For its adoption—Messrs. Cameron, Cattell, Chandler, Conkling, Conness, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Howard, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Morton, Nye, Pomeroy, Ramsay, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Trumbull, Williams, Wilson—22—all Republicans.
Against its adoption—Messrs. Bayard, Buckalew, Cole, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Edmunds, Ferry, Fessenden, Fowler, Frelinghuysen, Henderson, Hendricks, Howe, Johnson, McCreery, Morrill of Vermont, Norton, Patterson of New Hampshire, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Sherman, Sprague, Van Winkle, Vickers, Willey—26—15 Republicans and 11 Democrats.
So the resolution was rejected—every aye vote a Republican, and all but one, Mr. Trumbull, afterwards voting to impeach the President at tHe close of the trial—eleven Democrats and fifteen Republicans voting nay.
Mr. Drake then offered the following:
It is the judgment of the Senate that under the Constitution the Chief Justice presiding over the Senate in the pending trial has no privilege of ruling questions of law arising thereon, but that all such questions shall be submitted to a decision by the Senate alone.
It would be difficult to formulate a proposition better calculated to taint the proceedings with a partisan bias than this one by Mr. Drake. The impeachment movement was in a very large sense, if not entirely, a partisan enterprise. It had its origin in partisan differences, and was based mainly on differences as to public policies at issue between the two great parties of the country—and while it was expected that every political friend of the President would vote against the impeachment, it was DEMANDED, and made a test of party fealty, that every Republican Senator should vote for his conviction. Therefore, and perhaps it was not illogical from these premises, party leaders of Mr. Drake's inclination should not relish the influence the legal, unbiased and non-partisan rulings of the Chief Justice might have upon his more conservatively inclined fellow partisans of the body.
Mr. Drake called for the yeas and nays, which were ordered, and the vote was yeas 20, nays 30. The personality of this vote was very much the same as on the previous proposition.
The rule proposed by Mr. Henderson was then adopted. The conference closed shortly after, and the session of the Senate was resumed.
The next day, April 1st, Mr. Sumner renewed in the Senate his proposition submitted at the Conference the day before but not acted upon, to change the rules of the Senate in the following form:
It appearing from the reading of the Journal yesterday that on a question where the Senate were equally divided, the Chief Justice, presiding on the trial of the President, gave a casting vote; it is hereby ordered that, in the judgment of the Senate, such vote was without authority under the Constitution of the United States.