Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy (46 page)

“I have always had an abiding confidence”: New York Times
, November 14, 1867.

The Democratic candidate:
Fishel, pp. 8, 18, 19–20, quoting
Boston Evening Transcript
, November 8, 1866; Foner, p. 313. The Frenchman Clemenceau observed that “any Democrat who did not manage to hint in his speech that the negro is a degenerate gorilla would be considered lacking in enthusiasm. The idea of giving political power to a lot of wild men, incapable of civilization, whose intelligence is no higher than that of animals! That is the theme of all the Democratic speeches.” Clemenceau, p. 131 (November 1, 1867).

Ben Wade, firmly committed: New York Times
, November 8, 1867.

“I take the occasion”: New York Herald
, November 7, 1867.

Sherman spurned:
William Sherman to John Sherman, October 11, 1867, in Thorndike,
Sherman Letters
, p. 297.

In a triumphal procession:
Clemenceau, p. 122 (October 4, 1867).

9. IMPEACHMENT, ROUND TWO

“They swept through the air”: Washington Daily National Intelligencer
, November 18, 1867, reprinting
Boston Post
article of November 15, 1867; “Impeachment Investigation,” H. Rep. No. 7, 40th Cong., 1st sess. (1867), pp. 1166–94;
New York World
, November 15, 1867.

I have always believed:
Ellis, p. 169; Horowitz, pp. 133–40;
Impeachment Investigation
, pp. 1198–99.

Churchill gave his reasons: New York Times
, December 6, 1867.

The Associated Press: New York Times
, November 23, 1867;
Daily Cleveland Herald
, November 29, 1867;
New York Times
, November 30, 1867, reprinting November 29, 1867, article in the
Philadelphia Bulletin
.

When he left Lancaster:
Stevens to Simon Stevens, August 3, 1867, in Stevens Papers, Box 4; Henry Carpenter to Stevens, November 17, 1867, in Stevens Papers, Box 4. Dr. Carpenter’s remedies included:

Taking three times a day the “tonic mixture in the vial,” which could be omitted “if the stomach should become disturbed with weakness of appetite,” in favor of “the vegetable tonic, infused with half a pint of boiling water, poured off after standing a few hours and a tablespoonful taken every 4 hours until better,” when the tonic mixture could be resumed.


If other ill effects should arise, “as indicated by the gray or ash coloured stools, a blue pill may be taken at bedtime and repeated next morning or evening as may be necessary.”


“If the effusion into the pericardium—or the dropsical affection of the heart, should increase—as you will know by the usual oppression, as experienced before, take one of the ‘diuretic pills’ at bedtime, and repeated every 6 to 8 hours if necessary, until relieved.”


“Take as much nourishing food as your stomach will comfortably receive and digest—with as much of the punch wine, brandy, whisky or beer, as may be necessary and agreeable.”

He could flash into coherence: New York World
, November 15, 1867 (“looks very feeble”);
Chicago Tribune
, November 23, 1867 (“more haggard and bloodless in the face”);
New York Herald
, November 20, 1867;
Washington Daily National Intelligencer
, November 18, 1867.

When colleagues offered: New York Herald
, November 19 and 21, 1867;
New York Times
, November 22, 1867.

“Why, I’ll take that man’s record”:
Ben Perley Poore,
Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis
, Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers (1886), vol. 2, p. 229.

When the report: New York World
, November 26, 1867.

In dealing with the former rebels:
House Rep. No. 7, 40th Cong., 1st sess., p. 2.

One stated, for example:
The quoted language, included in the majority report, came from a popular constitutional treatise by George Ticknor Curtis—
History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States
, New York: Harper & Row (1865), vol. 2, p. 261. Ironically, the author of the treatise was the brother of former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis, who would serve as one of Johnson’s defense counsel in the impeachment trial. With unofficial help from brother George, Benjamin Curtis would argue the opposite position during the trial.

Rather than contrive: The Nation
framed the problem: “Mr. Johnson is mischievous in this—that small, feeble, and insignificant though he be, the precautions which it is necessary to take against him are likely to become precedents, and to lead to serious changes in the character of the government.” August 22, 1867, p. 150; Benedict,
Compromise
, pp. 292–93.

Wilson, called by one newspaper: New York Times
, March 16, 1868.

By rough force:
For example, Wilson pointed to the constitutional provision stating that an official, after removal by impeachment, may be prosecuted in a criminal court. That shows, Wilson proclaimed, that impeachment must be for a crime. Yet the Constitution does not
require
criminal prosecution of the removed official. Nor does it state that
only
a criminal offense may be the basis for impeachment. Rather, it preserves the possibility of a later criminal prosecution if the conduct at issue justifies it. Wilson also trumpeted the constitutional provision that “the trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury.” By placing impeachment and “crimes” in adjacent clauses, this statement proved to Wilson that impeachment can only be for a crime. But the constitutional language states only that criminal cases must be decided by juries
except
when an impeachment trial happens to include allegations of a crime. The provision does not exclude impeachment for noncriminal conduct. Finally, Wilson stressed the provision that the president’s power to pardon “offences against the Constitution” does not apply “in cases of impeachment.” Because Wilson thought “offences” could mean only crimes, he argued that this provision also limited impeachment to criminal offenses. But if the definition of impeachment offenses (“high crimes and misdemeanors”) includes conduct
other
than crimes, then such conduct constitutes an “offence against the Constitution” that the president cannot pardon.

One Republican congressman: Harper’s Weekly
, December 14, 1867;
Chicago Tribune
, November 27, 1867. The
New York Times
gathered similar views expressed by newspapers in Providence; Albany; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Buffalo.
New York Times
, November 29, 1867;
New York Times
, December 3, 1867; Blaine, vol. 2, p. 343.

Though Stevens continued to endorse: New York Herald
, November 26 and November 19, 1867;
Charleston Courier
, December 5, 1867;
Harper’s Weekly
, October 19, 1867; Welles Diary, vol. 3, pp. 234 (October 19, 1867), 237–38 (November 30, 1867); “Memorandum to the Cabinet,” November 30, 1867, in
Johnson Papers
13:269–71; Farrand, vol. 2, pp. 612–13 (September 14, 1868). Senator Reverdy Johnson, a Maryland Democrat who argued and won the
Dred Scott
case in 1857, offered a constitutional attack on the notion that the president could be suspended from office pending an impeachment trial.
New York Times
, November 26, 1867. Congress never voted on the legislation.
Chicago Tribune
, February 10, 1868.

In apocalyptic tones: Cong. Globe
, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1 (December 3, 1867). Johnson’s annual message was leaked to the press before Congress received it, which annoyed many congressmen.
New York World
, December 4, 1867. The source of the leak is not clear, though one Johnson aide sometimes sold exclusive stories to newspapers—Donald A. Ritchie,
The Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Correspondents
, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1991), pp. 80–81—while Johnson met regularly with favored reporters to trade information.

Although civil war should be avoided:
Remarkably, Johnson’s annual message stated that “enormous frauds have been perpetrated on the Treasury, and colossal fortunes have been made at the public expense.”
Cong. Globe
, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 4 (December 3, 1867), p. 4. That sort of confession rarely comes from an incumbent who has been managing the bureaucracy for almost three years. The president blamed the “enormous frauds” on the Tenure of Office Act, which required Senate action concurring in the dismissal of many officials. Though the statute surely had been an obstacle to dismissals of executive officials for the preceding eight months, the widespread fraud predated the law and thrived both with and without it.

The telling consideration:
Some Republicans thought Johnson’s message could provoke civil war. Moorfield Storey to his father, December 4, 1867, in M. A. DeWolfe Howe,
Portrait of an Independent: Moorfield Storey
, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. (1932), p. 47.

He could be long-winded:
Julian, p. 312;
New York Times
, December 6, 1867;
New York Herald
, December 7, 1867; Blaine, vol. 2, p. 361; Brodie, p. 340.

Over the next six months:
Boutwell, “The Usurpation,” p. 508; Clemenceau, p. 175 (April 24, 1868); Ellis, p. 169. The only full biography of Boutwell is Thomas H. Brown,
George Sewall Boutwell: Human Rights Advocate,
Groton, MA: Groton Historical Society (1989). Navy Secretary Welles wrote in his diary that Boutwell “is a fanatic, a little insincere, violent, and yet has much of the demagogic cunning.” Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 235 (October 23, 1867).

After paying tribute: Cong. Globe
, 40th Cong., 2d sess., app., p. 54 (December 5, 1867).

In a disingenuous opening: Cong. Globe
, 40th Cong., 2d sess., app., p. 63 (December 6, 1867).

With Wilson and John Bingham: New York World
, December 9, 1867;
New York Times
, December 9, 1867;
New York Herald
, December 8, 1867;
Chicago Tribune
, December 21, 1867;
Cong. Globe
, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 66 (December 7, 1867).

As remembered by:
Sherman,
Recollections
, p. 414.

Two days before Boutwell began:
A political operative allied with Johnson, Cornelius Wendell, reported strong pro-Grant feelings in New England. He wrote from western Massachusetts: “Six weeks spent here and hereabouts satisfy me that Radical managers in this section will be forced to go Grant. The public voice is unanimous for him. Of hundreds whom I have listened to, not one dissentient have I heard.” Wendell to Thurlow Weed, August 2, 1867, Seward Papers.
New York Herald
, November 12, 1867.
Chicago Tribune
, January 28, 1868;
New York Herald
, December 4, 1867;
New York World
, December 5, 1867. The
New York Times
hailed the “spontaneous uprisings for Gen. Grant, which are without precedent in our political history. They did not originate with politicians, and cannot be controlled by schemers.”
New York Times
, December 4, 1867.

That reasoning provoked:
One of the principal political sports of the day was speculating about what Grant’s political views really were.
New York Herald
, November 12, 1867. Jacob William Schuckers,
The Life and Public Services of Salmon P. Chase
(1874), p. 548; Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson
, p. 303.

If that argument could not be sustained:
That Boutwell had the better of the legal argument was reinforced a few days after the vote, when a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania and former chief justice of that state’s supreme court rose to speak. Having been persuaded by fellow Democrats to hold his tongue before the vote on the impeachment resolution, George Woodward seized the moment to outline his complete agreement with Boutwell’s definition of an impeachable offense.
Cong. Globe
, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 177–79 (December 13, 1867);
Chicago Tribune
, December 14, 1867.

As a Republican remembered: Anti-Slavery Standard
, December 9, 1867, reprinted in
New York Times
, December 13, 1867; Blaine, vol. 2, p. 347. With one eye fixed on posterity, Stevens continued sitting for the teenage sculptress from Kansas, Vinnie Ream. Because he could no longer manage stairs, he asked her to come to his home. Stevens to Vinnie Ream, December 10, 1867, Stevens Papers.