PREPARING FOR IMPEACHMENT
THUS the impeachment of Andrew Johnson was the culmination of political differences which had become increasingly strained in the disturbed conditions which followed the death of Lincoln. The trial has been wrongly described as a great judicial event, but in the strict sense it was not a judicial event, since it was without sound basis in law. It was the culmination of a struggle for political advantage. Still the Radicals who brought it about were intensely in earnest. They felt that the tendency of Johnson’s reconstruction policy was toward the return of the Democratic party to power, which would have the effect of neutralizing the political results of the Civil War.
The very nature of the so-called Court of Impeachment was a monstrosity, as several of the lawyers in that body perceived, for the Senate was to act both as judge and as jury. I made several motions or orders to separate the jurisdiction of the jury from that of the judge, but in vain. I wanted a judge, preferably Chief-Justice Chase, to decide the judicial points, as the Senate was like a mob, deciding everything for themselves.
SENATOR PETER G. VAN WINKLE OF WEST VIRGINIA
SENATOR LYMAN TRUMBULL OF ILLINOIS
SENATOR JAMES W. GRIMES OF IOWA
SENATOR EDMUND G. ROSS OF KANSAS
SENATOR JOSEPH F. FOWLER OF TENNESSEE
⇒
LARGER IMAGE
From a photograph by Brady
SENATOR WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN OF MAINE
Impeachment was of course a matter in which personalities and personal ambitions played a large part. Without Benjamin F. Butler and Thad. Stevens, there never would have been an impeachment trial, for impeachment was chiefly a scheme to get place and power for themselves and their friends. Like many other politicians of selfish aims, they flourished under the peculiar conditions following the war—conditions in which the sole inquiry was, “Is he loyal?” and not, “Is he honest?”
Butler was able to push the impeachment scheme on the claim that Johnson was not loyal. It was even charged that Johnson was conspiring to form a new secession, despite the fact that he had been instrumental in securing the adhesion of a number of the Southern States to the Thirteenth Amendment. And this charge was fomented by Butler, the man whom I had heard vote fifty-seven times in the Charleston convention for Jeff Davis as President, and whom I heard address a group of Southern delegates in support of a declaration for the protection of slavery in all territories. On that occasion he declared that if the North undertook to raise troops to “coerce the South,” the bones of the Northern soldiers would rot upon the mountains before they reached the South. Yet this same man was the leader of one of the first regiments to march through Baltimore to “coerce the South.”
Feeling ran high in all parts of the country, and whenever a Republican senator showed a disinclination to join in impeachment he was bombarded by excited constituents. I was not slow to make my attitude known, for I would as soon have voted to condemn an innocent man to death as to vote to impeach Johnson on the articles that were presented. The Republicans in Missouri were, if possible, more aroused than in other parts of the country. Even the legislature passed a resolution requesting me to resign. I replied finally that I would hold my seat until impeachment was defeated. That position carried a great deal of significance, since the alinement of forces indicated clearly that the change of a single vote would result in the President’s condemnation.
From a photograph by Brady, taken in 1867
SENATOR JOHN B. HENDERSON OF MISSOURI
All of the articles of impeachment were based on some phase of the quarrel with Stanton. The eleventh article, which accused him of violating an act of Congress in suspending the Secretary of War was the strongest, though in my view of the law, as I declared in the Senate, he had legally suspended Stanton and had undoubted authority to fill the vacancy by an ad interim appointment. When the Tenure of Office Act was before the Committee of Conference, Senator John Sherman, chairman of the committee, was asked if the bill was intended to take away the power of the President to remove his own Cabinet, and he answered, “No, it is not to interfere with his power to remove or to retain his Cabinet.” During the impeachment trial, when it was reported that Senator Sherman was in favor of convicting Johnson on the eleventh article, I had a talk with him, and asked:
“Do you remember your attitude in the Committee of Conference on the question of the power of the President to remove his Cabinet?”
He said:
“I remember it very well.”
Then I asked bluntly:
“You are not going to stultify yourself by voting for the eleventh article?”
He replied:
“No.”
That conversation convinced me that the advocates of impeachment could not depend, as they hoped, on Sherman to vote guilty on the eleventh article, and in fact, when the crucial moment came, he voted against it.