Then if you
please, take the next step. 'During the term of the President by whom
he was appointed.' At the time when this order was issued for the
removal of Mr. Stanton, was he holding during the term of the President
by whom he was appointed? The honorable Managers say, Yes; because,
as they say, Mr. Johnson is merely serving out the residue of Mr.
Lincoln's term. But is that so under the provisions of the
Constitution of the United States? . . . Although the President, like
the Vice-President, is elected for a term of four years, and each is
elected for the same term, the President is not to hold his office
absolutely during four years. The limit of four years is not an
absolute limit. Death is a limit. A 'conditional limitation,' as the
lawyers call it, is imposed on his tenure of office. And when the
President dies his term of four years, for which he was elected and
during which he was to hold provided he should so long live, terminates
and the office devolves upon the Vice-President. For what period of
time? _For the remainder of the term for which the Vice-President was
elected_. And there is no more propriety, under those provisions of
the Constitution of the United States, in calling the time during which
Mr. Johnson holds the office of President, after it was devolved upon
him, a part of Mr. Lincoln's term than there would be propriety in
saying that one sovereign who succeeded another sovereign by death
holds part of his predecessor's term."
Judge Curtis consumed two days in the delivery of his argument. He
made a deep impression, not only on the members of the Senate but on
all who had the privilege of listening to him. His manner was quiet
and undemonstrative, with no gestures, and with no attempt at loud
talk. His language expressed his meaning with precision. There was
no deficiency and no redundancy. He seldom used a word more or a word
less than was needed to give elegance to his diction, explicitness to
his meaning, completeness to his logic. He analyzed every argument
of the Impeachment with consummate skill. Those who dissented from
his conclusions united with those who assented to them in praise of
his masterly presentment of the President's defense.
After Judge Curtis had concluded, witnesses were called on behalf of
the President. The struggle that followed for the admission or
exclusion of testimony obviously strengthened the President's case in
popular opinion, which is always influenced by considerations of what
is deemed fair play. Exclusion of testimony by an arbitrary vote on
mere technical objections, especially where men equally learned in the
law differ as to its competency and relevancy, is not wise in a
political case that depends for its ultimate judgment upon the sober
thought of the people. Judge Curtis had maintained with cogent
argument that the President was entitled to a judicial interpretation
of the Tenure-of-office Law, and his associate counsel, Mr. Evarts, in
the progress of the case made this proposition:--
"We offer to prove that the President at a meeting of the Cabinet while
the bill was before him for his approval, laid the Tenure-of-office
Bill before the Cabinet for their consideration and advice respecting
his approval of the bill, and thereupon the members of the Cabinet
then present gave their advice to the President that the bill was
unconstitutional and should be returned to Congress with his
objections, _and that the duty or preparing the message setting forth
the objections to the constitutionality of the bill was devolved upon
Mr. Seward and Mr. Stanton_." The Managers of the House objected to
the admission of the testimony and the question of its admissibility
was argued at length by General Butler, by Judge Curtis, and by Mr.
Evarts. Chief Justice Chase decided "that the testimony is admissible
for the purpose of showing the intent with which the President has
acted in this transaction." Mr. Howard of Michigan thereupon demanded
that the question be submitted to the Senate, and by a vote of 29 to
20 the decision of the Chief Justice was overruled and the testimony
excluded. This exclusion impressed the public most unfavorably.
Mr. Evarts offered further on behalf of the President, "to prove that
at the meeting of the Cabinet, at which Mr. Stanton was present, held
while the Tenure-of-office Bill was before the President for his
approval, the advice of the Cabinet in regard to the same was asked
by the President and given by the Cabinet, and thereupon the question
whether Mr. Stanton and the other Secretaries who had received their
appointment from Mr. Lincoln were within the restriction upon the
President's power of removal from office created by said Act, was
considered, and the opinion was expressed that the Secretaries
appointed by Mr. Lincoln were not within such restrictions." The Chief
Justice decided "that this testimony is proper to be taken into
consideration by the Senate sitting as a Court of Impeachment,"
whereupon Senator Drake of Missouri demanded that the question be
submitted to the Senate, and by a vote of 26 to 22 the Chief Justice
was again overruled and the testimony declared to be inadmissible.
On behalf of the President, Mr. Evarts then offered "to prove that at
the Cabinet meetings between the passage of the Tenure-of-office Act
and the order of the 21st of February, 1868, for the removal of Mr.
Stanton, upon occasions when the condition of the public service was
affected by the operation of that bill and it came up for consideration
and advice by the Cabinet, it was considered by the President and
the Cabinet that a proper regard for the public service made it desirable
that upon some proper case a judicial determination of the
constitutionality of the law should be obtained." The Managers
objected to the admission of the testimony, and the Chief Justice,
apparently tired of having his decisions overruled, submitted the
question at once to the Senate. By a vote of 30 to 19 the testimony
was declared to be inadmissible. All the proffered testimony on
these several points was excluded while the Hon. Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy, was on the stand. He was to be the first
witness to substantiate the offer of proof which the President's
counsel had made; to be corroborated, if need by, by other members
of the Cabinet--possibly by Mr. Stanton himself.
The testimony on both sides having been concluded, on the 22d of April
General John A. Logan, one of the Managers on the part of the House
of Representatives, filed his argument in the case. It was carefully
prepared, well written, and throughout logical in its analysis. It
was uncompromisingly pungent in tone and severe in its method of
dealing with President Johnson. "The world," said General Logan, "in
after times will read the history of the depth to which political and
official perfidy can descend. His great aim and purpose has been to
subvert law, usurp authority, insult and outrage Congress, reconstruct
the rebel States in the interest of treason, and insult the memories
and resting-places of our heroic dead."
Mr. Boutwell on the two succeeding days made a strong arraignment of
the President. Indeed he made all that well could be made out of
the charges preferred by the House. He exhibited throughout his
address the earnestness and the eloquence which come from intense
conviction. He believed that the President had committed high crimes
and misdemeanors, and he believed that the safety of the Republic
required his removal from office. With this belief his argument was
of course impressive. "The House of Representatives," said he in
closing, "have presented this criminal at your bar with equal
confidence in his guilt and in your disposition to administer exact
justice between him and the people of the United States. I do not
contemplate his acquittal: it is impossible. Therefore I do not
look beyond; but, senators, the people of the United States of America
will never permit an usurping Executive to break down the securities
for liberty provided in the Constitution. The cause of the Republic
is in your hands. Your verdict of _Guilty_ is PEACE to our beloved
country." Mr. Nelson of Tennessee followed Mr. Boutwell with a long
and earnest plea in behalf of the President, somewhat effusive in its
character but distinguished for the enthusiasm with which he defended
his personal friend.
Mr. Groesbeck next addressed the Senate on behalf of the President. He
made a clear, forcible presentation of the grounds of defense. Mr.
Boutwell had asserted "that the President cannot prove or plead the
motive by which he professes to have been governed in his violation of
the laws of the country. . . . The necessary, the inevitable
presumption in law is that he acted under the influence of bad motives
in so doing, and no evidence can be introduced controlling or coloring
in any degree this necessary presumption of the law." In reviewing
this position, Mr. Groesbeck reminded the Senate that President Lincoln
had "claimed and exercised the power of organizing military commissions
under which he arrested and imprisoned citizens within the loyal
States. He had no Act of Congress warranting it, and the Supreme Court
has decided that the act was against the express provisions of the
Constitution. According to the gentleman on the other side, then, Mr.
Lincoln must be convicted. . . . The gentleman seems to acknowledge
that there must have been a motive. There can be no crime without
motive; but when the party comes forward and offers to prove his
motive, the answer is, 'You shall not prove it.' When he comes forward
and offers to prove it from his warm, living heart, the answer is, 'We
will make up your motive out of the presumptions of law and conclude
you upon that subject. We will not hear you.'"
Mr. Boutwell renewed with vigor the argument that the exception made
in the Tenure-of-office Act, in regard to members of the Cabinet, did
not give the President power to remove Mr. Stanton. "We maintain,"
said Mr. Boutwell, "that Mr. Stanton was holding the office of
Secretary of War for and in the term of President Lincoln, by whom he
had been appointed. . . . It was not a new office; it was not a new
term. Mr. Johnson succeeded to Mr. Lincoln's office and for the
remainder of Mr. Lincoln's term of office. He is serving out Mr.
Lincoln's term as President."
Mr. Groesbeck's reply on this point was effective: "The gentleman has
said this is Mr. Lincoln's term. The dead have no ownership in offices
or estate of any kind. Mr. Johnson is President of the United States
with a term, and this is his term. _But it would make no difference if
Mr. Lincoln were living to-day. If Mr. Lincoln were the President to-day
he could remove Mr. Stanton. Mr. Lincoln would not have appointed
him during this term. It was during Mr. Lincoln's first term that Mr.
Stanton received his appointment, and not this term; and an appointment
by a President during one term, by the operation of this law, will not
extend the appointee during another term because that same party may
happen to be re-elected to the Presidency. Mr. Stanton therefore
holds under his commission and not under the law_."
Mr. Thaddeus Stevens attempted to address the Senate, but found himself
too much exhausted and handed his manuscript to General Butler, who
read it to the Senate. The argument had many of the significant
features of Mr. Stevens's style, but lacked the vigor which in the day
of his strength he had always shown. He was rapidly failing in health
and was then within a few weeks of his death. Hon. Thomas Williams of
Pennsylvania followed Mr. Stevens with a written argument, rhetorically
finished and read with great emphasis. It presented in new and
attractive form the arguments already submitted, but towards the close
contained the imprudent expression that "the eyes of an expectant
people are upon the Senate."
Mr. Evarts followed with an argument of great length, reviewing every
phase and feature of the case and making a remarkably effective plea
on behalf of his eminent client. It was as strong in its logic as it
was faultless in its style. The concluding portion of the address was
especially eloquent and convincing. "We never dreamed," said he, "that
an instructed and equal people, with a government yielding so readily
to the touch of popular will, would have come to the trial of force
against it. We never thought that the remedy to get rid of a ruler
would bring assassination into our political experience. We never
thought that political differences under an elective Presidency would
bring in array the departments of the Government against one another
to anticipate by ten months the operation of the regular election. And
yet we take them all, one after another, and we take them because we
have grown to the full vigor of manhood. But we have met by the powers
of the Constitution these great dangers--prophesied when they would
arise as likely to be our doom--the distractions of civil strife, the
exhaustions of powerful war, the intervention of the regularity of
power through the violence of assassination. We could summon from the
people a million of men and inexhaustible treasure to help the
Constitution in its time of need. Can we summon now resources enough
of civil prudence and of restraint of passion to carry us through this
trial, so that whatever result may follow, in whatever form, the people
may feel that the Constitution has received no wound? To this court,
the last and best resort for its determination, it is to be left."
Mr. Stanbery, unable to deliver his well-prepared argument, employed
one of the officers of the Attorney-General's department to read the
greater part of it. During his service as Attorney-General he had
become personally and deeply attached to the President, and now made
an earnest plea in his behalf. "During the eighty years of our
political existence," said Mr. Stanbery, "we have witnessed the
fiercest contests of party. . . . A favorite legislative policy has
more than once been defeated by the obstinate and determined resistance
of the President, upon some of the gravest and most important questions
we have ever had or are ever likely to have. The Presidential policy
and the legislative policy have stood in direct antagonism. During
all that time this fearful power of Impeachment was in the hands of
the legislative department, and more than once a resort to it has been
advised by extreme party men, as a sure remedy for party purposes; but
happily that evil hitherto has not come upon us."
Hon. John A. Bingham summed up the case on behalf of the House and
reviewed all the charges against the President, answering point by
point the argument of his counsel. "I ask you, senators," said Mr.
Bingham, "how long men would deliberate upon the question of whether
a private citizen, arraigned at the bar of one of your tribunals of
justice for criminal violation of law, should be permitted to interpose
a plea in justification of his criminal act that his only purpose was
to interpret the Constitution and laws for himself, that he violated
the law in the exercise of his prerogative to test its validity
hereafter, at such day as might suit his own convenience, in the courts
of justice. Surely, senators, it is as competent for the private
citizen to interpose such justification in answer to crime as it is
for the President of the United States to interpose it, and for the
simple reason that the Constitution is no respecter of persons, and
vests neither in the President nor in the private citizen judicial
power. . . . For the Senate to sustain any such plea would in my
judgment be a gross violation of the already violated Constitution and
laws of a free people."
When the counsel on both sides had finished, a certain period was
allowed for senators to prepare and file their opinions on the case.
This was done by twenty-nine senators(4) and the question was thus
re-argued with consummate ability, for the Senate contained a number
of lawyers of high rank and long experience at the bar. On the 11th of
May the Senate was ready to vote, and the interest in the result was
intense. There had been much speculation as to the position of certain
senators, but as all the members of the body had maintained discreet
silence during the trial, it was impossible to forecast the result
with any degree of certainty. The only judgment that had the least
significance was founded on the votes given to admit or to reject
certain testimony proposed by the President's counsel. This of course
gave no certain indication of the vote of senators; though the general
belief was that the Impeachment would fail. The transfer of the
entire House to the floor of the Senate, the galleries crowded with
citizens from all parts of the Republic, the presence of all the
foreign ministers in the Diplomatic Gallery eagerly watching the
possible and peaceful deposition of a sovereign ruler, the large
attendance of the representatives of the press,--all attested the
profound impression which the trial had made and the intense anxiety
with which its conclusion was awaited.
By an order of the Senate the first vote was taken on the last Article,
which was a summary of many of the charges set forth at greater length
in some of the preceding Articles of Impeachment. Upon the call of his
name each senator was required to rise and answer "Guilty" or "Not
guilty." The roll was called in breathless silence, with hundreds of
tally-papers in the hands of eager observers on the floor and in the
gallery, carefully noting each response as given. The result,
announced at once by the Chief Justice, showed that _thirty-five_
senators had declared the President "_guilty_" and _nineteen_ had
declared him "_not guilty_."(5) As conviction required two-thirds the
Impeachment on the Eleventh Article had failed. A debate then arose
on a proposition to rescind the resolution in regard to the order in
which the vote should be taken upon the other Articles of Impeachment,
but without reaching a conclusion, the Senate as a Court of Impeachment
adjourned, on motion of Mr. Cameron of Pennsylvania, until Tuesday
the 26th day of May.
During the intervening period of fifteen days the air was filled with
rumors that the result would be different when the Senate should come
to vote on the remaining Articles. A single senator changing against
the President would give _thirty-six_ for conviction, and leave only
_eighteen_ for acquittal. This would be fatal to the President, as it
would give the two-thirds necessary for conviction. But it was not so
ordained. When the Senate re-assembled on the 26th, the vote was
taken on the Second Article, and then upon the Third, with precisely
the same results as was previously reached on the Eleventh Article.
When Mr. Ross of Kansas answered "_Not guilty_," there was an audible
sensation of relief on the part of some, and of surprise on the part
of others, showing quite plainly that rumor had been busy with his
name as that of the senator who was expected to change his position.
Satisfied that further voting was useless, the Senate abandoned the
remaining Articles, and as a Court of Impeachment adjourned _sine die_.
The great trial was over, and the President retained his high office.
In the ranks of the more radical portion of the Republican party there
was an outbreak of indignation against the Republican senators who had
voted "_Not guilty_." In the exaggerated denunciations caused by the
anger and chagrin of the moment, great injustice was done to statesmen
of spotless character. But until time had been given for reflection
on the part of the excited mass of disappointed men, it was idle to
interpose a word in defense, much less in justification, of the
senators who had conscientiously differed from the main body of their
political associates. While, however, the majority of Republicans
shared in the chagrin caused by the defeat of Impeachment, a large and
increasing number of the cool-headed and more conservative members of
the party rejoiced at the result as a fortunate exit from an
indefensible position, which had been taken in the heat of just
resentment against the President for his desertion of those important
principles of public policy to which he had been solemnly pledged.
Still another class, even more numerous than the last-named, took a
less conscientious but more sanguine view of the situation--rejoicing
both in the act of Impeachment and in the failure to convict. Their
specious belief was that the narrow escape which the President had made
would frighten him out of all mischievous designs for the remainder of
his term; while the narrow escape which the party had made, left to it
in the impending Presidential contest all the advantage of a political
power so firmly held by Congress, and at the same time imposed upon the
Democrats the responsibility for a discredited and disgraced
Administration of the Government.
The sober reflection of later years has persuaded many who favored
Impeachment that it was not justifiable on the charges made, and that
its success would have resulted in greater injury to free institutions
than Andrew Johnson in his utmost endeavor was able to inflict. No
impartial reader can examine the record of the pleadings and arguments
of the Managers who appeared on behalf of the House, without feeling
that the President was impeached for one series of misdemeanors, and
tried for another series. This was perhaps not unnatural. The
Republicans had the gravest cause to complain of the President's course
on public affairs. He had professed the most radical creed of their
party, had sought their confidence, had received their suffrages.
Entrusted with the chief Executive power of the Nation by Republican
ballots, he professed upon his accession to office the most entire
devotion to the principles of the party; but he had, with a baseness
hardly to be exaggerated, repudiated his professions, deserted the
friends who had confided in him, and made an alliance with those who
had been the bitterest foes of the Union in the bloody struggle which
had just closed.
In the outraged and resentful minds of those who had sustained the
Union cause through its trials, the real offenses of the President
were clearly seen, and bitterly denounced:--his hostility to the
Fourteenth Amendment; his unwillingness to make citizenship National;
his opposition to all efforts to secure the safety of the public debt,
and the sacredness of the soldier's pension; his resistance to measures
that would put the rebel debt beyond the possibility of being a burden
upon the whole nation or even upon the people of the Southern States;
his determination that freedmen should not be placed within the
protection of Organic law; his eagerness to turn the Southern States
over to the control of the rebel element, without condition and without
restraint; his fixed hostility to every form of reconstruction that
looked to national safety and the prevention of another rebellion; his
opposition to every scheme that tended to equalize representation in
Congress, North and South, and his persistent demand that the negro
should be denied suffrage, yet be counted in the basis of
apportionment; his treacherous and malignant conduct in connection with
the atrocious massacre at New Orleans; his hostility to the growth of
free States in the North-West, while he was constantly urging the
instant re-admission of all the rebel States; his denial of a morsel
of food to the suffering and starving negro and white Unionist of
the South in their dire extremity, as shown by his veto of the
Freedmen's-bureau Bill; his cruel attempt to exclude the colored man
from the power to protect himself by law, in his shameless veto of the
Civil Rights Bill; and last, and worst of all, his heartless abandonment
of that Union-loving class of white men in the South who became the
victims of rebel hatred, from which he had himself escaped only by the
strength of the National arms. In recounting all the acts which made
up the roll of his political dishonor, Johnson had, in Republican
opinion, committed none so hideous as his turning over the Southern
Unionists to the vengeance of those who, as he well knew, were
incapable of dealing with them in a spirit of justice, and who were
unwilling to show mercy, even after they had themselves received it in
quality that was not strained.
Could the President have been legally and constitutionally impeached
for these offenses he should not have been allowed to hold his office
for an hour beyond the time required for a fair trial. But the
Articles of Impeachment did not even refer to any charge of this kind,
and a stranger to our history, in perusing them, could not possibly
infer that behind the legal verbiage of the Articles there was in the
minds of the representatives who presented them a deadly hostility to
the President for offenses totally different from the technical
violation of a statue, for which he was arraigned,--a statute that
never ought to have been enacted, as was practically confessed by its
framers, when, within less than a year after the Impeachment trial had
closed, they modified its provisions by taking away their most
offensive features.
The charges on which the House actually arraigned the President were
in substance, that he had violated the Tenure-of-office Act; that he
had conspired with Lorenzo Thomas to violate it; that he had consulted
with General Emory to see whether, independent of the General-in-Chief,
he could not issue orders to the army to aid him in his determination
to violate it; and lastly, that he had spoken of Congress in such a
manner as tended to bring a co-ordinate branch of the Government into
"disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach." The charge of
conspiring with Lorenzo Thomas, as well as that in respect to General
Emory, appeared in the end to be not only unsustained, but trivial.
The President had conspired in precisely the same way with General
Sherman when he urged him to accept the post of Secretary of War as Mr.
Stanton's successor. The charge that he had attempted to bring
Congress into "disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach," was
laughingly answered in popular opinion, by the fact that he not been
able to say half so many bitter things about Congress as Congress had
said about him; and that, as the elections had shown, Congress had
triumphed, and turned the popular contempt and ridicule against the
President. Besides, the offense charged against the President had been
committed nearly two years before, and seemed to be recalled now for
popular effect in the construction of the Articles of Impeachment.
This charge richly deserved the satire it received at the hands of
Judge Curtis when he spoke of "the House of Representatives erecting
itself into a school of manners, and desiring the judgment of the
Senate whether the President has not been guilty of an indecorum;
whether he has spoken properly?" . . . "Considering the nature of our
government," said Judge Curtis, "and the experience we have had on this
subject, that is a pretty lofty claim!"
In fact there was but one charge of any gravity against the President
--that of violating the Tenure-of-office Act. But on the charge there
was a very grave difference of opinion among those equally competent
to decide. Mr. Fessenden, one of the ablest lawyers, if not indeed the
very ablest that has sat in the Senate since Mr. Webster, believed on
his oath and his honor--an oath that was sacred and an honor that was
stainless--that the President had a lawful and Constitutional right to
remove Mr. Stanton at the time and in the manner he did. Mr. Trumbull,
whose legal ability had been attested by his assignment to the
chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, believed with Mr. Fessenden,
as did Mr. Grimes of Iowa, one of the strongest members of the Senate,
and Mr. Henderson of Missouri, whose legal attainments have since given
him a high professional reputation. Let it be frankly admitted that
lawyers of equal rank conscientiously believed in the President's
guilt. This only proves that there was ground for a substantial and
fundamental difference of opinion, and that it could not therefore with
certainty be charged that the President, "unmindful of the high duties
of his office, did this act in violation of the Constitution of the
United States." This was the very question in dispute,--the question
in regard to which lawyers of eminent learning and impartial mind,
members of the Republican party and zealous opponents of the
President's policy, radically differed in judgment. Opinions of
distinguished lawyers on the Democratic side of the Senate, like
Reverdy Johnson, are not quoted, because partisan motives would be
ascribed to their conclusions.
Perhaps the best test as to whether the act of the President in
removing Mr. Stanton was good ground for impeachment, would be found
in asking any candid man if he believes a precisely similar act by
Mr. Lincoln, or General Grant, or any other President in harmony with
his party in Congress, would have been followed by impeachment, or by
censure, or even by dissent. It is hardly conceivable, nay, it is
impossible, that under such circumstances the slightest notice would be
taken of the President's action by either branch of Congress. If there
was a difference of opinion as to the intent and meaning of a law, the
general judgment in the case supposed would be that the President had
the right to act upon his own conscientious construction of the
statute. It might not be altogether safe to concede to the Executive
the broad scope of discretion which General Jackson arrogated to
himself in his celebrated veto of the Bank Bill, when he declared that
"The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be
guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer
who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will
support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by
others." But without approving the extreme doctrine which General
Jackson announced with the applause of his party, it is surely not an
unreasonable assumption that in the case of a statute which has had no
judicial interpretation and whose meaning is not altogether clear,
the President is not to be impeached for acting upon his own
understanding of its scope and intent:--especially is he not to be
impeached when he offers to prove that he was sustained in his opinion
by every member of his Cabinet, and offers further to prove by the
same honorable witnesses that he took the step in order to subject the
statute in dispute to judicial interpretation.
It is to be noted that in the progress of the trial the Managers on the
part of the House and the counsel of the President proceeded upon
entirely different ground as to what constituted an offense punishable
with impeachment. General Butler, who opened the case against the
President with circumspection and ability, took care to exclude the
idea that actual crime on the part of the officer was essential to
justify impeachment. Speaking for all the Managers he said, "We define
an impeachable high crime or misdemeanor to be one in its nature or
consequences subversive of some fundamental or essential principle of
government _or highly prejudicial to the public interest; and this may
consist of a violation of the Constitution, of law, of an official
oath, or of duty, by an act committed or omitted; or, without violating
a positive law, by the abuse of discretionary powers from improper
motives or for any improper purpose_." This of course would give
great latitude in proceedings against the President. It would
challenge his discretion, erect sins of omission into positive
offenses, and make inquest of his motives and purposes. There has not
been an occupant of the Executive Chair since the organization of the
Government, who did not at some period in his career commit an act
which in the judgment of his political opponents was "highly
prejudicial to the public interest," and therefore if his opponents
should happen to be in the majority they might impeach him, simply
for disagreement upon an issue of expediency upon which men equally
competent to judge might reasonable and conscientiously hold different
opinions. This was in effect the same position assumed by Mr. Thaddeus
Stevens, that "in order to sustain impeachment under the Constitution
it is not necessary to prove a crime as an indictable offense, or any
act _malum in se_. It is a purely _political_ proceeding." The
counsel for the President dissented altogether from this definition of
the grounds of Impeachment as given by the Managers. Judge Curtis
declared that "when the Constitution speaks of treason, bribery, and
other high crimes and misdemeanors, it refers to and includes only
high criminal offenses against the United states, made so by some law
of the United States existing when the acts complained of were done. .
. . _Noscitur a sociis_. High crimes and misdemeanors! so high that
they belong in this company with _treason_ and _bribery_." The
position of Judge Curtis was fortified by the fact that in the five
cases of Impeachment trial before the President was accused--the cases
of Blount, of Pickering, of Chase, of Peck, and of Humphries--the
charges preferred by the House involved criminality.
Outside of professional opinion there was supposed to be a popular
demand, so far as the Republican party represented the people, for the
President's conviction--a demand found to be based, when analyzed, upon
other acts of the President than those for which he was arraigned in
the Articles of Impeachment. The people in this respect followed
precisely in the line of their Representatives. It was certainly not
a praiseworthy procedure that this supposed popular wish should have
been mentioned at all as an argument for conviction. The most
dignified of the many comments which this feature of the trial elicited
was by Senator Fessenden, in the official _opinion_ which accompanied
his vote:--"To the suggestion that popular opinion demands the
conviction of the President on these charges, I reply that he is not
now on trial before the people, but before the Senate. In the words of
Lord Eldon, upon the trial of the Queen, 'I take no notice of what is
passing out of doors, because I am supposed constitutionally not to be
acquainted with it. . . . It is the duty of those upon whom a judicial
task is imposed to meet reproach, and not to court popularity.' . . .
_The people_ have not taken an oath to do impartial justice according
to the Constitution and the law. _I have_ taken that oath."
The trial of President Johnson is the most memorable attempt made by
any English-speaking people to depose a sovereign ruler in strict
accordance with all forms of law. The order, dignity and solemnity
which marked the proceedings may therefore be realized with pride by
every American citizen. From the beginning to the end there was no
popular menace, or even suggestion of disturbance or violence, let the
trial end as it might. If the President had been convicted he would
have quietly retired from the Executive Mansion and Benjamin F. Wade,
President of the Senate, sworn by the Chief Justice in the presence
of the two Houses of Congress, would have assumed the power and
performed the duties of Chief Magistrate of the Nation. During the
original agitation of Impeachment in the House of Representatives some
imprudent expressions had been made by hot-headed partisans, in regard
to the right of the President to disperse Congress and appeal directly
to the people to vindicate his title to his office. But these
declarations were of no weight and their authors would have promptly
retracted them in the hour of danger.
The time within which the trial of the President was comprised, from
the presentation of the charges by the House of Representatives until
the final adjournment of the Senate as a Court of Impeachment, was
eighty-two days. Within that period the amplest opportunity was
afforded to submit testimony and to hear the pleas of counsel. The
gravity of the procedure was fully realized by all who took part in it,
and no pains were spared to secure the observance of every
Constitutional requirement to the minutest detail. In conserving its
own prerogatives Congress made no attempt to curtail the prerogatives
of the President during his trial. The army and the navy were under
his control, together with the power to change that vast host of
Federal officers and employees whose appointment does not require the
confirmation of the Senate. Confidence in the reign of law was so
absolute that no one ever dreamed it possible for the President to
resist the force of its silent decree against him if one more voice in
the Senate had pronounced him guilty.
The trial of Warren Hastings is always quoted as a precedent of
imposing authority and consequence. But that was simply the
arraignment of a subordinate official, upon charges of peculation and
cruelty--misdemeanors not uncommon with the Englishmen of that day who
were entrusted with Colonial administration. The great length of the
Hastings trial, and especially the participation of Edmund Burke as
original accuser and chief manager, have given it an extraneous
importance to students of English history and law. The Articles of
Impeachment, drawn by Mr. Burke, were presented at the bar of the House
of Lords in April, 1786. They were so elaborate as to fill a stately
octavo volume of five hundred pages. Mr. Burke's opening speech was
not made for two years thereafter, and his closing plea was made in
June 1794. During these eight years his splendid eloquence was the
admiration and pride of the English people, and gave to the arraignment
of Hastings an extrinsic interest far beyond the real importance. It
bore no comparison in any of its essential aspects with a change of
Rulership in a Republic of forty millions of people. Scarcely an
incident of Hastings' life in India would be known to the popular
reader, except for the association of his name with the most celebrated
period of Mr. Burke's majestic career. Baron Plassy, a far greater
man in the same field of achievement, is, compared with Hastings,
little known--the title not being remembered even by the mass of his
countrymen to-day as part of the reward to Robert Clive for founding
the British Empire in India.
But the importance of the President's Impeachment does not depend upon
the fame of his accusers or upon the length of his trial. The case in
itself possesses intrinsic and enduring interest. It was not affected
by factitious circumstances. It is notable especially because of the
extreme tension to which it subjected the Constitution, and the
attestation it affords of the restraint which a free people
instinctively impose upon themselves in times of public excitement.
It will be studied as a precedent, or as a warning, by the citizens of
the Great Republic during the centuries through which, God grant, it
may pass with increasing prosperity and renown. And it may well happen
that in the crises of a distant future the momentous trial of 1868,
though properly resulting in acquittal of the accused, will be recalled
as demonstrating the ease and the serenity with which, if necessity
should demand it, the citizens of a free country can lawfully deprive
a corrupt or dangerous Executive of the office he has dishonored and
the power he has abused.
Mr. Stanton promptly resigned his post when the Impeachment failed and
returned to private life and to the practice of his profession. He was
accompanied into his retirement by a vote of thanks from Congress for
"the great ability, purity and fidelity with which he had discharged
his public duties"; and in confirming his successor, the Senate adopted
a resolution that Mr. Stanton was not legally removed, but had
relinquished his office. He was broken in health and very keenly
disappointed by the failure of the Impeachment. He supported General
Grant for the Presidency and made one or two important public speeches
in aid of his election. On the 20th of December, 1869, he was
appointed by President Grant an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
of the United States. For many years of his eminent professional life
this high judicial position was the one ambition which Mr. Stanton had
cherished. But its realization came too late. His prolonged labors,
his anxieties and his disappointments had done their work, and on the
24th of December, five days after he had completed his fifty-fifth
year, he sank to his grave, after herculean labors for the safety and
honor of his country.
General John M. Schofield was nominated by the President as Mr.
Stanton's successor and was confirmed by the Senate. He had an
unexceptional record as a soldier, was a man of spotless personal
character, and possessed of sound judgment and discretion. His ability
for civil administration had been tested and satisfactorily
demonstrated during his command of the District of Virginia in the
period of reconstruction, and also in a certain degree during the war
when Mr. Lincoln entrusted to him the difficult task of preserving
loyal ascendency in Missouri. He took charge of the War Department at
a difficult and critical time, but his administration of it was in all
respects successful and received the commendation of fair-minded men in
all parties.
Immediately after his acquittal the President renominated Mr. Stanbery
for Attorney-General. The Senate, in a spirit of resentment not
altogether praiseworthy or intelligible, rejected him. It was rumored
that Mr. Stanbery's previous course as Attorney-general "in construing
the Reconstruction Acts" had given offense to certain senators. No
reason, however, was assigned and indeed no good reason could be given,
for this personal injustice to an able lawyer and an honorable man. He
was simply a victim to the political excitement of the hour. Upon Mr.
Stanbery's rejection the President nominated Mr. Evarts to his first
official position under the National Government. He was promptly
confirmed, and, it need not be added, discharged the duties of
Attorney-General with eminent ability and with a popularity which
tended to re-establish in some degree those relations of personal
courtesy always so desirable between Congress and the Executive
Departments.
[(1) The following is General Grant's testimony in full, touching the
point referred to. It was given under oath before the Judiciary
Committee on the 18th of July, 1867.
MR. BOUTWELL: "Have you at any time heard the President make any
remark in reference to the admission of members of Congress from the
rebel States into either House?"
GENERAL GRANT: "I cannot say positively what I have heard him say on
the subject. I have heard him say as much, perhaps, in his published
speeches last summer, as I ever heard him say at all upon that subject.
I have heard him say--and I think I have heard him say it twice in his
speeches--that if the North carried the elections by members enough
to give them, with the Southern members, a majority, why would they
not be the Congress of the United States? I have heard him say that
several times."
MR. THOMAS WILLIAMS: "When you say 'the North,' you mean the
Democratic party of the North; or, in other words, the party favoring
his policy?"
GENERAL GRANT: "I mean if the North carried enough members in favor
of the admission of the South. I did not hear him say that he would
recognize them as the Congress. I merely heard him ask the question,
'Why would they not be the Congress?'"
MR. JAMES F. WILSON: "When did you hear him say that?"
GENERAL GRANT: "I heard him say that in one or two of his speeches.
I do not recollect when."
MR. BOUTWELL: "Have you heard him make a remark kindred to that
elsewhere?"
GENERAL GRANT: "Yes, I have heard him say that, aside from his
speeches, in conversation. I cannot say just when: it was probably
about that same time."
MR. BOUTWELL: "Have you heard him at any time make any remark or
suggestion concerning the legality of Congress with the Southern
members excluded?"
GENERAL GRANT: "He alluded to that subject frequently on his tour
to Chicago and back last summer. His speeches were generally reported
with considerable accuracy. I cannot recollect what he said, except
in general terms; but I read his speeches at the time, and they
were reported with considerable accuracy."
MR. BOUTWELL: "Did you hear him say any thing in private on that
subject, either during that trip or at any other time?"
GENERAL GRANT: "I do not recollect specially."
MR. BOUTWELL: "Did you at any time hear him make any remark concerning
the Executive Department of the Government?"
GENERAL GRANT: "No: I never hear him allude to that."
MR. BOUTWELL: "Did you ever hear him make any remark looking to any
controversy between Congress and the Executive?"
GENERAL GRANT: "I think not."]
[(2) The following is the vote of the House, in detail, on the first
Impeachment resolution. Republicans are given in Roman; Democrats in
Italic:--
AYES.--Messrs. Anderson, Arnell, James M. Ashley, Boutwell, Bromwell,
Broomall, Butler, Churchill, Reader W. Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb,
Coburn, Covode, Cullom, Donnelly, Eckley, Ela, Farnsworth, Gravely,
Harding, Higby, Hopkins, Hunter, Judd, Julian, Kelley, Kelsey, William
Lawrence, Loan, Logan, Loughridge, Lynch, Maynard, McClurg, Mercur,
Mullins, Myers, Newcomb, Nunn, O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Pile, Price,
Schenck, Shanks, Aaron F. Stevens, Thaddeus Stevens, Stokes, Thomas,
John Trimble, Trowbridge, Robert T. Van Horn, Ward, Thomas Williams,
William Williams, and Stephen F. Wilson--57.
NOES.--Messrs. _Adams_, Allison, Ames, _Archer_, Delos R. Ashley,
_Axtell_, Bailey, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, _Barnum_, Beaman, _Beck_,
Benjamin, Benton, Bingham, Blaine, _Boyer, Brooks_, Buckland, _Burr,
Cary, Chanler_, Cook, Dawes, Dixon, Dodge, Driggs, Eggleston,
_Eldridge_, Eliot, Ferriss, Ferry, Fields, Garfield, _Getz,
Glossbrenner, Golladay_, Griswold, _Grover, Haight_, Halsey, Hamilton,
Hawkins, Hill, _Holman_, Hooper, _Hotchkiss_, Asahel W. Hubbard,
Chester D. Hubbard, _Richard D. Hubbard_, Hulburd, _Humphrey_,
Ingersoll, _Johnson, Jones, Kerr_, Ketcham, _Knott_, Koontz, Laflin,
George V. Lawrence, Lincoln, _Marshall_, Marvin, McCarthy, _McCullogh_,
Miller, Moorhead, _Morgan, Mungen, Niblack, Nicholson_, Perham, Peters,
_Phelps_, Pike, Plants, Poland, Polsley, _Pruyn, Randall_, Robertson,
_Robinson, Ross_, Saywer, _Sitgreaves_, Smith, Spalding, Starkweather,
_Stewart, Stone, Taber_, Taylor, Upson, Van Aernam, _Van Aucken, Van
Trump_, Van Wyck, Cadwalader C. Washburn, Elihu B. Washburne, Henry
D. Washburn, William B. Washburn, Welker, James F. Wilson, John T.
Wilson, Woodbridge, and _Woodward_--108.
ABSENT OR NOT VOTING.--Messrs. _Barnes_, Blair, Cake, Cornell, Finney,
_Fox_, Jenckes, Kitchen, Mallory, Moore, Morrell, _Morrissey_, Pomeroy,
Ram, Scofield, Seelye, Shellabarger, Taffe, Twichell, Burt Van Horn,
Windom, and _Wood_--22.]
[(3) The following is the vote of the House, in detail, on the second
Impeachment resolution, February 24, 1868. Republicans are given in
Roman; Democrats in Italic:--
AYES.--Messrs. Allison, Ames, Anderson, Arnell, Delos R. Ashley, James
M. Ashley, Bailey, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Beaman, Beatty, Benton,
Bingham, Blaine, Blair, Boutwell, Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, Butler,
Cake, Churchill, Reader W. Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Coburn, Cook,
Cornell, Covode, Cullom, Dawes, Dodge, Driggs, Eckley, Eggleston,
Eliot, Farnsworth, Ferriss, Ferry, Fields, Gravely, Griswold, Halsey,
Harding, Higby, Hill, Hooper, Hopkins, Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester D.
Hubbard, Hulburd, Hunter, Ingersoll, Jenckes, Judd, Julian, Kelley,
Kelsey, Ketcham, Kitchen, Laflin, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence,
Lincoln, Loan, Logan, Loughridge, Lynch, Mallory, Marvin, McCarthy,
McClurg, Mercur, Miller, Moore, Moorhead, Morrell, Mullins, Myers,
Newcomb, Nunn, O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Perham, Peters, Pike, Pile,
Plants, Poland, Polsley, Price, Raum, Robertson, Sawyer, Schenck,
Scofield, Seelye, Shanks, Smith, Spalding, Starkweather, Aaron F.
Stevens, Thaddeus Stevens, Stokes, Taffe, Taylor, Trowbridge, Twichell,
Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Van Wyck, Ward, Cadwalader C.
Washburn, Elihu B. Washburne, William B. Washburn, Welker, Thomas
Williams, James F. Wilson, John T. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom,
Woodbridge, and the Speaker--126.
NOES.--_Messrs. Adams, Archer, Axtell, Barnes, Barnum, Beck, Boyer,
Brooks, Burr, Cary, Chanler, Eldridge, Fox, Getz, Glossbrenner,
Golladay, Grover, Haight, Holman, Hotchkiss, Richard D. Hubbard,
Humprhey, Johnson, Jones, Kerr, Knott, Marshall, McCormick, McCullough,
Morgan, Morrissey, Mungen, Niblack, Nicholson, Phelps, Pruyn, Randall,
Ross, Sitgreaves, Stewart, Stone, Taber, Lawrence S. Trimble, Van
Aukern, Van Trump, Wood_, and _Woodward_--47.
ABSENT OR NOT VOTING.--Messrs. Benjamin, Dixon, Donnelly, Ela, Finney,
Garfield, Hawkins, Koontz, Maynard, Pomeroy, _Robinson_, Shellabarger,
Thomas, John Trimble, Robert T. Van Horn, Henry D. Washburn, and
William Williams.--17.]
[(4) The following senators filed opinions:--
Messrs. Ferry of Connecticut, Trumbull and Yates of Illinois,
_Hendricks_ of Indiana, Grimes and Harlan of Iowa, Pomeroy of Kansas,
_Davis_ of Kentucky, Fessenden and Morrill of Maine, _Johnson_ and
_Vickers_ of Maryland, Sumner and Wilson of Massachusetts, Howard of
Michigan, Henderson of Missouri, Tipton of Nebraska, Stewart of Nevada,
Patterson of New Hampshire, Frelinghuysen and Cattell of New Jersey,
Sherman of Ohio, Williams of Oregon, _Buckalew_ of Pennsylvania,
Edmunds and Morrill of Vermont, Van Winkle of West Virginia, Howe and
DOOLITTLE of Wisconsin.]
[(5) The following is the vote of the Senate in detail. Republicans
are given in Roman, Democrats in Italic, Administration Republicans in
small capitals. Every senator was present and voted.
GUILTY.--Messrs. Anthony of Rhode Island, Cameron of Pennsylvania,
Cattell of New Jersey, Chandler of Michigan, Cole of California,
Conkling of New York, Conness of California, Corbett of Oregon, Cragin
of New Hampshire, Drake of Missouri, Edmunds of Vermont, Ferry of
Connecticut, Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, Harlan of Iowa, Howard of
Michigan, Howe of Wisconsin, Morgan of New York, Morrill of Maine,
Morrill of Vermont, Morton of Indiana, Nye of Nevada, Patterson of New
Hampshire, Pomeroy of Kansas, Ramsey of Minnesota, Sherman of Ohio,
Sprague of Rhode Island, Stewart of Nevada, Sumner of Massachusetts,
Thayer of Nebraska, Tipton of Nebraska, Wade of Ohio, Willey of West
Virginia, Williams of Oregon, Wilson of Massachusetts, and Yates of
Illinois.--35.
NOT GUILTY.--Messrs. _Bayard_ of Delaware, _Buckalew_ of Pennsylvania,
_Davis_ of Kentucky, DIXON of Connecticut, DOOLITTLE of Wisconsin,
Fessenden of Maine, Fowler of Tennessee, Grimes of Iowa, Henderson of
Missouri, _Hendricks_ of Indiana, _Johnson_ of Maryland, _McCreery_ of
Kentucky, NORTON of Minnesota, PATTERSON of Tennessee, Ross of Kansas,
_Saulsbury_ of Delaware, Trumbull of Illinois, Van Winkle of West
Virginia, and _Vickers_ of Maryland.--19.]