Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy (29 page)

Johnson spent the day of May 11 quietly, receiving breathless reports from those collecting information outside the Senate Chamber. In the afternoon, he walked the White House grounds with the daughter of Collector Smythe. The evening took him to a ball at the National Theatre with his daughter (the First Lady’s health kept her from such events). Smelling presidential victory, the crowd at the ball cheered lustily when Johnson entered.

The tension of the moment was fearful. Johnson’s partisans painted the struggle as a last-ditch defense of the Constitution. Those seeking to remove him insisted that only conviction would redeem the terrible sacrifices of the Civil War.

The night of May 11 was an agony for the contestants, who schemed and harangued into the wee hours. Some slept not at all. Three Radical senators worked one more time down the list of doubtfuls, focusing on three whose votes they needed—Henry Anthony of Rhode Island, Waitman Willey of West Virginia, and Frederick Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. They also were not sure of Peter Van Winkle of West Virginia. At 5
A.M.
, a fellow Radical wrote urgently to General Grant’s closest political adviser, begging that Grant meet early in the day with all four of those doubtful senators!

A lovely late spring morning greeted the crowds at the Capitol. They arrived hours before the Senate would convene at eleven-thirty. Telegrams poured in for the senators, begging for conviction or for acquittal.

Early that morning, six Missouri Republicans cornered one of their senators, John Henderson, in his rooms. The conversation started Henderson down a strange road of vacillation over his impeachment vote.

Henderson’s visitors, who included congressmen and state legislators, were troubled by his announcement the day before that he would vote to acquit the president on the first eight impeachment articles. Henderson told them that he could not change his course on those articles; he agreed, however, that he could vote to convict on the eleventh, catchall article, and that it would be better for the nation if Johnson were removed from office. Henderson, skeptical that the president would be convicted at all, offered to consult with other doubtful senators. If there were sufficient votes to convict, he would vote against Johnson on Article XI. Eager to gratify his visitors, Henderson added that if his proposal did not satisfy them, he would resign so the state’s governor could appoint a senator more to their liking. Some of his visitors worried that his resignation might disrupt federal patronage in Missouri. Why didn’t they, he asked, put in writing what they wanted him to do? The Republicans drafted a letter insisting that Henderson vote to convict or abstain from voting. The senator responded with a slightly different assurance: he said he would either withhold his vote on impeachment, or would resign. Henderson’s vote, it was clear, was now in play.

As noon approached, the scene inside the Senate Chamber was tense. When the gallery doors opened, men and women rushed to grab seats. To suppress the sort of outburst that followed Bingham’s closing speech, three policemen stood in each aisle, batons drawn, giving the galleries the look of a civil detention facility for the well dressed. Senators and illustrious visitors patrolled the chamber’s floor, standing in anxious knots, speaking loudly or softly as the conversation warranted. Three Radical senators buttonholed Willey of West Virginia. Other doubtfuls—Anthony, Van Winkle, Ross, Fowler—were magnets for attention. Stevens and the House managers were there with Stanberry and Evarts for the president. Ex-senators, generals, editors, all had gathered for the great moment.

But it did not happen.

A senator announced that Jacob Howard of Michigan, a Radical stalwart certain to vote for conviction, had fallen ill overnight. Not able to spare a single vote, the Republicans postponed the balloting until noon on Saturday, May 16. Deflated, the murmuring spectators filed out, cheated of the great moment in history.

The delay guaranteed more agitation, more plotting, more recrimination, but it also provided a pause for reflection as the nation teetered for a few more days on the constitutional precipice. Would the Senate exercise its power to remove the president, or would it desist? The most striking aspect of the situation was that the war over impeachment was one of words, not bullets.

The impeachment process certainly had the power to confuse. Was impeachment a political event or a judicial one? What was a high crime? How about a high misdemeanor? Could Johnson be removed for leading the country so poorly, or only if he had committed crimes that could be prosecuted in court? Who could sort through the meaning of the Tenure of Office Act and whether the secretary of war was covered by it?

Yet, for all its medieval peculiarities, impeachment had channeled into a peaceful forum a potentially deadly confrontation between Congress and President Johnson, one that carried heavy overtones of the sectional war that had so recently raged across the continent. The reason for having a constitutional method for removing the president, Ben Franklin had explained eighty years before, was to preserve peace in times of crisis. The impeachment clauses were allowing, albeit imperfectly, the nonviolent resolution of the demand, heartfelt and widespread, that the nation’s leader must go.

The
Chicago Tribune
credited impeachment with calming the nation’s political storms. Since the effort began, the newspaper commented, the president “with hands upon his breast, has been upon his best behavior.” Indeed, Reconstruction in the South had proceeded at the same time as the impeachment trial. Through almost three months of impeachment drama, six Southern states adopted new constitutions under the new Reconstruction laws, then elected new state governments. Within weeks those states would be readmitted to the union, a result the newspaper attributed to the “sudden and severe check given to Andrew Johnson’s reckless proceedings by the impeachment.” Even if Johnson were not removed from office, the impeachment had greatly reduced his ability to oppose Congress.

The vote could not be delayed beyond May 16. Many senators would attend the Republican National Convention in Chicago on May 20, and the nation would not wait longer than that. Western Union made arrangements to transmit the Senate’s verdict as soon as it was announced, warning its operators that the bulletin would preempt all other traffic on its nationwide network. By the end of the week, the verdict would be in.

Have been the rounds. Room for plenty of work. Other side desperate.

W
ILLIAM
W. W
ARDEN
t
O
H
ENRY
S
MYTHE,
M
AY
14, 1868

N
OBODY KNEW WHAT
to believe. Predictions of the verdict, and of individual senators’ votes, fluctuated constantly. Around the nation, people waited and wondered, argued and rallied. On May 12 in Lewiston, Maine, the brother of Senator William Pitt Fessenden helped sponsor a rally opposing the senator’s support for the president. In Philadelphia and St. Louis, telegraph bulletins announced that acquittal was certain, then that conviction was possible. Johnson supporters in Baltimore planned bonfires and a parade for the moment the Senate returned a verdict of acquittal. Newspaper offices, political clubs, and barrooms teemed with people eager for the latest. The uncertainty triggered a new wave of betting. Business activity dwindled.

The impeachers urged citizens to press their senators to convict. “Great danger to the peace of the country,” warned a telegram sent to Republicans around the country. Before Saturday, the recipients should send senators “public opinion by resolutions, letters and delegations.”

The response was overwhelming. A “perfect avalanche” of telegrams, according to the
Baltimore Sun,
fell on those favoring acquittal, or deemed doubtful. The governor of Maine sent “indignant denunciations” of the president. The
Philadelphia Press
applauded the outpouring of messages, as well as those “friends of law and order” who came to Washington to demand that the president be convicted.

Though calumny still occasionally rained down on the initial Republican defectors—Fessenden of Maine, Grimes of Iowa, and Trumbull of Illinois—most concern focused on four additional senators deemed likely to defect. These last four could provide the votes that would keep the president in office for another ten months. Republicans had to dissuade at least one of them from acquitting the Great Criminal.

Fowler of Tennessee, written off a week earlier as pro-Johnson, drew fresh attention. Republicans recalled anew that Fowler had advocated impeaching Johnson before the debacle at the War Department. How could Fowler have changed his view after the Lorenzo Thomas fiasco, which created even greater reason to remove the president? The Tennessee General Assembly adopted resolutions supporting conviction. The governor and every Tennessee congressman entreated Fowler to vote against the president, as did a delegation of “loyal men” from his home state. By one account, he was offered a seat on the state Supreme Court if he voted to convict. A pro-Johnson newspaper feared that Fowler might yield to the pressure.

Besieged, Fowler made conflicting statements. He led a group of congressmen to believe he would vote to convict, then told another group he could never do so. Finally, Fowler was through listening. He cut short a meeting with the statement that he would hear no more arguments for the prosecution. The impeachers gave up on him.

Peter Van Winkle, a former railroad executive who had helped found the state of West Virginia five years before, was an independent sort. He voted “about as often with one party as the other,” a home state newspaper wrote, “without much reference to the wishes of his constituents or the requirements of party discipline.” Moreover, the sixty-year-old Republican did not plan to seek reelection, so he cared little when the West Virginia legislature demanded Johnson’s removal. With a phlegmatic personality and no political aspirations, Van Winkle drew the least attention among the potential defectors. One report called his vote uncertain. Before the final ballot, Van Winkle declared he would support the president.

In contrast, handsome, bearded John Henderson of Missouri proved a magnet for controversy. Then forty-two years old, Henderson had been orphaned at ten, though he inherited enough wealth to secure an education. He rose quickly in Missouri politics. After a brief spell in the Union Army, he began serving in the Senate in 1862. Henderson often voted with the Radicals and supported black suffrage, yet maintained cordial relations with President Johnson.

While Evarts and Bingham were delivering their gargantuan closing arguments, Henderson made time for romance. In the first week of May, he announced his engagement to Mary Foote of upstate New York. His fiancée came from a family of prominent Democrats; her father, Elisha Foote, would soon be a candidate to head the Patent Office, no doubt with support from his prospective son-in-law. Indeed, political Washington cynically assessed the blending of love and impeachment. “The vote of Henderson of Missouri is relied upon,” wrote Navy Secretary Welles, “through the influence of Miss Foote.”

After the Senate vote was put off to May 16, Henderson was a prime target for the forces of influence. He had spoken against the first eight impeachment articles on May 11. On the next day, he promised a delegation of Missouri Republicans that he would vote “guilty” on Article XI if he thought there were enough votes to convict Johnson. If there were not, Henderson said, he would either abstain on the impeachment vote or resign. This complicated matrix of positions made Henderson look indecisive, even unprincipled.

At this point, James B. Craig of Missouri stepped forward. A former Democratic congressman and ally of the Astor House group, Craig headed the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, which was then expanding into Kansas. Craig was politically close to the president, to Henderson, and to Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas. Henderson was known as the senator who looked after Craig’s railroad, while Johnson had appointed Craig to a revenue collector position. In May 1868, Craig was working with both senators and with the president to win approval of a Cherokee treaty that would give his railroad 800,000 acres in southeastern Kansas.

After meeting with Sam Ward in New York, on May 13, Craig hurried to help Henderson through the tumult created by the senator’s complex set of promises on the impeachment vote. Craig urged the senator to retain his Senate seat and support the president down the line. When he left Henderson, Craig pronounced him solid for acquittal, a message that was instantly sent to Treasury official Cooper. “The Henderson matter all right,” Cooper relayed to President Johnson. “Lacy has been to see him with Craig—all right—so says Evarts.”

What elixir, or reasoning, did Craig apply to calm the senator’s nerves and bring him to support acquittal? Neither man ever said. But that same day Henderson fired off a telegram to Missouri stating, “Say to my friends that I am sworn to do impartial justice according to law and the evidence, and I’ll try to do it like an honest man.” When Henderson’s message was released to the press, it triggered a celebration at the Executive Mansion. Henderson had entered the president’s camp. The next day, he wrote to the Missouri Republicans who had previously stampeded him into pledging to convict or abstain or resign. Abstention, he pointed out, would have the same effect as a vote for acquittal, since in both instances the impeachers would lose his vote toward the needed two-thirds majority. Henderson deplored resignation as shirking his duty “to follow the dictates of my conscience.” He promised to “throw myself upon the judgment of a generous people for my vindication.”

Sniffing the air for wrongdoing, House manager Ben Butler found something pungent about Henderson’s vacillations. The Massachusetts manager seemed to have spies everywhere; the black servants who cleaned the Executive Mansion sent him discarded papers that might be of interest. Somehow Butler acquired the note about Henderson that Edmund Cooper had sent to the president. Intrigued, Butler promptly issued subpoenas for White House aide William Warden and for defense lawyer William Evarts. Butler wanted to know why the president was receiving early reports about how senators intended to vote. Butler was curious, too, why Senator Grimes’s clerk and one of Senator Trumbull’s sons were betting against conviction. Though Warden came to the Capitol in response to the subpoena, he did not testify. Possibly someone pointed out to Butler that senators could disclose their voting intentions to whomever they wished, even to the president.

For all of his dithering, Henderson managed to decide how he would vote and to communicate that intention widely. By doing neither, one remaining Republican senator, Edmund G. Ross of Kansas, placed himself in the middle of a political firestorm.

Born into an antislavery family in Ohio in 1826, young Edmund Ross bounced from printing job to printing job through the Midwest. In the early 1850s, he married and settled in Milwaukee. The young printer led a party of antislavery emigrants from Wisconsin to “Bleeding Kansas,” which was then the front line of the struggle against slavery. By 1859, Ross and his brother were publishing an antislavery paper in Topeka, mingling politics with journalism. When the war came, Ross fought for the Union with a Kansas regiment, rising to the rank of colonel.

Ross adjusted readily to the rough-and-tumble of frontier Kansas. At the beginning of the war, he and two competing printers agreed to inflate their bids on contracts with the state. The conspirators decided which contracts each would bid on, ensuring that the winner would receive double the competitive price. Ross unwisely complained when a fourth printer won a contract at half the price Ross had quoted. State investigators were more interested in Ross’s bid-rigging than in his complaints about the low bidder, but the investigation of Ross was overtaken by the pending impeachment of the Kansas governor for other misdeeds. Ross was not charged.

In the spring of 1866, a scandal broke over ties between Indian trader Perry Fuller and Kansas Senator Jim Lane. News reports charged that Lane had “a pecuniary interest” in Fuller’s businesses and government contracts. Lane hotly proclaimed his innocence until he was confronted with documents showing his ownership in one Fuller operation, as well as a canceled check to him for $20,000 (or almost $300,000 in current dollars) from another Fuller firm. On July 1, Lane put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Ten days later he died.

The Kansas governor could fill the vacant Senate seat until the state legislature could meet in January 1867 and choose Lane’s successor. The governor startled many by selecting Ross, who had never held public office. Perhaps the printer seemed a safe choice, with a good war record, not too many enemies, and reliably Radical views, like most Kansans. By the time the legislature convened five months later, Fuller was sponsoring Ross. For $42,000 in bribes, Fuller purchased Ross’s reappointment for the last four years of the Senate term, plus a full term for senior Senator Samuel Pomeroy.

Kansas Senator Edmund G. Ross.

In the Senate, the small, bearded Ross was an inconspicuous backbencher. He took a room in the Capitol Hill house of Robert Ream and became one of many sponsors of Ream’s improbably talented daughter, Lavinia (known as Vinnie). Combining artistic gifts with a knack for charming politicians, Vinnie Ream acquired several public commissions while still in her teens, along with a studio in the Capitol itself. In January 1868, Ross urged the State of Wisconsin to award a commission to the nineteen-year-old sculptress, who stood less than five feet tall. (Ben Wade also sponsored her Wisconsin application, while Thad Stevens sat for her during the impeachment trial.) To complete the circle of Kansas connections, Vinnie Ream’s sister had married Perry Fuller, who lived nearby.

During the impeachment trial, Ross voted with the pro-Johnson senators on many evidentiary issues, but his position on the verdict was unclear. Some newspapers projected him as doubtful. Others pegged him as proconviction.

In mid-April, with trial evidence still being presented, a letter to Butler accused Ross of being “owned by Perry Fuller.” The Kansas senator, the letter continued, helped Fuller “push his frauds through the Indian Bureau and Quartermaster Department” and was sponsoring Fuller’s campaign to become commissioner of internal revenue. The letter also accused Ross, married and the father of three, of being “infatuated to the point of foolishness with Miss Vinnie Ream, Fuller’s sister-in-law.” Butler sent a copy of the letter to Ross, with a disingenuous cover note: “I never allow slanderous communications against gentlemen of position to be sent me,” Butler wrote, “without transferring them to the party injured so that he may be able to protect himself.” Butler thus put the Kansas senator on notice: he was being watched. Despite the warning, Ross would dangle his vote provocatively before both sides of the case, inviting exactly the sort of political bargains that Butler suspected.