The motion to lay on the table prevailed. On the following day, however, Bishop Simpson offered a new preamble and resolution, omitting any expression of opinion that Senators ought to vote for conviction, but reciting that "painful rumors are in circulation that, partly by unworthy jealousies and partly by corrupt influences, pecuniary and otherwise, most actively employed, efforts were being made to influence Senators improperly, and to prevent them from performing their high duty"; therefore, an hour should be set apart in the following day for prayer to beseech God "to save our Senators from error." This cunningly drawn resolution was adopted without opposition. It was supposed to have been aimed at Senator Willey, of West Virginia, rather than at the Throne of Grace.
Under the rules adopted for the trial each Senator was allowed to file a written opinion. That of Trumbull was the first one in the list. Among other things he said:
To do impartial justice in all things appertaining to the present trial, according to the Constitution and laws, is the duty imposed on each Senator by the position he holds and the oath he has taken, and he who falters in the discharge of that duty, either from personal or party considerations, is unworthy his position, and merits the scorn and contempt of all just men.
The question to be decided is not whether Andrew Johnson is a proper person to fill the presidential office, nor whether it is fit that he should remain in it, nor, indeed, whether he has violated the Constitution and laws in other respects than those alleged against him. As well might any other fifty-four persons take upon themselves by violence to rid the country of Andrew Johnson, because they believed him a bad man, as to call upon the fifty-four Senators, in violation of their sworn duty, to convict and depose him for any other causes than those alleged in the articles of impeachment. As well might any citizen take the law into his own hands and become its executioner as to ask the Senate to convict, outside of the case made. To sanction such a principle would be destructive of all law and all liberty worth the name, since liberty unregulated by law is but another name for anarchy.
He then took up the articles of impeachment seriatim and showed that they all hinged upon the removal of Stanton and the ad interim appointment of Thomas.
But even if a different construction could be put upon the law [he continued], I could never consent to convict the Chief Magistrate of a high misdemeanor and remove him from office for a misconstruction of what must be admitted to be a doubtful statute, and particularly when the misconstruction was the same put upon it by the authors of the law at the time of its passage.
As to the charge that he (Trumbull) had already voted that the President had no authority to remove Stanton, he said:
Importance is sought to be given to the passage by the Senate, before impeachment articles were found by the House of Representatives, of the following resolutions: "Resolved by the Senate of the United States, That under the Constitution and laws of the United States the President has no power to remove the Secretary of War and designate any other officer to perform the duties of that office ad interim" as if Senators, sitting as a court on the trial of the President for high crimes and misdemeanors, would feel bound or influenced in any degree by a resolution introduced and hastily passed before adjournment on the very day the orders to Stanton and Thomas were issued. Let him who would be governed by such considerations in passing on the guilt or innocence of the accused, and not by the law and the facts as they have been developed in the trial, shelter himself under such a resolution. I am sure no honest man could.
He concluded with these words: