History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, by the House of Representatives, and his trial by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors in office, 1868

by Edmund G. Ross

The occasion was sublimely and intensely dramatic. The President of the United States was on trial. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was presiding over the deliberations of the Senate sitting for the trial of the great cause. The board of management conducting the prosecution brought by the House of Representatives was a body of able and illustrious politicians and statesmen. The President's counsel, comprising jurists among the most eminent of the country, had summed up for the defense and were awaiting final judgment. The Senate, transformed for the occasion into an extraordinary judicial tribunal, the highest known to our laws, the Senators at once judges and jurors with power to enforce testimony and sworn to hear all the facts bearing upon the case, was about to pronounce that judgment.

The organization of the court had been severely Democratic. There were none of the usual accompaniments of royalty or exclusivism considered essential under aristocratic forms to impress the people with the dignity and gravity of a great occasion. None of these were necessary, for every spectator was an intensely interested witness to the proceeding, who must bear each for himself, the public consequences of the verdict, whatever they might be, equally with every member of the court.

The venerable Chief Justice, who had so ably and impartially presided through the many tedious weeks of the trial now about to close, was in his place and called the Senate to order.

The impressive dignity of the occasion was such that there was little need of the admonition of the Chief Justice to abstention from conversation on the part of the audience during the proceeding. No one there present, whether friend or opponent of the President, could have failed to be impressed with the tremendous consequences of the possible result of the prosecution about to be reached. The balances were apparently at a poise. It was plain that a single vote would be sufficient to turn the scales either way—to evict the President from his great office to go the balance of his life's journey with the brand of infamy upon his brow, or be relieved at once from the obloquy the inquisitors had sought to put upon him—and more than all else, to keep the honorable roll of American Presidents unsmirched before the world, despite the action of the House.

The first vote was on the Eleventh and last Article of the Impeachment. Senators voted in alphabetical order, and each arose and stood at his desk as his name was called by the Chief Clerk. To each the Chief Justice propounded the solemn interrogatory—"Mr. Senator—, how say you—is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged in this Article?"

Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, was the first of Republican Senators to vote "Not Guilty." He had long been a safe and trusted leader in the Senate, and had the unquestioning confidence of his partisan colleagues, while his long experience in public life, and his great ability as a legislator, and more especially his exalted personal character, had won for him the admiration of all his associates regardless of political affiliations. Being the first of the dissenting Republicans to vote, the influence of his action was feared by the impeachers, and most strenuous efforts had been made to induce him to retract the position he had taken to vote against conviction. But being moved on this occasion, as he had always been on others, to act upon his own judgment and conviction, though foreseeing that this vote would probably end a long career of conspicuous public usefulness, there was no sign of hesitancy or weakness as he pronounced his verdict.

Mr. Fowler, of Tennessee, was the next Republican to vote "Not Guilty." He had entered the Senate but two years before, and was therefore one of the youngest Senators, with the promise of a life of political usefulness before him. Though from the same State as the President, they were at political variance, and there was but little in common between them in other respects. A radical partisan in all measures where radical action seemed to be called for, he was for the time being sitting in a judicial capacity and under an oath to do justice to the accused according to the law and the evidence. As in his judgment the evidence did not sustain the charge against the President such was his verdict.

Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, was the third anti-impeaching Republican to vote. He had for many years been a conspicuous and deservedly influential member of the Senate. For some days prior to the taking of the vote he had been stricken with what afterwards proved a fatal illness. The scene presented as he rose to his feet supported on the arms of his colleagues, was grandly heroic, and one never before witnessed in a legislative chamber. Though realizing the danger he thus incurred, and conscious of the political doom that would follow his vote, and having little sympathy with the policies pursued by the President, he had permitted himself to be borne to the Senate chamber that he might contribute to save his country from what he deemed the stain of a partisan and unsustained impeachment of its Chief Magistrate. Men often perform, in the excitement and glamour of battle, great deeds of valor and self sacrifice that live after them and link their names with the honorable history of great events, but to deliberately face at once inevitable political as well as physical death in the council hall, and in the absence of charging squadrons; and shot and shell, and of the glamor of military heroism, is to illustrate the grandest phase of human courage and devotion to convictions. That was the part performed by Mr. Grimes on that occasion. His vote of "Not Guilty" was the last, the bravest, the grandest, and the most patriotic public act of his life.

Mr. Henderson of Missouri, was the fourth Republican Senator to vote against the impeachment. A gentleman of rare industry and ability, and a careful, conscientious legislator, he had been identified with the legislation of the time and had reached a position of deserved prominence and influence. But he was learned in the law, and regardful of his position as a just and discriminating judge. Though then a young man with a brilliant future before him, he had sworn to do justice to Andrew Johnson "according to the Constitution and law," and his verdict of "Not Guilty" was given with the same deliberate emphasis that characterized all his utterances on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. Ross, of Kansas, was the fifth Republican Senator to vote "Not Guilty." Representing an intensely Radical constituency—entering the Senate but a few months after the close of a three years enlistment in the Union Army and not unnaturally imbued with the extreme partisan views and prejudices against Mr. Johnson then prevailing—his predilections were sharply against the President, and his vote was counted upon accordingly. But he had sworn to judge the defendant not by his political or personal prejudices, but by the facts elicited in the investigation. In his judgment those facts did not sustain the charge.