If Mr. Stanton had been appointed during the present Presidential term. I should have no doubt he was within the security of the law. But I cannot find that, either in fact or in legal intendment, he was appointed during the present Presidential term. It is urged that he was appointed by Mr. Lincoln, and such is the fact. It is said that Mr. Lincoln's term is not yet expired. Such I believe to be the fact. But the language of the proviso is, that a Secretary shall hold not during the term of MAN by whom he is appointed, but during the TERM of the PRESIDENT by whom he may be appointed. Mr. Stanton was appointed by the President in 1862. The term of that President was limited by the Constitution. It expired on the 4th of March, 1865. That the same incumbent was re-elected for the next term is conceded, but I do not comprehend how that fact extended the former term.
Entertaining these views, and because the first Article of the Impeachment charges the order of removal as a violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act, I am constrained to hold the President not guilty upon that Article.
These declarations, coming from two gentlemen of distinction and influence in the party councils, both of whom had actively participated in framing the Tenure-of-Office Act, became at once the occasion of genuine and profound surprise, and it is unnecessary to say that they tended largely to strengthen the doubts entertained by others as to the sufficiency of all the other allegations of the indictment. They naturally and logically reasoned that the removal of Mr. Stanton, set out in the first Article, constituted, in effect, the essence of the indictment, and that all that followed, save the 10th Article was more in the nature of specifications, or a bill of particulars, than otherwise—that if no impeachable offense were set out in the first Article, then none was committed, as that Article constituted the substructure of all the rest—its essence and logic running through and permeating practically all—and that without that Article, there was no coherence or force in any of them, and consequently nothing charged against the President that was impeachable, as he had not violated the Tenure-of-Office law, and was not charged with the violation of any other law.
That conference developed, further, that a large majority of the Articles of Impeachment were objectionable to and would not be supported by a number of Republican Senators.
Mr. Edmunds would not support the 4th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Articles, being "wholly unsustained by proof," but would support the 11th, though apparently doubtful of its efficiency.
Mr. Ferry could not support the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, or 10th Articles.
Mr. Howard declared that he would not support the 9th Article.
Mr. Morrill of Vermont, would not support the 4th, 6th, 9th, or 10th Articles, as they were unproven.
Mr. Morrill, of Maine, Mr. Yates, Mr. Harlan, and Mr. Stewart, would vote to convict on the Articles relating to the removal of Mr. Stanton—uncommitted on all others.
Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Fowler, Mr. Grimes, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Trumbull, and Mr. Van Winkle, each declared, at that conference, their opposition to the entire list of the Articles of Impeachment.