THE ATTEMPT TO REMOVE THE PRESIDENT
Grant in the War Office--The President's Message of December 3d,
1867--The President's Special Message Concerning the Suspension of
Stanton--The Senate Resolution in Regard to the Suspension of
Stanton--Grant's Disobedience toward the President--The Unbearable
Situation in which the President now Found Himself--The Dismissal of
Stanton from Office--General Thomas Appointed Secretary of War _ad
interim_--Stanton's Resistance--Thomas and the President--The Attitude
of the Senate toward the Dismissal of Stanton--The Movements in the
House of Representatives--The Arrest of General Thomas--Thomas's Second
Attempt to Take Possession of the War Office--The House Resolution to
Impeach the President--The Withdrawal of Stanton's Complaint against
Thomas--The Fear of the Republicans to Test the Tenure-of-Office Act
before the Courts--The Managers of Impeachment--The Charges against the
President--The President's Answer to the Complaint--The Withdrawal of
Mr. Black from the President's Counsel--The Contents of the President's
Answer--The Replication of the House to the President's Answer--The
Trial--Conduct of the Managers--The Evidence in the Case--The
Argument--The Law in the Case--Mr. Stanton's Violation of Law--The
Nomination of General Schofield to be Secretary of War--The Vote upon
Impeachment--The Truth of the Matter--The Abdication of
Stanton--Schofield's Confirmation as Secretary of War and His
Acceptance of the Office.
During this same period, another act in the drama of Reconstruction was
being played, a fit companion piece to what was occurring in the
unhappy communities of the South. It was the attempt to dispose of the
President, and the presidency, by the impeachment of the President.
{158} [Sidenote: Grant in the War Office.]
The history of the President's relations to Mr. Stanton, his Secretary
of War, has already been given down to the suspension of Mr. Stanton in
August of 1867, and the designation of General Grant to succeed him _ad
interim_. Grant immediately assumed the duties of the office, and Mr.
Stanton then regarded General Grant as a friend of the President in the
controversy between himself and the President.
[Sidenote: The President's Message of December 3d, 1867.]
In his annual Message to Congress, the Fortieth Congress, of December
3d, 1867, the President said nothing directly in regard to his
suspension of Mr. Stanton from office. He put forward a strong
argument, couched in moderate and respectful language, against the
policy and constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts, as measures
establishing martial law in times of peace, and as doing it for the
purpose of establishing negro rule over the Southern communities, and
he urged the repeal of these Acts, and the immediate admission of the
Representatives and Senators from these communities, or "States" as he
considered them, to their seats in Congress. What he said upon these
subjects is, for the most part, entirely convincing to the impartial
mind, at this day, and all of it was apparently animated with true
patriotism and earnest desire to promote the common weal. At the close
of the argument, however, the President introduced into his Message
some ambiguous expressions which were unfortunate, to say the least,
and which roused to a high degree the suspicions and the hatred already
entertained against him by the radical Republicans.
He wrote as follows: "How far the duty of the President 'to preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution' requires him to go in opposing an
unconstitutional act of Congress is a very serious and important {159}
question, on which I have deliberated much and felt extremely anxious
to reach a proper conclusion. Where an act has been passed according to
the forms of the Constitution by the supreme legislative authority, and
is regularly enrolled among the public statutes of the country,
Executive resistance to it, especially in times of high party
excitement, would be likely to produce violent collision between the
respective adherents of the two branches of the Government. This would
be simply civil war, and civil war must be resorted to only as the last
remedy for the worst of evils. Whatever might tend to provoke it should
be most carefully avoided. A faithful and conscientious magistrate will
concede very much to honest error, and something even to perverse
malice, before he will endanger the public peace; and he will not adopt
forcible measures, or such as might lead to force, as long as those
which are peaceable remain open to him or to his constituents. It is
true that cases may occur in which the Executive would be compelled to
stand on its rights, and maintain them regardless of all consequences.
If Congress should pass an act which is not only in palpable conflict
with the Constitution, but will certainly, if carried out, produce
immediate and irreparable injury to the organic structure of the
Government, and if there be neither judicial remedy for the wrongs it
inflicts nor power in the people to protect themselves without the
official aid of their elected defender--if, for instance, the
legislative department should pass an act even through all the forms of
law to abolish a co-ordinate department of the Government--in such a
case the President must take the high responsibilities of his office
and save the life of the nation at all hazards. The so-called
Reconstruction Acts, though as plainly unconstitutional as any that can
be imagined, were not believed to be within the class last mentioned.
{160} The people were not wholly disarmed of the power of self-defence.
In all the Northern 'States' they still held in their hands the sacred
right of the ballot, and it was safe to believe that in due time they
would come to the rescue of their own institutions. It gives me
pleasure to add that the appeal to our common constituents was not
taken in vain, and that my confidence in their wisdom and virtue seems
not to have been misplaced." These last words referred undoubtedly to
the recent rejection, by popular vote, in a number of the most
important Northern "States," of proposed amendments to "State"
constitutions conferring suffrage upon negroes.
[Sidenote: The interpretation placed by the Republicans on the
President's Message.]
Most of the Republicans in Congress interpreted this whole paragraph in
the Message as a threat to violate the Reconstruction Acts, although
this was disavowed, rather indistinctly it is true, and to violate also
the Tenure-of-Office Act. It is very difficult to say what the
President was aiming at in giving such a warning to a body already
excited against him to a high degree. It was certainly a _faux pas_ of
the worst kind, to say the least about it.
[Sidenote: The President's special Message concerning the suspension of
Stanton.]
Just nine days later the President sent his special Message to the
Senate in regard to his suspension of Mr. Stanton. The gist of it was
that mutual confidence between himself and Mr. Stanton no longer
existed, and that when he asked Mr. Stanton to resign Mr. Stanton had
declined to do so and had strongly intimated that his reason for
declining was his own lack of confidence in the President's patriotism
and integrity. The President claimed that such an attitude, on the part
of a subordinate toward his superior, was unendurable, was in fact
official misconduct of a grave order, and he also referred to Stanton's
withholding Baird's telegram from {161} him just before the New Orleans
riot. The President furthermore discussed Mr. Stanton's letter in reply
to his order to him suspending him from office and commanding him to
turn over the records and property of the office to General Grant. This
letter contained a declaration by Mr. Stanton denying the right of the
President, under the Constitution and laws, to suspend him from office,
without the advice and consent of the Senate, and without legal cause,
and affirming that he yielded, under protest, to the superior force
wielded by the General of the Army who had been designated to succeed
him.
This contention of Mr. Stanton that the President could not suspend him
under the Constitution and laws of the United States gave the President
the opportunity of saying that Mr. Stanton must be claiming the
protection of the Tenure-of-Office Act of March 2d, 1867, and of
revealing to the Senate Mr. Stanton's most decided condemnation of that
Act when it was a bill before the President. The President asserted
that Mr. Stanton, as every other member of his Cabinet, advised him
that the bill was unconstitutional, in that it was a dangerous
encroachment upon the President's constitutional prerogatives, and
urged him to veto it. He also said that all the members of his Cabinet
who had been appointed by Mr. Lincoln--and Stanton was one of
these--appeared to be of the opinion that their tenures were not fixed
or affected by the provisions of the bill. The conclusion arrived at by
the President evidently was that the Tenure-of-Office Act did not cover
Mr. Stanton's case, but left it under the law and practice existing
before the passage of that measure, and that if it did cover it, the
Act was unconstitutional, and was so considered by Mr. Stanton himself,
and every other member of the Cabinet.
{162} It is hardly credible that the President intended to recognize
the validity of the Act by sending this Message to the Senate. It is
true that the second section of the Act provided that the President
might suspend an officer during a recess of the Senate, and designate
an _ad interim_ successor, and must, within the first twenty days of
the next meeting of the Senate, report the suspension to the Senate,
and it does appear, from a casual view, that the President was acting
under the authority of this provision, or rather under the duty imposed
by it, in suspending instead of removing Mr. Stanton and in making this
report of Mr. Stanton's suspension to the Senate. But the President
could claim that he was proceeding under his general constitutional
power and duty of suspending from office, as a power included in the
power of removal, and of sending such communications as he saw fit to
Congress or to either House thereof. And the fact that he disputed the
constitutionality of the Act in the Message itself is good internal
evidence that he did not consider that he was in any way acting under
the authority granted to him by it, or in any way estopping himself, so
to speak, from making future declarations against the constitutionality
of the Act, or even from disobeying its requirements.
[Sidenote: The Senate resolution in regard to the suspension of
Stanton.]
The Senate, however, conceived at once that the President was acting
under the Tenure-of-Office Act, and after considerable discussion,
passed a resolution, on the 13th day of January, 1868, which provided
that, "having considered the evidence and reasons given by the
President in his report of December 12th, 1867, for the suspension of
Edwin M. Stanton from the office of Secretary of War, the Senate does
not concur in such suspension." The body then instructed its secretary
to send copies of this resolution to the President, General {163} Grant
and Mr. Stanton. It is also evident that General Grant supposed the
President was acting under the Tenure-of-Office Act both in suspending
Stanton, in appointing himself _ad interim_, and in making report of
these proceedings to the Senate; for upon receiving his copy of the
Senate's resolution from the secretary of the Senate, he immediately
left the room of the Secretary of War, locking the door after him and
giving the key to the Adjutant-General, and repaired to the official
head-quarters of the General of the army. Stanton manifestly regarded
the matter in the same way, for upon receiving his copy of the notice
of the Senate's action, he went to the room of the Secretary of War,
and resumed the duties of Secretary of War without further ceremony. He
did not even go to see Grant, but sent word over to the head-quarters
of the General of the army summoning Grant to wait upon him in the
Secretary's room.
[Sidenote: Criticism of the Senate resolution.]
There is no question now in any calm and impartial mind that the Senate
acted most inconsiderately, not to say wrongfully, in passing that
resolution. The situation was a perfectly plain one. The President and
Stanton could not work together, since they had lost all confidence in
each other. Common-sense and common decency required in such a case the
retirement of the subordinate. The Senate itself had committed itself
to this view in the discussion and votes upon the Tenure-of-Office
bill, in its original form and in its final form. General Grant, the
man who stood first in the confidence of the whole people, was in
possession of the War Office. He had held it already nearly six months,
and had in that short time improved the administration of it very
greatly. At the end of the six months, at farthest, the President was
held by the law of 1795, a law whose constitutionality {164} he did not
dispute, to make a nomination to the Senate of a permanent incumbent.
The Senate would then be able to prevent the appointment of any person
to the office who did not have the confidence of the Senate and the
country. No possible harm could thus have come to the country from
acquiescing in Stanton's suspension, and it is hard to see that
anything but harm did come to it in not doing so. No perfectly fair and
unprejudiced mind could have failed to see that then; but the radical
Republicans--and most of the Republicans in Congress at that moment
were radical, or at least intensely partisan--were bent upon attacking
and destroying the President in any way they could. They were ready to
lay traps for him, and then to so excite him by encroachments upon the
prerogatives and the dignity of his office as to make him fall into
them. They were determined to sustain Stanton against the President,
the subordinate against his lawful superior, simply because they
despised the President. They claimed that the welfare of the country
demanded it, and most of them probably thought so, but everybody can
see the fallacy of that now, and anybody fit to be a Senator of the
United States ought to have been able to see it then.
[Sidenote: Criticism of General Grant's act.]
It is also a question whether General Grant did not act hastily, and
inconsiderately, not to say wrongfully, in yielding the post without
dispute to Mr. Stanton. The President certainly understood General
Grant to promise him to hold on to the office in case the Senate should
not approve of Stanton's suspension, and thereby compel Stanton to have
recourse to the courts to regain possession, and thus secure a judicial
determination of the constitutionality of the Tenure-of-Office Act, or
to give the office back to the President before the Senate reached its
{165} determination, so that he might have opportunity to put it into
the hands of a man who would be willing to incur this responsibility;
and the President was able to back this understanding by the testimony
of five members of his Cabinet. On the other hand, General Grant was
just as sincere in his view that his remarks to the President on the
subject did not amount to a promise, and if they did, he had fulfilled
it when on the 11th of January, two days before the Senate acted, he
indicated to the President his unwillingness to involve himself in a
lawsuit to test the constitutionality of the Tenure-of-Office Act. It
is true that when he spoke with the President, on the 11th, he did not
offer to resign the office, and that it was understood that he would
see the President again on the subject, and that he did not see the
President, nor attempt to see him, before the Senate acted. But he
explained this apparent failure to keep faith by saying that he was
extremely busy during the two days between the 11th and the 13th, and
that the Senate had acted much more hastily than he expected it would.
There is little doubt that General Grant thought the Senate would
acquiesce in Stanton's suspension, and was taken by surprise when it
did not do so, and that until the action of the Senate on the 13th, he
had never seriously considered that any opportunity or necessity for a
judicial proceeding would arise. When, then, the alternative was
suddenly presented to him of obeying the Tenure-of-Office Act, or
disputing its constitutionality by forcibly holding possession of the
War Office, he decided that it would be wrong for the General of the
army to assume the attitude of defiance to Congress, whatever a
civilian might consider his duty to be. He thought that such an act on
his part would look like a contest between the civil and military
powers of the Government, and he was unwilling to provoke it.
{166} [Sidenote: The President's blunder in his attitude toward Grant.]
The President blundered very seriously when he did not accept the
explanation from General Grant and drop the matter. The General was
friendly in his feelings toward the President, and when Stanton
repossessed himself of the War Office in his cavalier way, without
seeking any understanding with Grant, and sent the General a rude
summons to wait upon him, the General was very naturally and properly
indignant with Stanton. The way was here open for the President to make
a close friend of General Grant, by simply appreciating Grant's point
of view in surrendering the War Office, and saying nothing more about
it. But the President was not a prudent man when crossed in his
purposes. He generally thought that the motives of all men who differed
with him were bad. He showed in this trait his common origin and his
vulgar breeding. He thought that Grant had deceived him and made a
scapegoat of him, and he resolved to have it out with him. He did not
seem to understand at all that in an issue of veracity between General
Grant and himself, the country would believe Grant, no matter who told
the truth, and who the lie. The utter impossibility of coming out
winner in a contest with a national hero, no matter what the merits of
the case might be, does not seem to have occurred to him at all. And so
he plunged into that unfortunate controversy with General Grant in the
public prints, which made Grant his enemy for life, at a time when he
needed most his friendship, and might have had it by the exercise of a
little common prudence.
[Sidenote: The result of the controversy between the President and
General Grant.]
The outcome of this whole course of crimination and recrimination was
that the country came to the belief that the President first tried to
force the responsibility of a violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act
upon the popular General of the army, and then, when the {167} General
foiled him in his purpose, undertook to impugn his honor and his
integrity, and destroy his character before the public. An impartial
study of the facts and the correspondence will not sustain any such
view now, but in the state of feeling then prevailing, no such
impartial study was possible. The President ought to have known this,
and to have controlled his indignation until a more propitious time.
[Sidenote: Grant's disobedience toward the President.]
General Grant's letter closing the controversy is dated February 11th.
In the interval between his quitting the War Office and this latter
date, the President instructed the General not to obey any orders from
Stanton until he knew they came from the President. This instruction
was given, first, verbally on January 19th. Grant demanded, on January
24th, a written order from the President on the subject, and repeated
this request on the 28th. The President replied on the 29th that
"General Grant is instructed, in writing, not to obey any order from
the War Department, assumed to be issued by the direction of the
President, unless such order is known by the General commanding the
armies of the United States to have been authorized by the Executive."
Grant responded, on January 30th, that he had been informed by the
Secretary of War that he (the Secretary) had not received from the
Executive any order or instructions limiting or impairing his authority
to issue orders to the army as had theretofore been his practice under
the law and the customs of the Department, and that while this
authority to the War Department was not countermanded it would be
satisfactory evidence to him (the General) that any orders issued from
the War Department by the formal direction of the President were
authorized by the Executive. This was coming very nearly up to the
{168} line between obedience and disobedience on the part of the
General of the army toward the constitutional Commander-in-chief of the
army and navy of the United States. The General must have himself felt
that he was on rather shaky ground, for in the closing paragraph of his
letter of February 11th he disclaimed any intention of disobeying "any
legal order of the President distinctly communicated." But this was
still an ambiguous situation. Who was to determine whether an order of
the President to the General was legal or not? If the President, then
there was no need of qualifying the word "order" by the word "legal."
The language used, therefore, indicates that the General considered it
within _his_ power to decide this question. But if the subordinate can
determine upon the legality of the orders of his superior, and disobey
them in case he considers them illegal, then farewell to all discipline
in civil or military service. It is very clear from these expressions
of the General that Stanton's successful insubordination was already
exercising its demoralizing influence, and was confusing the minds of
those high in command in regard to the interpretation of their duties
and responsibilities.
[Sidenote: The unbearable situation in which the President now found
himself.]
The situation was utterly unbearable for the President. Here was the
constitutional Executive of the United States, the Commander-in-chief
of the army and the navy, virtually excluded by one of his own
subordinates from any relation to the business of one of the most
important departments of the Government for which he alone was
responsible, and his subordinate sustained in this attitude by the
legislative branch of the Government.
[Sidenote: The dismissal of Stanton from office.]
Matters were now rapidly approaching a crisis which could be avoided
only by the resignation of the {169} President or by the retreat of the
Senate from its indefensible position. If both stood firm the clash
must follow, and that too very quickly. On the 21st (February) it came.
The President addressed an order of that date to Mr. Stanton dismissing
him from the office of Secretary of War, and another order of the same
date to General Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant-General of the army,
commanding him to take possession of the War Office and administer its
affairs _ad interim_. He, on the same date, informed the Senate of his
action, and transmitted to that body a copy of the orders to Stanton
and Thomas.
[Sidenote: General Thomas appointed Secretary of War _ad interim_.]
Upon receiving the order, General Thomas repaired immediately to the
Secretary's room in the War Office, and handed to Mr. Stanton both of
the documents, they having been put into his hands by the President's
private secretary. Upon reading the one addressed to himself, Mr.
Stanton immediately asked General Thomas whether he wished him to
vacate at once or would give him time to remove his private property.
Thomas replied, "act as you please." Stanton then read the order
addressed to Thomas designating him Secretary _ad interim_, and asked
Thomas for a copy of it.
[Sidenote: Stanton's resistance.]
Thomas then left the Secretary's room and went into his old room, the
Adjutant-General's room, to have a copy of the order made. He returned
at once with it, and when he handed it to Mr. Stanton, the latter said:
"I do not know whether I will obey your instructions, or whether I will
resist them." General Thomas had certified the correctness of the copy,
and had signed himself Secretary of War _ad interim_. The two then went
into General Schriver's room just across the hallway, and there Stanton
declared outright that Thomas should not issue orders as {170}
Secretary of War, and that if he did he (Stanton) would countermand
them, and he then and there directed General Schriver and General
Townsend, both of whom were present, to disobey any orders coming from
General Thomas as Secretary of War. Mr. Stanton then caused General
Townsend to prepare a written order to Thomas, signed by Mr. Stanton as
Secretary of War, which was as follows: "Sir: I am informed that you
presume to issue orders as Secretary of War _ad interim_. Such conduct
and orders are illegal, and you are hereby commanded to abstain from
issuing any orders other than in your capacity as Adjutant-General of
the army."
[Sidenote: Thomas and the President.]
General Thomas then went over to the White House to see the President
about the matter. He told the President of his conversation with Mr.
Stanton, and repeated to him Stanton's replies verbatim. The President
simply said to him: "Very well; go and take charge of the office and
perform the duties." Thomas did not, however, return to the Secretary's
room in the War Office that day, and did not see Mr. Stanton again on
that day.
[Sidenote: The attitude of the Senate toward the dismissal of Stanton.]
While these things were occurring in the executive offices matters were
seething at the other end of the avenue. The Senate was deliberating,
if we may call such a stormy procedure as took place a deliberation,
upon the President's communication. It very quickly passed the
following resolution: "Whereas, the Senate have received and considered
the communication of the President stating that he had removed Edwin M.
Stanton, Secretary of War, and had designated the Adjutant-General of
the army to act as Secretary of War _ad interim_: Therefore, Resolved
by the Senate of the United States, That under the Constitution and
laws of the United States the President has no power to remove {171}
the Secretary of War and designate any other officer to perform the
duties of that office _ad interim_." A copy of this resolution was sent
to the President, another copy to Mr. Stanton, and another to General
Thomas.
[Sidenote: The movements in the House of Representatives.]
The excitement in the other House was still more intense and
irrational. The Senate resolution had hardly passed when the radical
Mr. Covode presented a motion to the effect that "Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and
misdemeanors." This resolution was referred to the Committee of the
House on Reconstruction, which was, as we have seen, composed of
members nearly all of whom were radical Republicans.
[Sidenote: The arrest of General Thomas.]
Encouraged and strengthened by these movements in the legislature, and
hearing that Thomas had threatened to force his way into the office,
Mr. Stanton resolved to forestall all possible movements of General
Thomas for gaining possession of the office of Secretary of War. He
procured a warrant of arrest for the General, and on the next morning,
the morning of the 22d, the warrant was served on General Thomas just
after he had risen from his bed, and before he had taken his morning
meal. The officers who arrested him, the Marshal of the District, and
his assistant, and a constable, took the General at once before Judge
Cartter, the Chief Justice of the District of Columbia. On the way from
the General's residence to the court-room, the General asked the
officers to allow him to see the President, and inform the latter of
his arrest. The Marshal went with the General to the White House, and
was present at the interview between the General and the President. It
lasted but a moment. The General told the President that he was under
arrest. The President replied that he was {172} satisfied to have the
case go into the courts, that he wanted it judicially determined. He
then directed the General to go to the Attorney-General, Mr. Stanbery.
The Marshal permitted him to call at Mr. Stanbery's apartment in his
hotel, and inform the Attorney-General of his arrest. He then took him
before Judge Cartter. Nobody was with the General before the Judge,
except the officers who had arrested him. The Judge held him to bail in
the sum of five thousand dollars to appear on the following Wednesday
morning, the 26th. After about an hour friends of the General came in
and signed his bail bond, and the General was released, the Judge
informing him that he was not suspended from any of his official
functions. The General then went back to the White House and informed
the President of his release under bail, and the President again
replied that he wanted the case in the courts.
[Sidenote: Thomas's second attempt to take possession of the War
Office.]
Finally, the General went over to the rooms of the Secretary of War.
There he found some six or eight members of Congress with Mr. Stanton,
evidently awaiting the _dénouement_. He demanded the office. Stanton
ordered him to his room as Adjutant-General. He refused to obey. He
demanded the office of the Secretary of War a second and a third time,
and a second and a third time Stanton refused to yield it to him and
ordered him to his room as Adjutant-General. The General then left the
room of the Secretary of War, and went across the hall into General
Schriver's room. Stanton followed him and asked him if he insisted on
acting as Secretary of War. The General replied that he did, and would
demand the mails of the War Office. The two then fell into a friendly
chat, General Thomas saying that he had had nothing to eat or drink
that day and requesting Mr. Stanton the next time he might have him
arrested not to do it before {173} breakfast, and Stanton appealing to
Schriver to bring out his whiskey, which Schriver did, and the two men,
Thomas and Stanton, drank a little together on Stanton's invitation.
With this Thomas's attempt to get possession of the War Office seems to
have ended. On the same day the President sent to the Senate for
confirmation as Secretary of War the name of Thomas Ewing, Sr. Mr.
Ewing was a man of undoubted ability and of the purest loyalty. He had
been one of Lincoln's best friends and supporters and was the
father-in-law of General Sherman; but the Senate denied that the
President had any power to send in a nomination, that is, denied that
there was a vacancy.
[Sidenote: The House resolution to impeach the President.]
On the same day, also, the 22d, the Reconstruction Committee of the
House, to whom the resolution for impeaching the President had been
referred, reported it back with the recommendation that it be passed,
and the chairman, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, urged that it might pass
without debate. But the members began at once to debate it hotly, and
continued to do so through the day and deep into the night. The
following day was Sunday, the 23d. The House had, therefore, one day of
recess in which to cool down. But on Monday the angry determination of
the Republican leaders was even more manifest than on the preceding
Saturday. All day long the war of words went on. The reproach and the
odium heaped upon the President were simply immeasurable. Read from the
point of view of to-day, and at this distance from the event, most of
it appears highly extravagant, and some of it ridiculous and even
puerile. Late in the afternoon the vote was reached, by application of
the previous question rule. The House resolved to impeach the President
before the Senate by a vote of 126 to 47. All those voting in the
affirmative were {174} Republicans, and all those voting in the
negative were Democrats.
[Sidenote: The committee of the House on impeachment.]
By another strict party vote the House authorized the Speaker to
appoint a committee to acquaint the Senate with its resolution to
impeach the President before that body, and another committee to draw
up the articles of impeachment. The Speaker, Mr. Colfax, appointed Mr.
Stevens and Mr. Bingham to constitute the first committee, and Mr.
Boutwell, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Bingham, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Logan, Mr. Julian
and Mr. Ward to constitute the second. This committee immediately set
about its work, and on the 29th was ready to report.
[Sidenote: The withdrawal of Stanton's complaint against Thomas.]
Meanwhile the day for General Thomas to appear in court, February 26th,
arrived. By this time the General had taken legal advice, and the plan
of his counsel was to refuse to give further bail, allow him thus to be
committed to jail, then sue out a writ of Habeas Corpus from a United
States judge, and bring in this way the question of the
constitutionality of the Tenure-of-Office Act to judicial
determination. But Judge Cartter foiled this plan, according to the
word of Judge Luke P. Poland of Vermont, who drew the complaint against
Thomas, by declining to make any further order requiring bail, and on
the same day Mr. Stanton withdrew the complaint, and the case was thus
prevented from reaching the United States courts at all.
[Sidenote: The fear of the Republicans to test the Tenure-of-Office Act
before the courts.]
There is little doubt that the Republicans were afraid to have the
Tenure-of-Office Act tested judicially. They preferred recourse to the
Court of Impeachment to settle the matter so far as President Johnson
was concerned. It is true that Stanton alleged that he brought the case
against Thomas in order to test judicially the right of {175} Thomas to
the office of Secretary of War, and that he withdrew the complaint as
superfluous after the House of Representatives had resolved to impeach
the President, but that may have been a mere legal form of excuse.
[Sidenote: The managers of impeachment.]
Three days after this, as we have seen, the committee charged with
preparing the articles of impeachment reported to the House. They were
debated until March 3d, when they were adopted by a strict party vote,
and the managers to conduct the prosecution were elected. They were
Messrs. Bingham, Boutwell, Wilson, Butler, Williams, Logan and Stevens.
[Sidenote: The charges against the President.]
Disregarding the legal order and form of the eleven articles of
impeachment, we may say briefly that the charges against the President
were:
First, that he violated the Tenure-of-Office Act in issuing an order
deposing Stanton from the office of Secretary of War, and another order
appointing Thomas to the office of Secretary of War _ad interim_.
Second, that he violated the Anti-conspiracy Act of July 31, 1861, in
conspiring with Thomas to expel Stanton by force from the War Office,
and to seize upon the property and papers of the United States in the
War Office, and to unlawfully disburse the money appropriated for the
military service and the Department of War.
Third, that he violated the Act of March 2, 1867, which, among other
things, directed that the military orders and instructions of the
President and Secretary of War should be issued through the General of
the army, by attempting to induce General Emory, the commander of the
troops around Washington, to disregard this law and take his orders
immediately from the President.
And fourthly, that he committed high misdemeanors {176} in his speeches
denouncing the Thirty-ninth Congress, and declaring it to be a Congress
of only a part of the "States."
[Sidenote: The charges presented to the Senate.]
[Sidenote: The President's appearance entered by his counsel.]
These charges were presented by the managers of the impeachment to the
Senate on March 5th, the day upon which the Senate organized itself as
a Court of Impeachment, by assembling under the presidency of the Chief
Justice of the United States, who administered the oath to the Senators
as members of the court. The court directed its sergeant-at-arms to
serve its summons upon the President to appear before its bar and
answer to the charges preferred against him, and then adjourned to the
13th of the month. On the 13th the court reassembled. The chief clerk
read the return of the sergeant-at-arms to the writ of summons, to the
effect that he had served the writ upon the President at seven o'clock
P.M. of Saturday, the 7th day of the month; and the President entered
his appearance by his counsel, Henry Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis,
Jeremiah S. Black, William M. Evarts and Thomas A. R. Nelson, and asked
for forty days for the preparation of his answer to the charges. The
first four of these men were the most noted constitutional lawyers of
the country, and the fifth was one of Mr. Johnson's loyal Tennessee
friends and his chief ally in the Union cause in Tennessee during the
years of sorest trial. Mr. Stanbery had resigned the office of
Attorney-General of the United States in order to take the leading part
in the defence of the President.
[Sidenote: The President's answer to the complaint.]
The managers on the part of the House very ungenerously objected to
giving the President any time at all for the preparation of his answer
further than what he had had since the service of the summons upon him,
but the Senate {177} resolved to give him ten days, that is until March
23d. Upon the latter day the Senate resumed its sitting as a Court of
Impeachment, and the President's counsel appeared with his answer to
the charges made against him.
[Sidenote: The withdrawal of Mr. Black from the President's counsel.]
An incident occurred at this point in the history of the procedure,
which should be related, although it interrupts somewhat the thread of
the narrative. It was the disappearance of Mr. Black from among the
counsel for the President, and the appearance of Mr. Groesbeck in his
place. It was the gossip among the enemies of the President, and this
gossip was sedulously spread abroad throughout the whole country by
them, that Black on examining the case had become convinced of the
President's guilt and had retired from the case for this reason, and
for the further reason that he had become disgusted with the
President's conduct. It did not become known until later that during
this time Judge Black was counsel for a firm composed of one Patterson
and one Marguiendo, which firm claimed a guano island in the West
Indies, called Alta Vela, and that one of Judge Black's colleagues in
the prosecution of the Patterson-Marguiendo claim, one J. W. Shaffer,
procured a letter of the date of the 9th of March, 1868, that is one
week after the House of Representatives had resolved to impeach the
President, signed by General Benjamin F. Butler and approved by John A.
Logan, J. A. Garfield, W. H. Koontz, J. K. Moorhead, Thaddeus Stevens,
J. G. Blaine and John A. Bingham, some of them the most bitter among
the President's enemies, which contained the statement that these
gentlemen were clearly of the opinion that the citizens of the United
States had the exclusive right to the guano beds of Alta Vela island,
and an expression of their {178} surprise that the President had not
upheld this right by force against the claims of the Dominican
Government to the island, and caused this letter to be placed in the
hands of the President on the 16th day of March, and that on the 17th
or 18th of March Judge Black had an interview with the President and
urged him to send an armed vessel of the United States to Alta Vela to
take possession of the island, and that the President, viewing this
approach to him at this time as an attempt to take advantage of his
situation, refused, and that on the next day, the 19th of March, Judge
Black declined to appear further as the President's counsel in the
impeachment trial.
It must have taken a good deal of self-control on the part of the
President, in possession of all these facts, to keep them quietly to
himself for more than a month from the time of Judge Black's retirement
from his case, while his enemies were pointing the finger of a supposed
triumphant scorn at him as being unworthy to have so honest a man as
Judge Black among his counsel, and then to allow them to be given out
only under provocation from the managers of the impeachment, taunting
him with his treatment of Judge Black, and with Judge Black's
withdrawal from his case.
[Sidenote: The contents of the President's answer.]
But to return to the President's answer to the charges against him.
Disregarding again legal verbiage and order, the President answered
substantially that Stanton's case was not affected by the
Tenure-of-Office Act, and that he held his office, according to the
Constitution and laws of the United States, and the wording of his
commission, at the pleasure of the President; that even if Stanton's
case were covered by the Act, the President was within his right and
was not thereby committing any crime or misdemeanor at all, to so act
as to make up an issue {179} before the Supreme Court of the United
States, whereby the constitutionality of the Act might be tested; that
the authority given to General Thomas to act as Secretary of War _ad
interim_ was not an appointment nor an attempt to make an appointment,
but was only a designation of a person to act temporarily until an
appointment could be made by and with the consent of the Senate, a
thing which the President was empowered to do by the Act of February
13th, 1795, still in force; that he had not entered into any conspiracy
with Thomas or anybody else to force Stanton out of the War Office, or
to seize the property and papers of the United States in the War
Office, that he could not in fact do so, since Stanton was not lawfully
in the War Office, and since the President of the United States was the
ultimate lawful custodian of the property and papers of the United
States in the War Office, but that his communications with Thomas were
orders from the President to a subordinate officer, to whom the
President gave no authority to use force for their execution, and who
did not use any force in his attempts to execute them, the intention of
the President only being, if his authority should be resisted by Mr.
Stanton, to create an issue before the Supreme Court of the United
States, and secure thereby a judicial determination of the rights and
powers of the parties concerned, and not to do anything unlawful; that
he had never undertaken to induce General Emory to take his orders
immediately from himself in violation of the Act of March 2d, 1867,
which provided that all of the military orders and instructions issuing
from the President and the Secretary of War should pass through the
hands of the General of the Army, but that he had only expressed to
General Emory, as he had to Congress, his conviction that the Act was
in violation of the Constitution, which latter {180} conferred upon the
President the Commandership-in-chief of the army and the navy; and
finally, that his speeches were simply the expression of his opinions
as a free citizen of the Republic, which right was guaranteed to him
and to every other citizen by the Constitution of the country, and
could not be made out in any way to have any of the qualities of a
crime or a misdemeanor, and that his declaration that the Thirty-ninth
Congress was a Congress of only a part of the "States" was intended by
him in no other sense than that of an assertion that ten "States" of
the Union were not represented in it, all of which ought to be so
represented when they should send loyal men to take seats therein, and
that he had never intended by this declaration to deny the validity of
the acts of the Congress or its power to originate and adopt an
amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
After the filing of this answer, the counsel of the President asked the
Court of Impeachment for thirty days' time after the replication of the
House of Representatives to this answer should be filed for the
preparation of the President's case. But the managers on the part of
the House again very ungenerously opposed giving them any time at all
for this purpose. The debate over this point lasted until after the
replication of the House was filed on the following day, that is on the
24th of March. The Court of Impeachment then decided to give them until
March 30th, and ordered the trial to proceed on that day.
[Sidenote: The replication of the House to the President's answer.]
The replication filed by the House of Representatives, on the 26th, was
an exception to the answer of the President as insufficient, a denial
of all the averments of the answer, a declaration of the guilt of the
President of the high crimes and misdemeanors charged, and an offer to
prove the same.
{181} [Sidenote: The trial.]
[Sidenote: Conduct of the managers.]
On the 30th, the trial opened with the fierce, not to say brutal,
attack of Mr. Butler on the President. During the entire course of the
trial, from the 30th of March until the 16th of May, the managers
followed a line of conduct which no impartial student of this day can
fail to condemn, and which, even in that time of hostile passion
against the President, lost to them a large measure of popular favor.
They tried to prevail upon the Court of Impeachment to regard itself as
a political body instead of a court, to renounce all limitations upon
its powers, and to accept common rumors against the President as good
evidence of his guilt. On the other hand, they objected to the
introduction of evidence by the President to prove the purpose of his
acts, and to show the advice upon which he had proceeded in their
commission. They succeeded in inducing the Court of Impeachment to
refuse to hear the President's evidence upon these points, although the
Chief Justice had ruled in favor of its reception. There is no doubt
that their cause was greatly weakened in the public esteem by this
manifestation of partisanship on the part of the court.
[Sidenote: The evidence in the case.]
The evidence in the case showed no conspiracy with Thomas to do
anything, and no orders to him to use any force in what he was
authorized to do, and no attempt to induce General Emory to violate any
law or any orders received from or through the General of the Army or
any other legal authority. The case, thus, rested chiefly upon the
question as to whether the President had violated the Tenure-of-Office
Act; and the transactions of the President in regard to this subject
were matters of record.
[Sidenote: The argument.]
When one, at this lapse of time from the events, peruses the calm,
dignified, convincing and masterful arguments of the President's
counsel, and compares {182} them with the passionate, partisan
harangues of the managers, it is very difficult to understand how the
latter could have made any serious impression at all. There was only a
single point upon the law seemingly involved in the case in regard to
which they held the better reason. That was the claim on their part
that the President had no right to violate an act of Congress for the
purpose of testing its validity before the United States courts, or for
any other purpose. They argued with much force that to allow the
President the power to violate an act of Congress, or to omit to
execute an act of Congress, in order to make up an issue before the
courts upon the question of its constitutionality, would be virtually
to attribute to the President the once hated royal power of suspending
the law at the pleasure of the Executive. They contended that the veto
power was placed in the hands of the President for the purpose of
allowing him to be heard at the proper time, and to act at the proper
time, in regard to the passage of any law, and that no other power was
given him in relation to the subject; that after he had exhausted this
power, he was bound to execute the legislation of Congress, and could
not suspend it or violate it for any purpose whatsoever; and that the
constitutionality of any of the acts of Congress could be raised before
the courts only by persons not charged with the execution of the law
and having such interests affected by the act in question as would
warrant a judicial procedure.
Judge Curtis was so influenced by the consideration that to claim such
a power for the President would give him a double veto upon all of the
acts of Congress, a veto when acting as a part of the legislature in
the enactment of law, and then a purely executive veto which could be
overcome only by an adverse judicial decision, that he expressed his
contention on the subject in very {183} cautious language. He declared
that the President claimed no such general power as that, but he said
"when a question arises whether a particular law has cut off a power
confided to him by the people through the Constitution, and he alone
can raise that question, and he alone can cause a judicial decision to
come between the two branches of the Government to say which of them is
right, and after due deliberation, with the advice of those who are his
proper advisers, he settles down firmly upon the opinion that such is
the character of the law, it remains to be decided by you, Senators,
whether there is any violation of his duty when he takes the needful
steps to raise that question and have it peacefully decided."
The great lawyer refused thus to commit himself upon this fundamental
question of constitutional law. And well he might, for to recognize any
such power in the President would be to enable him to rule with such
arbitrariness as to upset the principles and practices of all free
government. The President can constitutionally defend his prerogatives
with the veto power, a power which nothing short of a two-thirds
majority of both Houses of Congress can overcome, and he has no other
power of defence confided to him by the Constitution. He must execute
the laws passed over his veto upon matters which in his opinion touch
his executive prerogatives, just the same as upon all other matters,
and if persons not connected with the administration of the laws do not
call such measures in question before the courts, the remedies provided
by the Constitution for the people of the United States are either the
election of members of Congress who will repeal the enactments, or else
the amendment of the Constitution so as to repeal them. It was,
however, a question whether, in showing the sole purpose of making an
issue before the courts, the {184} President would not clear himself of
any criminal intent. Happily his case did not require this, as was
demonstrated by his counsel and by Senators Trumbull and Fessenden in
their opinions.
[Sidenote: The law in the case.]
The law governing the President's case was perfectly clear to anyone
who could divest himself of political prejudice and of personal
hostility. It was briefly this. By an Act of the First Congress, of the
date of August 7th, 1789, Congress interpreted the Constitution as
giving the President the power to remove any officer of the United
States, except judges of the United States courts, at his discretion,
as an incident of his sole executive responsibility, and in an especial
sense recognized this constitutional power as belonging to the
President in the case of the heads of the governmental departments, the
members of the Cabinet, as they afterwards came to be called, since
these persons stood, and must stand, in a peculiarly confidential
relation to the President, as his official advisers. This
interpretation of the Constitution as to the President's power of
removal and the practice built upon it remained untouched by the
Congress until the 2d of March, 1867, when, as we have seen, Congress
enacted, "that every person holding any civil office to which he has
been appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and
every person who shall be hereafter 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:
Provided, That the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War, of
the Navy, and of the Interior, the Postmaster-General, and the
Attorney-General, shall hold their offices respectively for and during
the term of the President by whom they may have been {185} appointed,
and one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate."
It will be remembered that in the Tenure-of-Office bill as it
originated in the Senate the members of the Cabinet were entirely
excepted from its operation; that the House in passing the bill
included them; that the Senate would not agree to their inclusion; that
the bill was then sent to a conference committee; that this committee
invented the compromise contained in the proviso; that this proviso was
understood to give to each President the power to choose his own
Cabinet officers once during his term, and therefore to remove any
Cabinet officer not originally appointed by him, but holding under a
commission from a former President, and remaining in office only by the
sufferance of the existing President; that this was especially the true
meaning of the proviso in regard to those Cabinet officers then in
office, but who had been appointed and commissioned by Mr. Lincoln
during his first term to hold during the pleasure of the President; and
that it was upon this explanation of the meaning of the proviso that
the Senate voted the resolution of the conference committee.
From all this it is entirely clear that the President had the legal
power to remove Mr. Stanton, no matter whether the Tenure-of-Office Act
was constitutional or not, simply because his case was excepted by the
proviso in the first article in the Act from the operation of the Act,
and was left to the operation of the laws in existence at the time the
Act was passed. There is little question now that that Act was not in
accordance with a fair interpretation of the Constitution, but it was
not at all necessary to hold that view in order to clear the President
of the accusation of having violated the Constitution and the laws of
the land.
{186} The law in reference to the _ad interim_ appointment, or
designation, of General Thomas was equally plain to the impartial eye.
The Constitution provides only for vacancies that may happen during the
recess of the Senate, and empowers the President to fill all such by
granting commissions which shall expire at the end of its next session.
By an act of May 8th, 1792, Congress empowered the President, in case
of the death, sickness, or absence from the seat of government, of the
Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Secretary of
War, whether these events should occur during a session, or a recess,
of the Senate, "to authorize any person or persons, at his discretion,
to perform the duties of the said respective offices until a successor
be appointed, or until such absence or inability by sickness should
cease."
Another act of Congress of February 13th, 1795, empowered the
President, in case of vacancy from any cause in the offices of
Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, or Secretary of War,
happening either during a recess or a session of the Senate, "to
authorize any person or persons, at his discretion, to perform the
duties of the said respective offices until a successor be appointed or
such vacancy be filled," provided, however, that no one vacancy should
be supplied in that manner for a longer time than six months.
It will be seen that neither of these statutes provided for the
temporary filling of vacancies in any of the Departments, except those
of State, the Treasury, and War. In practice, however, the Presidents
have followed the analogies of the law of 1795, when it became
necessary, in their opinion, to make a temporary designation in the
other Departments. On the 22d of September, 1862, President Lincoln
appointed J. B. L. Skinner Postmaster-General _ad interim_. It was Mr.
Lincoln himself {187} who called the attention of Congress to the fact
that he had no literal legal authority for this, and who on January 2d,
1863, asked Congress to extend the Act of May 8th, 1792, so as to cover
the cases of the other Departments, and empower the President to make
_ad interim_ appointments to fill vacancies in these Departments
happening on account of death, sickness, or absence from the seat of
government. Why the President did not ask for the extension of the Act
of February 13th, 1795, which covered all vacancies happening from
whatever cause, instead of the Act of 1792, which covered those only
which might happen from death, sickness, or absence from the seat of
government, we do not know. We only know that in January, 1863, both
the President and Congress were greatly pressed by the exigencies of
the war, and did things generally in haste and without much
consideration. In answer to the President's suggestion, Congress passed
the Act of February 20th, 1863, extending the Act of 1792 so as to
cover all the executive Departments in the cases of vacancy provided
for in that Act, viz., by cause of death, sickness, or absence from the
seat of Government--adding resignation--and limiting the President,
however, in these appointments to persons already officers in one or
the other of the Departments, and providing that no one vacancy should
be so supplied for a longer period than six months. The vacancies which
might happen from expiration of term or by removal were not at all
provided for by the Act of 1863; and as the Act of 1863 did not
expressly repeal the Act of 1795, but only declared that "all acts and
parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed," the Act
of 1795 remained in force as to all vacancies caused by expiration of
term or by removal, whether happening during a recess or a session of
the Senate.
{188} Neither did the Tenure-of-Office Act of 1867 repeal the Act of
1795 in regard to first vacancies happening among the Secretaries of
Departments by other causes than those provided for in the Act of 1863,
either expressly or by implication, since these first vacancies were
expressly excepted from the operation of the Act of 1867, by the
proviso attached to the first article. And even if it should be held
that the Act of 1867 did repeal that of 1795 entirely, yet, in that it
did not forbid the President to make _ad interim_ appointments in the
cases where a Secretary's term expired, or a Secretary was lawfully
removed by him, the President's designation of Thomas could not be
considered as a violation of law but only as an act without warrant of
law, the very kind of an act committed by Mr. Lincoln in his
appointment of Skinner as Postmaster-General _ad interim_ in 1862, and
committed by other Presidents in other cases.
The managers made much of the argument that the President had
recognized the validity of the Tenure-of-Office Act in suspending
Stanton the preceding August, and reporting his suspension to the
Senate, and in notifying the Secretary of the Treasury of the
suspension, as provided in the Act, and asserted that he was therefore
estopped from denying its constitutionality. But while it can be easily
shown that these acts of the President did not at all militate against
his claim that other parts of the statute were unconstitutional, still
this was not at all necessary to the President's defence, under the
view here advanced of the relations between the Acts of 1867, 1863, and
1795. It made no difference, under this view, whether the Act of 1867
was, or was not, constitutional and valid. In either case the President
had violated no law, either constitutional or statutory.
{189} [Sidenote: Mr. Stanton's violation of law.]
The fact is that Mr. Stanton and those who abetted him were the
violators of law. Every official act which he committed after receiving
the notification from the President of his removal, on the 21st of
February, was a usurpation of governmental powers by a private citizen,
and the gathering of armed men about him with the purpose of sustaining
him in holding on to the War Office after his dismissal by the
President was treason. It is a question whether his official acts after
the 13th of January and down to February 21st were not also
usurpations. That depends upon whether the Tenure-of-Office Act was, or
was not, constitutional, and whether, if it were, the right of a member
of the Cabinet, suspended from office, to resume the functions of the
office, after disapproval of the suspension by the Senate, was made, by
the Act, to apply to such members of the Cabinet as were excepted from
the operation of the first article of the Act by the proviso to that
article. The best Republican lawyers in the Senate, Trumbull,
Fessenden, Grimes and Doolittle, took the view of the law in the
President's case as here explained. They, with one other Republican,
Van Winkle of West Virginia, filed, after the vote on impeachment,
opinions in the case expressing substantially this view.
[Sidenote: The nomination of General Schofield to be Secretary of War.]
It is now known that during the trial some of these men expressed to
one of the President's counsel the belief that Mr. Johnson could not be
convicted upon the law and evidence in the case, and that should the
Senate vote to remove him, "it would be done wholly from supposed party
necessity," and from fear of what the President might do in case he
were acquitted, and that they suggested to this member of the
President's counsel the wisdom of the President's sending to the
Senate, at that {190} juncture, a nomination for the Secretaryship of
War, which would allay all reasonable apprehension that the President
would, if acquitted, use the War Department for the accomplishment of
any arbitrary purposes, and that they mentioned General Schofield as a
man who would be satisfactory. These communications were made about the
20th of April. The President was immediately informed of them, as was
General Schofield, and, on April 24th, the President nominated General
Schofield to the Senate to be Secretary of War. Whether this move on
the part of the President influenced any Senator to vote for acquittal
is unknown. It certainly served to allay popular apprehension, if the
testimony of the newspapers of the day may be taken on that point.
[Sidenote: The vote upon impeachment.]
Fifty-four Senators from the twenty-seven "States" represented
constituted the membership of the Court of Impeachment under the
presidency of the Chief Justice. The President must, therefore, have
nineteen votes in order to escape conviction. Of these fifty-four, only
eight were Democrats. It was practically certain that all of these
would vote for acquittal. He needed, therefore, at least eleven
Republican votes in his favor. The closing of the case by the
prosecution occurred on the 6th of May, and, on the 7th, the court
passed the resolution to take the vote of its members upon the articles
of impeachment on the 12th. On that day Mr. Chandler of Michigan
informed the court that his colleague, Mr. Howard, was too ill to
appear, and asked the court to adjourn to the 16th, in order to give
Mr. Howard the opportunity to be present. The court agreed to this
request. On the 16th, with all the members present, the voting began.
The last article, the eleventh, was, by an order of the court, taken
first, and the Chief Justice {191} put the question to each Senator:
"Mr. Senator--how say you? Is the respondent Andrew Johnson, President
of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor, as
charged in this article?" Thirty-five votes were cast in the
affirmative, and nineteen in the negative. So soon as it was known that
the President had been acquitted upon this article, a motion was made
by Mr. Williams of Oregon to adjourn the court to the 26th. After the
announcement of the vote by the Chief Justice, this motion was carried
and the court adjourned to the 26th. On that day it reassembled and
proceeded to vote upon the second article and then on the third, with
the same result as upon the eleventh. Whereupon Mr. Williams moved that
the Senate sitting as a Court of Impeachment adjourn _sine die_, and
the motion was carried by a vote of 34 to 16, 4 not voting. The
Republicans who voted "not guilty" were Messrs. Dixon of Connecticut,
Doolittle of Wisconsin, Fessenden of Maine, Fowler of Tennessee, Grimes
of Iowa, Henderson of Missouri, Norton of Minnesota, Patterson of
Tennessee, Ross of Kansas, Trumbull of Illinois, and Van Winkle of West
Virginia. The country and the Republican party itself were placed under
the deepest obligation to these men for their courage and independent
action. They saved the country from the direst results of the great
political scandal of the age, and they saved the Republican party from
the commission of a deed which would have destroyed its hold upon the
people.
[Sidenote: The truth of the matter.]
The truth of the whole matter is that, while Mr. Johnson was an unfit
person to be President of the United States--which may be also affirmed
of some others who have occupied the high place--he was utterly and
entirely guiltless of the commission of any crime or misdemeanor. He
was {192} low-born and low-bred, violent in temper, obstinate, coarse,
vindictive, and lacking in the sense of propriety, but he was not
behind any of his accusers in patriotism and loyalty to the country,
and in his willingness to sacrifice every personal advantage for the
maintenance of the Union and the preservation of the Government. In
fact, most of them were pygmies in these qualities beside him. It is
true that he differed with them somewhat in his conception of what
measures were for the welfare of the country and what not, but the
sequel has shown that he was nearer right than they in this respect.
[Sidenote: The abdication of Stanton.]
So soon as the Court of Impeachment pronounced its acquittal of the
President, Mr. Stanton addressed to the President a letter announcing
his relinquishment of the War Department, and his delivery of the
papers and properties thereof to General Townsend, subject to the
President's directions.
[Sidenote: Schofield's confirmation as Secretary of War and his
acceptance of the office.]
The Senate now confirmed the nomination of General Schofield to be
Secretary of War. The General at once accepted the appointment and
entered upon the duties of his office, and administered these duties to
the end of his term, according to his own testimony, in perfect harmony
with the President.
Some of Stanton's friends have tried to make out that but for Stanton's
resistance and the impeachment, and its nearness to success, Johnson
would have appointed a tool of his own to the War Office and have rode
rough-shod over the laws of the land, and that he was frightened out of
this purpose, and frightened into an implied agreement with certain
Senators and General Schofield that the Reconstruction laws should be
executed as Stanton understood them, and not as the President
understood them. There is little ground for {193} any such assumptions.
There is certainly none in the character of the men whom the President
asked to take the War Office, Grant, Sherman and Ewing; and it must be
remembered that through Mr. Stanbery, in the case of Mississippi vs.
Johnson, he had long before announced to the Southerners that his
opposition to the Reconstruction Acts ceased with his unsuccessful veto
of them, and that he should execute them both in letter and in spirit.
It was Republican Senators who suggested to the President's counsel the
nomination of General Schofield, a man entirely friendly with the
President and acceptable to him. Neither the President nor the
President's counsel approached any Senator with the proposition. It was
the Republican Senators who were frightened, rather than the President
or his counsel. These Senators knew that the law and the evidence were
with the President, and that the Republican party was on trial, as much
so as the President; and they knew that, if the Republican Senate
should, upon the showing made by the President's counsel of the law and
the evidence in the case, convict the President and remove him from
office, the party would stand arraigned before the people for having
destroyed the constitutional balance between the executive and the
legislature in order to gain a partisan end. They recognized the
dilemma into which the hot-headed leaders of the party in the House of
Representatives had, by their hasty impeachment procedure, brought the
party, and they were very much relieved to secure any understanding
with the President's counsel whereby the chance of averting the
catastrophe to the party, as well as to the country, might be
increased. The suspicion that Mr. Stanton was playing his part for the
purpose of securing the Republican nomination for the presidency in
1868, rather than from any motives of disinterested {194} patriotism,
has about as little foundation as has the theory of salutary terror,
produced by the impeachment, controlling the President's subsequent
actions against his own preconceived plans and purposes. Both of these
speculations are no valid parts of the history of this great
transaction. What we have as certain facts are that the judgment was an
acquittal, that it was rendered in accordance with law and evidence,
and that it preserved the constitutional balance between the executive
and the legislature in the governmental system of the country; and that
for this the judgment of history coincides with the judgment of the
court.
{195}