Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy (58 page)

The Ku Klux Klan claimed credit:
Memorandum for election of 41st Congress, Butler Papers, Box 43; Trelease, p. 117; Connelly, p. 211; Smallwood, p. 62; Michael W. Fitzgerald,
Splendid Failure: Postwar Reconstruction in the American South
, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee (2007), p. 91;
New York Times
, August 6, 1868; Trelease, p. 116.

Others were compelled:
Benjamin Leas to Butler (July 4, 1868); J. C. Lucas to Butler (July 1, 1868); J. Tarbell to Butler (July 3, 1868), all in Butler Papers, Box 45; see Hans L. Trefousse, “The Acquittal of Andrew Johnson and the Decline of the Radicals,”
Civil War History
14:158–59 (1968).

Twenty-five freedmen: New York Times
, May 11, 1868; Smallwood, pp. 142–45.

If the man in the White House: Report of the Secretary of War
, Part I, House Ex. Doc. No. 1, 40th Cong., 3d Sess. (1868), pp. xix–xxxii.

On the twenty-second ballot:
Cooper to Johnson, July 3, 1868, in
Johnson Papers
14:306–7; Smythe to Johnson, July 6, 1868, in ibid., 14:328; Cooper to Johnson, July 7, 1868, in ibid., 14:328–29; Moore Diary/Large Diary, pp. 57–58, 60 (July 3, 7, 8, and 9, 1868); Johnson to Cooper, July 8, 1868, in
Johnson Papers
14:332; Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson
, p. 339.

The new state governments:
Joseph B. James,
Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment
, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press (1984), pp. 280–98.

The president’s annual message:
Edward McPherson, p. 385 (Annual Message of the President, December 7, 1868).

The House took no action: Cong. Globe
, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 3786–91, 3792–93 (July 7, 1868);
Cincinnati Gazette
, July 8, 1868.

He was not concerned: New York Times
, August 8, 1868;
San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin
, August 31, 1868, reprinted from the
New York Tribune
; J. Hickman to McPherson, January 14, 1869, in McPherson Papers, Box 12.

In Stevens’s final moments: New York Times
, August 14, 1868;
New Hampshire Statesman
, August 21, 1868;
Newark (OH) Advocate
, August 14, 1868.

Before his death: Lowell (MA) Daily Citizen
, August 15 and 18, 1868;
Washington Daily National Intelligencer
, August 14, 1868;
New York Times
, August 13, 1868;
New York Times
, August 13 and 18, 1868.

He won easily:
Brodie, p. 366.

Johnson nominated Evarts:
Welles Diary, vol. 3, pp. 375, 390 (June 3 and 14, 1868).

Stanberry returned to private law practice:
Charles Lane,
The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction
, New York: Henry Holt & Co. (2008), pp. 116–17.

Four days later:
Dawes, p. 504.

Grant appointed him:
Land, p. 222.

“Not a single one of them”:
John F. Kennedy,
Profiles in Courage
, New York: Harper & Row (1955), p. 165.

Poor health forced:
Grimes to Henry W. Starr, March 18, 1869, in Salter, p. 367. A denunciation of Grimes in the newspaper in Burlington, Iowa, offers a flavor of the passions of the time: “Republicans of Iowa mourn over the studied perfidiousness of the reptile [Grimes] they have warmed into life and to whose fangs they have added the poison of power to destroy them.” George A. Boeck, “Senator Grimes and the Iowa Press, 1867–1868,”
Mid-America
48:157 (1966), quoting the
Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye
, May 23, 1868.

Only a few months earlier:
Fessenden, p. 326.

He retired from the Senate:
Bayless, pp. 86–87; Sturm, p. 39.

Indeed, their careers:
Richard J. Roske, “The Seven Martyrs?”
American Historical Reviw
64:324 (1959).

On a memorable evening: New York Times
, September 26, 1872, September 21, 1875, May 18, 1906, and April 2, 1911;
Sedalia Daily Democrat
, September 7, 1872 and September 25, 1872. Roske, p. 328; Poore, pp. 313–14;
Washington Post
, December 20, 2000.

He later ran for governor:
Krug, p. 269; Roske, p. 329.

In 1872, he campaigned: New York Times
, February 7, 1870;
Newark (OH) Advocate
, June 12, 1868, reprinted from the
Cincinnati Commercial
; Walter T. Dunham, “How Say You, Senator Fowler?”
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
, 62:55–56 (1983).

In his final years: Charleston Courier
, April 17, 1869, reprinted from
New York Herald
; Plummer, “Profile in Courage?” pp. 42–45; Kubicek, p. 151; “Hon. Edmund G. Ross, Governor of New Mexico,”
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
, June 13, 1885; Edmund G. Ross, “Historic Moments: The Impeachment Trial,”
Scribner’s
11:519 (April 1892); Edmund G. Ross,
History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
, Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Co. (1896); undated letter from Ross in New Mexico to Major Hoxie, in Hoxie-Ream Papers.

He ran for president:
Albert R. Kitzhaber, “
Götterdämmerung
in Topeka: The Downfall of Senator Pomeroy,”
Kansas Historical Quarterly
18:243 (1950).

Eight years after that: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine
, April 1872, p. 790;
Chicago Daily
, January 19, 1873;
Chicago Tribune
, January 11 and 13, 1885;
San Francisco Bulletin
, January 12, 1885;
New York Times
, March 4, 1893;
Chicago Tribune
, March 22, 1893;
Rocky Mountain News
, March 22, 1893;
Chicago Daily
, July 23, 1894.

After winning dismissal: New York Herald
, September 16 and 17, 1869;
New York Times
, April 28, 1899;
Milwaukee Sentinel
, July 11, 1886.

Smythe again escaped: New York Herald
, November 26, 1869.

Woolley, who was then president: Chicago Tribune
, March 1, 1871, and February 11, 1876, October 13, 14, and 21, 1878;
New York Times
, May 3, 1878 and February 8, 1879.

In his remaining years:
Evarts to Ward, December 8, 1880, in Samuel Ward Papers, Box 1;
New York World
, May 20, 1884.

Confined for weeks: Philadelphia North American
, November 19, 1889 and January 4, 1890. The
Raleigh News and Observer
described Gaylord as “for years a heavy manipulator of railroad securities.” January 4, 1890.

One hundred sixty-two blacks:
“Louisiana Contested Elections,” Testimony taken by House Subcommittee of Elections in Louisiana, House Misc. Doc. No. 154, 41st Cong., 2d sess., pp. 127–28 (testimony of C. W. Keeting); Oberholtzer, p. 366; Tracy Campbell,
Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition, 1742–2004
, New York: Carroll & Graf (2005), pp. 60–61.

Grant struck back:
Smith,
Grant
, pp. 463–64; Welles Diary, vol. 3, pp. 497–98 (January 2, 1869).

He was the last president:
Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 542 (March 4, 1869); Smith,
Grant
, p. 466; Gerry, p. 874.

He never forgave:
This anecdote comes from a remembrance written in 1926 by E. C. Reeves, who was Johnson’s private secretary in Greeneville, Tennessee, from 1869 to 1875. Unhappily, Reeves, who was a strong partisan of the former president, waited some forty-five years before reporting this incident, a delay that could call into question his memory of the event. Nevertheless, he was employed by Johnson at the time of the incident and likely had the broad outlines of the event correct. Reeves denounced Edmund Cooper’s “treachery” in supporting his own brother after Johnson fell short in the contest. Reeves’s memorandum appears as an appendix in Lloyd Paul Stryker,
Andrew Johnson
, New York: Macmillan Co. (1929), pp. 825–37. Stryker’s book admires Johnson greatly.
New York Times
, October 20, 22, and 23, 1869; Dewitt, p. 619; Temple, p. 439.

He wrote in December 1871:
Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson
, pp. 360–61 (quoting letters from Johnson to his daughter).

The new senator: Cong. Record
, 44th Cong., Special sess., pp. 121–27 (March 20, 1875).

His head rested:
Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson
, pp. 352–77; Baber, p. 70.

A secretary:
Cowan, p. 8.

“I intend to appoint”:
Smith,
Grant
, p. 555.

For a time:
Ibid., p. 547.

26. THE RORSCHACH BLOT

Surely God is on our side:
Dawes, p. 503.

A chief justice:
William H. Rehnquist,
Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson
, New York: William Morrow & Co. (1992), p. 278; Woodrow Wilson,
History of the American People
, New York: Harper & Brothers, vol. 9 (1918), pp. 49–50, 54–55. The chapter-length treatment of Johnson and Ross in the Kennedy book is particularly incomplete. For example, Kennedy portrays the appointment of Ross to the Senate in 1866 as part of a Radical conspiracy to impeach the president. There is no evidence to support such a claim. Ross was appointed by the Kansas governor in August 1866, when impeachment was just beginning to be mentioned by Radical newspapers and some Republicans. Kennedy describes the Tenure of Office Act as a “cry for more patronage,” when it was actually an attempt to tie Johnson’s hands in firing officials. Kennedy also describes Johnson as eager for a court test of the Tenure of Office Act, an assertion contradicted by Johnson’s repeated compliance with the statute and then his violation of it. Johnson never tried to bring a court challenge to it. When Kennedy refers to “[a]ttempted bribery and other forms of pressure” surrounding the Senate vote, he means that the so-called Radical fanatics were engaged in such actions. Yet most of the attempts at bribery were made by the president’s men. Kennedy also makes simple factual errors. He claims that twelve Senate Democrats supported Johnson; there were only nine Democrats in the Senate. He asserts that Republicans sought the admission of Colorado and Nebraska in order to secure the votes of senators from those states on impeachment. The fight over admitting those two states came in early 1867, when impeachment was not a serious goal of the Republican Party. When Kennedy quotes Butler’s statement that there was a “bushel of money” available for Ross, he places the remark at the wrong point in the trial, putting it before the first impeachment vote on May 16. The statement was made after that date, after the vote. John F. Kennedy,
Profiles in Courage
, New York: Harper & Row (1955), pp. 146–71. A recent work on Reconstruction in Mississippi, Nicholas Lemann’s
Redemption
, identifies comparable errors and omissions in Kennedy’s chapter celebrating Mississippi Senator Lucius Lamar.

“He is a man of few ideas”:
Curtis to Ticknor, April 10, 1868, in Curtis, p. 417.

As one congressman wrote later:
Blaine, vol. 2, p. 376.

“Andrew Johnson is innocent”: New York Tribune
, May 19, 1868, quoting
Detroit Post
. The
Cincinnati Gazette
wrote that “Ninety out of every hundred politicians will admit that had Fessenden been presiding officer of the Senate, the President would have been convicted.”
Cincinnati Gazette
, June 1, 1868. Senator George Edmunds of Vermont made the same point in a magazine article forty-five years later. “Ex-Senator Edmunds on Reconstruction and Impeachment,”
Century
85:863–64 (April 1913), p. 864.

Some of the Republicans:
Blaine, vol. 2, p. 376; Julian, pp. 318–19; Badeau, p. 137; Henderson, p. 209 (Senator Charles Sumner).

“An overwhelming majority”:
Schurz,
Reminiscences
, vol. 3, p. 282.

Embracing this theory:
Kennedy, p. 146.

The presidency, according to Ross and Kennedy:
Kennedy, pp. 128–29, quoting Edmund G. Ross,
History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing (2006; originally 1892), p. 206.