Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, was the sixth Republican Senator to vote against the Impeachment. He had been many years in the Senate. In all ways a safe legislator and counsellor, he had attained a position of conspicuous usefulness. But he did not belong to the legislative autocracy which then assumed to rule the two Houses of Congress. To him the Impeachment was a question of proof of charges brought, and not of party politics or policies. He was one of the great lawyers of the body, and believed that law was the essence of justice and not an engine of wrong, or an instrumentality for the satisfaction of partisan vengeance. He had no especial friendship for Mr. Johnson, but to him the differences between the President and Congress did not comprise an impeachable offense. A profound lawyer and clear headed politician and statesman, his known opposition naturally tended to strengthen his colleagues in that behalf.
Mr. Van Winkle, of West Virginia, was the seventh and last Republican Senator to vote against the Impeachment. Methodical and deliberate, he was not hasty in reaching the conclusion he did, but after giving the subject and the testimony most careful and thorough investigation, he was forced to the conclusion that the accusation brought by the House of Representatives had not been sustained, and had the courage of an American Senator to vote according to his conclusions.
The responses were as follows:
Guilty—Anthony, Cameron, Cattell, Cole, Chandler, Conkling, Conness, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Edmunds, Ferry, Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Howard, Howe, Morgan, Morton, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy, Ramsay, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Tipton, Thayer, Wade, Williams, Wilson, Willey, Yates.
Not Guilty—Bayard, Buckalew, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Hendricks, Johnson, McCreery, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Saulsbury, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Vickers.
Not Guilty—19. Guilty—35—one vote less than a Constitutional majority.
CHAPTER XI. — THE IMPEACHERS IN A MAZE. A RECESS ORDERED.
THE FINAL VOTE TAKEN.
The defeat of the Eleventh Article was the second official set-back to the Impeachment movement—the first being the practical abandonment of the First Article by the change in the order of voting.